Last week Facebook announced that they have done away with their 5* rating system on Business Pages, and replaced it with a simple yes/no recommendation. Your existing reviews have been updated to recommendations, so any existing reviews you’ve earned will still appear on your Page as recommendations.
This update has both positive and negative repercussions for most business’.PROS:
- Now when people want to write a review, they can simply choose to recommend or not recommend your business. This means less effort on their part and so you will likely see an increase in the number of people recommend your business.
- People who tag your business in a photo or post will be asked if they want to publicly recommend your business, making it easier to get recommendations.
- If you had less than a 5* rating, this is good news for you! Even a couple of less than perfect reviews has the potential to dissuade new customers.
CONS:
- If you have been diligently collecting 5* reviews and had a perfect 5* rating, all of the excellence has been somewhat downgraded to a mere number of people who would recommend you.
- As they are easier and the result is less detailed, Recommendations might be deemed less valuable by potential customers. Time will tell.
- You’ll still get an overall score of the people who offered their opinion this many recommend your business. So if of the 54 people who have reviewed your business only 40 gave you a 3*, 4* or 5*, your previous 4* rating might now look like: 40 out of 54 people recommend your business. Not quite as attractive as 4*!
How to work the (new) system:
Reviews, Recommendations and Testimonies are are incredibly important part of your marketing and play an important role in new business development.Customer testimonials have the highest effectiveness rating for content marketing at 89%. (Social Fresh)”88% of people trust online video reviews by other consumers as much as they trust recommendations from personal contacts”(BrightLocal)Nothing is as persuasive as an unbiased customer speaking about their positive experience with your brand or product. In fact, 90% of respondents who recalled reading online reviews claimed that positive online reviews influenced buying decisions (Dimensional Research). Case Study Videos (or Video Testimonials) are fast replacing written reviews as they are interpreted as more trustworthy, seeing a hearing a real human being (ideally of a similar demographic) is much more convincing. Written reviews are great, client photos are better, but video is the ultimate influencer.Written reviews are great, client photos are better, but video is the ultimate influencer.
By all means go after Facebook Recommendations, and encourage your past clients and customers to elaborate beyond the default Yes/No, but for the love of all things marketing don’t stop there! Creating videos of even a small selection of happy clients (and then getting even more bang for your buck by editing a best of compilation!) and you will make the most of this incredibly powerful opportunity. Do it before your competitors do!
At Front Runner Films we understand the importance of credible, organic and believable Case Study Videos and we have a proven track record of creating videos that convert. If you would like to utilize our experience and increase your conversion rates, send us an email or visit our website for more about us.info@frontrunnerfilmsll.com // frontrunnerfilmsllc.com
