Taking the time to know how to remove reviews from Facebook can be a vital practice for any brand. Opening your Facebook business Page (via your personal account or through Facebook Business Manager) to enable interactions with customers on Facebook can bring about negative reviews or even unfairly hurtful comments.
In the former case, you will need to address the feedback head-on and learn how to respond to negative reviews on Facebook. But when diplomacy fails you’ll find yourself asking this question: “How do I delete Facebook reviews?”
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Can You Delete Facebook Reviews?
Here’s the thing: you can’t delete a review on Facebook. You can’t simply delete Facebook reviews – a.k.a. Recommendations – on an individual level in the same way you can hide or delete unwanted comments on your Page or an unflattering selfie you accidentally uploaded.
However, what you can do to remove Facebook reviews is to disable Recommendations for your Page. To do so:
- Click on the “Pages” tab on the left menu on your Facebook news feed.
- On your Page, click on “Page Settings,” which is located on the left-hand menu.
- Click on the “Templates and Tabs” on the left menu.
- Find the “Reviews” option and turn the tab off.
Before turning the feature, please keep in mind deactivating Recommendations will remove current ratings and Recommendations from your Page. While this might help delete bad reviews, it might actually do more harm than good, especially when consumers are looking for social proof to make an informed purchase decision.
If you don’t want to disable reviews completely, but still want to remove a review, your best option is to report it. Specifically, you can report reviews that do not follow Facebook’s Community Standards or don’t focus on the products and services offered by your business. After you submit a report, Facebook will review it and may remove Facebook reviews and Recommendations that don’t follow the site’s standards.
To make a report to Facebook:
- Click on the “Pages” tab on the left menu on your Facebook news feed.
- On your page, click on the “Reviews” tab underneath your Page name.
- Click on the three-dotted button on the top right of any review that you want to report.
- Click on “Find support or report Recommendation.”
- Follow the on-screen instructions.
Why Facebook Reviews are Important to Reputation Management
The concept of how to remove reviews from Facebook might not be as simple as it sounds, but it is important to be aware of it due to the popularity of the platform not just as a social media website; but as a place for consumers to research their next purchase. Customer review data shows that Facebook holds 19% of all reviews. In other words, having Facebook reviews on your Page can impact a consumers’ purchase behavior.
If reporting or removing a review from Facebook is not an option for you, remember that you can apply review best practices, especially when it comes knowing how to respond to negative reviews:
- Apologize and take ownership. An apology is often the best way to start when responding to a negative review because it defuses the situation. If your company makes a mistake, immediately own up to it in the response, but avoid apologizing multiple times.
- Take serious issues offline. If there are serious issues, take the conversation offline to avoid discussing difficult topics publicly.
- Follow company and brand guidelines. Be sure you know your company’s social media and brand guidelines so that you use the right terminology in your response. This helps establish a professional tone.
- Resolve specific issues. Address any specific issues raised in the review. Sometimes positive comments and five-star ratings also include points of concern. Find out about the customer’s experience and communicate any changes or improvements made as a result of their unsolicited feedback.
- Be prompt. Avoid delays in responding. The sooner you can get back to your customer, the greater your chances of improving the situation.
- Show appreciation. Regardless of the rating the customer gave, say “thank you.” Showing your appreciation of customer feedback minimizes the impact of negative comments and reinforces positive sentiment in your good reviews.
We understand how stressful and difficult it is to deal with negative reviews, and that is why we are here to help your business leverage feedback and reviews to improve your brand reputation. Get your free reputation scorecard today and let us help you take the guesswork out of your strategy. To learn how to handle your business’s presence on Facebook, visit our Facebook Reputation Management: Best Practices Guide for Brands.
