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Facebook reviews

A Recommendation is a post, and your reply is a comment

Facebook stopped being a star rating system and became a feed. Recommendations are written posts on your Page carrying a plain yes or no, and everything about answering one follows from sitting in a comment thread rather than in a review box.

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How Recommendations actually behave

Five facts from Facebook's own help centre. The second is the one that catches an owner having a bad month.

  • Recommendations have to be switched on in the Page settings before anybody can leave one.

    The control is under Page and tagging. A silent Page is sometimes a Page with this turned off rather than a Page nobody visits.

  • Turning Recommendations off removes the rating and the reviews from the Page.

    It is not a pause. Everything you have already earned goes with it, which makes it a very expensive way to hide one bad week.

  • A Recommendation is a written post with a yes or no answer rather than a star rating.

    There is nothing to average and nothing to nudge upward. What a reader sees is the most recent few posts and how you answered them.

  • You reply the way a Page replies to any comment on its posts.

    So the reply carries your Page name, it threads, and the reviewer can answer you back in public. Nothing else in this section behaves like that.

  • Facebook says you should not leave a recommendation for a business whose Page you help manage.

    That covers you, your staff and anybody with Page access, and it is the rule most often broken by accident on the day a Page launches.

Answering a Recommendation on your Page

The third step is the one that produces the screenshots other people share.

  1. Check the setting first

    If Recommendations are switched off, none of the rest applies and your Page is showing a visitor nothing at all.

  2. Open the Reviews tab

    Reviews sits under Details below the Page cover photo, and See all next to Recent reviews opens the full list.

  3. Reply as the Page, not as yourself

    Check which identity you are commenting with before you type. A personal profile arguing about a business is a different and much worse post.

  4. Answer once in public, take the rest to a message

    It threads. A public back and forth is readable by everybody and it almost never ends where you hoped it would.

  5. Leave the recommendation itself alone

    You cannot delete somebody's recommendation, and reporting is only for content that breaks the Community Standards.

A no recommendation about a member of staff

A dance studio. The post is short, public and about a person, which is the version most often answered badly.

The review

Tasha M.

Does not recommend. posted on Saturday.

Took my daughter to the eleven o'clock beginners class and the woman on the desk was so sharp about us being five minutes late that my daughter cried and would not go in. Whatever your policy is, she is seven.
The drafted reply
Tasha, I am sorry. Five minutes late to a beginners class is nothing and it should have been waved through with a smile, and a seven year old should never be the one absorbing a door policy. I have talked to the team about it today, and the late arrival rule for the children's classes is gone rather than softened. I would like to get your daughter into a class without that being her memory of the place, so I have sent you a message. You do not have to answer it, and the offer stands either way.

The sentence doing the work

a seven year old should never be the one absorbing a door policy

The complaint is really about who took the consequence, and Tasha says so in her last four words. Answering the lateness rule alone would have missed it entirely. The reply also does the thing a comment thread demands and a review box does not: it closes the public exchange courteously and moves the rest to a message, so the next reader finds a settled thread rather than an argument still running.

What GetSetReply does with Facebook Recommendations

GetSetReply reads the Recommendations on your Page and drafts the reply. Posting the comment is yours, as the Page, on the Page.

  • The draft is written as a Page comment, which is shorter and plainer than a review reply, because that is what the format rewards.
  • You post it from your Page, which is also where you can check which identity you are commenting as.
  • Nothing is published on your behalf.

One covers the Facebook connection. The other is wording for the complaint that arrives here most often, which is about a person rather than a product.

Facebook is one of the places we watch

Every platform below lands in the same queue, so a Facebook review and a review from anywhere else are read, drafted and answered in one place.

  • Google
  • Yelp
  • TripAdvisor
  • DoorDash
  • Trustpilot
  • Etsy
  • Facebook
  • Square

Facebook Recommendation questions

Answered from Facebook's help centre, cited with dates at the foot of the page.

Why can nobody leave a review on my Facebook Page?

Recommendations are probably switched off. The setting sits under Page and tagging and controls whether others can view and leave reviews on your Page.

What happens if I turn Recommendations off?

Facebook removes the rating and the reviews from your Page. It is not a pause, and the recommendations you already have go with it.

Can I delete a bad recommendation?

No. You can report one that breaks the Community Standards, and Facebook notes that a recommendation containing only a star rating cannot be reported at all.

Can my staff leave a recommendation for the business?

Facebook says you should not leave a recommendation for a business if you help manage its Page, which covers anybody with Page access.

Does GetSetReply comment on Facebook for me?

No. It drafts the comment and you post it as the Page.

Facebook Recommendations

Answer the thread, not the algorithm

Connect the Page and each new Recommendation arrives with a comment already drafted in your voice.