Two Thumbs up for Facebook's New Recommendations

We're very excited to announce that today Facebook released a major update replacing ratings and reviews with the introduction of Facebook Recommendations.

The new Facebook Recommendations product makes feedback from your community even more helpful, encouraging users to provide authentic reviews, rich endorsements and suggestions, a change we give two thumbs up.

Introducing Recommendations

Facebook has remodeled their ratings and reviews product. Now, instead of a 5-star scale, your page visitors will be asked if they recommend the location, a simple yes or no. Don't worry — there is still a place to rant, rave, wax eloquent and post a selfie. Your customers can explain why they said yes or no using tags, text and photos.

Here are the key changes, according to Facebook:

• Rich endorsements: Customers can easily indicate if they recommend a Page by simply answering "Yes" or "No" (replacing the previous 5-star rating that accompanied Reviews on Pages), and can explain why with tags, text and photos. By selecting a tag, they can help themes emerge in the feedback from Recommendations, making it easier for potential customers to see what a business is known for.
• Authentic Recommendations: We all understand that authentic feedback is important to attract and retain customers, that's why Facebook has made it even easier for Page admins to report content in Recommendations that is fraudulent, spam or paid-for with an easier reporting flow.
• Reach people as they're making decisions: Recommendations appear on a Page and are discoverable across Facebook when people are searching for, or talking about a business. Because we know that people trust the opinions of those they are closest to, these Recommendations will be surfaced most prominently.

What This Means for Multi-Location Businesses

As a Facebook Marketing Partner, we've been privy to advance notice on this change and are excited about the impact it will have for your individual locations and brand. Facebook found that people already asked their communities for recommendations about where to go, where to eat, or where to shop, so they decided to make Recommendations more prominent on business pages. Facebook's goal in this update is to provide businesses with the best tools and user interface to drive discovery, consideration and engagement with potential customers.

We think Recommendations will do just that.

To give you an idea of the results you could see, Facebook's initial testing has shown that the introduction of these new recommendations is resulting in significantly higher page engagement. This means more reviews, more data, more contact points for page visitors, and more opportunities for you to understand how your customers feel about their experiences at your locations.

Here are some implications we foresee benefiting you and your business:

• Better insight into common themes across your locations' pages
• Incredibly rich reporting
• Specific search criteria to find your business
• Highlighted areas for improvement and goal setting as a brand
• Potential improved SEO ranking for non-Facebook local landing pages

We're excited to unlock the full potential of these changes, help our clients interact with more consumers, gain new insights and ultimately drive more business.