How to ask for a review on Facebook

Facebook Page reviews now work as Recommendations: a customer goes to your Page, clicks Reviews, picks Yes or No, and writes a few words about why. To get more of them, check Recommendations are switched on for your Page, tell every customer exactly where to click, and keep to Meta’s rules while you do it.

How Facebook reviews work now

The first thing to get your head around is the name. On a business Page, a customer doesn’t pick a score out of five any more. They say Yes, they recommend you, or No, they don’t, and then they write a recommendation. That’s it.

You’ll still see the word “reviews” all over the place. The tab on your Page is called Reviews, and the setting that switches the feature on asks whether to allow others to leave reviews. So don’t worry if the two words get mixed up. They mean the same thing here.

When Recommendations are switched on, anyone logged in to Facebook can publish one on your Page. They can also see the Page’s rating, plus any Recommendations and reviews that have been shared with Public. Meta says Recommendations help customers learn more about your business and may make your Page easier to find in Facebook search. May. Don’t bank on it, but it’s a nice extra.

One more thing about the rating, because it confuses people. It’s based on the reviews and recommendations people share, but only ones shared publicly count towards it. A Page may not have a rating at all if it hasn’t had at least five reviews, so a bare-looking Page just needs a few more. Public ones carry a little globe icon next to the date, which is how you spot them.

Turn on recommendations for your Page

If your Page previously had reviews, Recommendations were turned on automatically. Worth checking anyway, just to be sure. And be careful here: turning Recommendations off disables them and removes the rating and reviews from the Page. Absolutely not something you want to do by accident.

Here’s how to check, or switch them on, on a computer:

1. Log in to Facebook and click your profile photo, top right.
2. Click See all profiles, then select the Page you want to switch into.
3. Click the Page’s profile photo, top right.
4. Click Settings and privacy, then Settings.
5. Click Page and tagging.
6. Toggle Allow others to view and leave reviews on your Page? on.

Once it’s on, Recommendations show in the Page’s Reviews tab, below the cover photo. You may need to select More first to find it. Have a look and make sure you can see it, because that’s where you’ll be sending people.

How a customer recommends your business

You can’t ask someone to do something if you don’t know what it involves. So here’s what your customer actually does:

1. Go to your Page (by clicking its name in their Feed, or searching for it).
2. Click Reviews.
3. Click Yes to recommend or No to not recommend.
4. Write a recommendation, and optionally pick tags (for example friendly staff or slow service).
5. Choose the audience next to Sharing to.
6. Click Post.

Six steps, and each one is a chance for someone to wander off, so the clearer you are about it the better. The audience bit matters more than people think: only recommendations shared publicly count towards your overall rating.

People can also recommend a business by commenting on a friend’s post asking for recommendations, or by sharing a Page with friends. You don’t control any of that, but it’s good to know it happens.

How to ask for a recommendation

This is the bit most people overthink. It’s simple: ask every customer, the same way, every time.

Ask after the job or visit, when it’s fresh. In person works well, and so does a message or email afterwards. You can share your Page with them directly, which saves them hunting for it. Then say what to click: Reviews, then Yes or No. Spelling that out sounds almost too basic, but it’s the difference between someone doing it and someone meaning to.

And ask for their honest view. Whatever they thought, good or bad, that’s what you’re asking for, and it keeps you on the right side of everything in the next two sections. If you want help with the wording, the review request builder can get you started, and there’s more on the thinking behind this in the guide to asking for an honest review.

Fictional example:

Hi Sam, thanks for coming in to Maple Lane Bakery today. If you’ve got a minute, we’d love your honest view. Go to our Facebook Page, click Reviews, then Yes or No, and tell us how it went. Thanks either way.

One gentle reminder at most. If they haven’t done it after that, leave it. Nobody enjoys being chased, and a recommendation written under pressure doesn’t help you or the next customer reading it.

Once they start coming in, you can see how many times people have recommended the Page over time. Switch into the Page, go to the Page, then click Reviews at the top. It’s a handy way to see whether your asking is actually working.

Meta’s rules for recommendations

Meta has a few expectations of the people writing them. When recommending a business, people should focus on the product or service, should base it on personal experience, and shouldn’t manage the Page for that business. Recommendations that don’t follow the Community Standards may be removed.

Something that surprises people: Meta does not verify that users bought the product or used the service they’re recommending. Anyone logged in can leave one, which is exactly why honesty on your side matters so much.

Reviews that break Meta’s spam policies are removed, so a Page’s rating can change without you doing anything. Review counts can also vary depending on who’s looking, because some reviewers share with a limited audience, such as their friends. When you’re switched into the Page, the count you see is the number of public reviews.

You can report recommendations that don’t follow the Community Standards. Under Details below the cover photo, click Reviews, then See all next to Recent reviews. Click Options, top right of the post, then Report post, and follow the instructions. One catch: recommendations that only include a star rating can’t be reported. And if a recommendation has vanished, it may have been removed, or the person may have changed its audience.

What not to do

Don’t offer anything for a recommendation. Meta’s spam policy bans selling, buying or exchanging for engagement such as likes, shares, views, follows and clicks, and that includes offering anything of monetary value in exchange for engagement. So no discounts, no swaps, no “do this and get that”.

UK law covers this too: concealed incentivised reviews, meaning reviews that hide that they were written in exchange for money or other benefits like a freebie, are banned. There’s a fuller breakdown in the guide to fake reviews and UK law, and it’s worth a read before you try anything clever.

Don’t ask the people who run your Page to recommend you either. Meta says recommenders shouldn’t manage the Page for that business. And don’t only ask the customers you think were happy. Ask everyone, the same way, and let the Recommendations land where they land.

If a customer would rather say something you can put on your own website, that’s a testimonial, and how to ask for a testimonial covers it. For Google, start with finding your Google review link.

Questions people ask

Does my Facebook Page still have a star rating?

It can. Meta says a Page's rating is based on the reviews and recommendations people share about it, and only Pages with recommendations turned on may show one. A Page may not have a rating until it has at least five reviews, and only recommendations shared publicly count towards the overall rating.

Why has a recommendation disappeared from my Page?

Meta gives two reasons. It may have been removed for not following the Community Standards, including Meta's spam policies, which can also change your Page's rating. Or the person who posted it may have changed its audience, so it no longer shows to everyone. Either way, the recommendation is gone from public view.

Can my staff recommend my business on Facebook?

Not if they manage your Page. Meta says people recommending a business shouldn't manage the Page for that business, and that a recommendation should be based on personal experience of the product or service. Recommendations that don't follow the Community Standards may be removed, so keep the asking to real customers.

Can I offer a discount for a Facebook recommendation?

No. Meta's spam policy bans offering anything of monetary value in exchange for engagement, and UK law bans reviews that hide that they were incentivised, such as one written in exchange for a freebie. Ask every customer for their honest view instead, with nothing attached.