Blog

Making Facebook 'Recommendations' work for your QSR

When Facebook "put the stars out" of its reviews there was a lot of balking from brands who feared the consequences of losing the well-established former rating system. But the good news is the new system may be a real win for brands for both overall customer insights and valuable social media marketing efforts.

October 29, 2018 by Taylor Kamnetz — content marketing manager, ReviewPush

Late this summer, Facebook officially rolled out its so-called "recommendations" which the social media platform had previously announced it was testing to replace its former star ratings. So, despite most of the known online review world remaining with that one-to-five star system for restaurant reviews, Facebook stuck by the social media site leaders' initial decision to change how consumers reviewed brands and also the way that feedback is rated. 

Regardless of the intent behind the change, many restaurateurs are finding the transition to this new system to be nothing short of a struggle. After all, star ratings have been everything to businesses and consumers for as long as most can remember. 

Still, about a month later these "recommendations" do not appear to be going anywhere very soon, even though the world's consumers, business owners and social media managers are regularly asking questions about the new system.

Adaptation is a tricky thing 

Often, when faced with the choice of either adapting or continuing to cling to what they know, many people and businesses will dismiss adaptation out of the gate for fear the change won't be worth it. Nonetheless, removing customers' ability to rate businesses on a five-star scale and replace it with a simple 'yes' or 'no' question is quite a leap.

For one thing, we all know that the internet is awash in content these days. In that environment, star ratings simplify things since they differentiate brands from competitors without forcing consumers to read yet another body of content about why a reviewer thought a new restaurant deserved five stars instead of four. 

Yet, having a five-star rating over a competitor's four-star average was something from which restaurant brands could profit. So the question is how will consumers on Facebook now know which company is more reliable without those "guiding" stars?

"Facebook's move from simple star ratings to a more developed and transparent system gives brands unparalleled insight into the 'what' and 'why' behind both the satisfied and unsatisfied customer.  And since Facebook stipulates a minimum character requirement in those responses, the feedback you get is qualified in invaluable ways for restaurant leaders."

Do numbers = stars?

Although star-ratings are gone, Facebook is providing a numerical rating for businesses based on previous reviews and current recommendations. You may be wondering then how Facebook rates simple "yes" and "no" responses. Well, here's some light on that subject:

Although every factor that goes into the one-to-five ratings on a brand's Facebook page isn't known, restaurateurs should still know that for a consumer to leave any kind of, they must provide at least 25 characters of content along with that, "yes" or "no" answer. (By the way, that underlined portion was 27 characters, to give you an idea ).

Somehow Facebook employees or the channel's "recommendations" algorithm is ranked and averaged in some way with reviews left before the ratings change, equating in value from one to five with five as the highest. 

Here's where brands can benefit

To keep your brand's rating on the upper end of that scale, the "recommendations" system offers some key advantages that can both propel your business forward and provide direct insight into how your brand is experienced by those in your target market. 

Facebook's move from simple star ratings to a more developed and transparent system gives brands unparalleled insight into the "what" and "why" behind both the satisfied and unsatisfied customer. And since Facebook stipulates a minimum character requirement in those responses, the feedback you get is qualified in invaluable ways for restaurant leaders. 

This feature allows brand to evaluate why customers might not recommend the brand, along with ideas about how to improve the restaurant in question. It's the kind of insight that gives restaurateurs an exact idea of where to start.

Similarly, if one of your employees provided a memorable customer experience that is noted in Facebook's "recommendations," then management can reward that employee, which not only empowers that worker, but motivates other team members. If employees notice hard work does get recognized, the favorable effects could multiply to help create a dedicated and goal-oriented team.

"By giving consumers a platform like this new one on Facebook with the accompanying character requirement, consumers can be more transparent with the brands they felt strongly enough about in the first place to offer their feedback. "

Yeah, but what about ne'er-do-well reviews?

Since Facebook now makes it relatively impossible to leave a woeful single-star review without some context from the person behind the "post," it may appear the social media site has made it more difficult for spammers or fake reviewers to cause problems on your Facebook page. Previously, some restaurant competitors were known to leave such single-star reviews, but without any context, there was little ground to get the rating removed. 

Removing the ability to leave a review without any context is already a positive. By adding a minimum character requirement for Facebook's recommendations, the channel has effectively narrowed the gap that bots or competitors have to spam your reviews feed on your Facebook page. In fact, that's something the social media platform put in place specifically to reduce the number of fake reviews.

And finally, by giving consumers a platform like this new one on Facebook with the accompanying character requirement, consumers can be more transparent with the brands they felt strongly enough about in the first place to offer their feedback. And again, restaurant brands also benefit from that transparency through the immediate availability of honest, point-bank feedback at no cost. All the posts won't be that valuable, but some will.  

After all, the notion that nothing sells a brand like a satisfied customer really applies with Facebook's recommendations. With publicly shared feedback in positive recommendations, restaurant brands are free to use that as a form of marketing to send out via Instagram or share on brand websites. 

Then, when you consider that Instagram has roughly 700 million monthly users, 80 percent of whom follow at least one business there, according to Sprout Social, you get an idea of the ripple effects. In fact, brands can even use those positive Facebook recommendations to create graphics for their own Instagram feed.  The overall result? With little effort and no cost, the brand has built a big wave out of a customer's positive word-of-mouth. 
 

About Taylor Kamnetz

---

Taylor Kamnetz is a content strategist born and raised in Austin, Texas. Through the power and beauty of words, she can create and tell gripping stories in relatable ways to those closest to the subject matter and those left on the outside. Her overall goal is to communicate what matters most to the audiences she's writing for in an actionable way. Empowerment through storytelling is her M.O.

Connect with Taylor: