BIG NEWS FOR ONLINE REPUTATION MANAGERS:

Facebook knows the importance of your online reputation and the role reviews play in growing your business. Facebook’s latest updates to Pages (the business equivalent to your personal Facebook account) has a distinct focus on “helping people connect with local businesses.”

It is now easier for people to recommend your business and leave reviews because Facebook has added “Recommendations” to your Page.

Customers can post Facebook recommendations (aka Facebook customer reviews) directly on your Page with options to add text, photos, and tags. The information customers put in Recommendations help your page reach other people while they’re searching for or talking about your business on Facebook.

Recommending a business on Facebook is a different process than the previous “Write a Review” option where you left a review score from 1 to 5. Now, with Facebook recommendations you don’t “review” a business, you “recommend” a business right on the businesses Page or when a “friend” asks for a recommendation, and you tag a business.

In the new Recommendation process you only have two options: Yes or No. If you select Yes, you can choose to write a recommendation, add a photo, and select tags then post the recommendation.

The jury is out as to what Facebook may do with all old business reviews with the 1-5 star rating application. For now, it seems clear that they are keeping these intact and it would appear that these are still the reviews that factor into the overall star rating for the business.

What will be interesting to see, is how the new “recommendation” feature may impact overall ratings for a business over time?

I suppose they may apply a 1-5 star rating scale based upon a ratio of yes/no recommendations?

Time will tell.