Facebook recommendations, which are not star ratings
Facebook stopped asking for stars years ago. A recommendation is a yes or a no with a paragraph attached, and treating it like a five point scale is how a Facebook number ends up disagreeing with everything beside it.
No credit card required. 30-day free trial.
What happens to a Facebook recommendation here
Five steps, and the second one exists because a yes or a no has to become something a single queue can sort.
- The recommendation reaches your inboxThe verdict, and the paragraph underneath it. The verdict is a single word, and the paragraph is the whole of what a reply has to work with, which is why everything that follows here works off the words rather than off the yes or the no.
- We translate it into something sortableA negative recommendation is treated as one star and a positive one as five so a single queue can sort by severity, and one that arrives with neither sits in the middle at three. That is our mapping and not Facebook's, which is exactly why a Facebook average is not directly comparable with a Google one.
- We analyze the paragraph, because the verdict says littleSentiment by topic, whether an apology is owed, the details worth naming back, and a flag where the text threatens legal action, describes a hazard or turns abusive. The yes or the no tells you almost nothing; everything a reply can use is in the words underneath.
- We draft the reply in your voiceAnswering what they wrote rather than the verdict they clicked. A recommendation with no reasons in it and one that names a person and a Tuesday need different answers, and a generic thank you under the second is worse than silence.
- You post it on your Facebook PageThe draft waits in your GetSetReply inbox and the Page is where you post it. Nothing is published on your behalf anywhere.
Recommendations, and the setting that governs them
Recommendations are a Page setting, and it is worth checking before you go looking for missing reviews. Facebook says turning them off disables recommendations and removes the rating and reviews from the Page; the control sits under Settings and privacy, then Settings, then Page and tagging.
With the setting on, anybody signed in to Facebook can publish a recommendation on the Page and see the Page's rating and the recommendations shared publicly.
GetSetReply drafts your answer and leaves it in your GetSetReply inbox to post from the Page yourself. We do not claim a reply route we could not source from Facebook's own documentation, and we publish nothing on your behalf.
Facebook with the platforms that use stars
One queue holds both kinds of feedback, which is the point of putting them in one place.
- Yelp
- TripAdvisor
- DoorDash
- Trustpilot
- Etsy
- Square
Facebook recommendation questions
Nearly all of them come from the gap between recommendations and star ratings.
Why does my Facebook rating not match my Google one?
Because Facebook does not use stars. A recommendation is a yes or a no, and any number built from it is a translation. We treat a negative as one and a positive as five so one queue can sort sensibly, and we say so rather than presenting it as Facebook's own figure.
My Page shows no reviews at all. Why?
Check the Page setting first. Facebook says turning recommendations off removes the rating and reviews from the Page, and the control sits under Settings and privacy, then Settings, then Page and tagging.
Who can leave a recommendation?
With the setting turned on, anybody signed in to Facebook can publish one on your Page and see the recommendations shared publicly.
Does GetSetReply post my Facebook reply?
No. The draft waits in your GetSetReply inbox and you post it from your Facebook Page. Nothing is published on your behalf anywhere.
The star rated platforms beside Facebook
Treat a recommendation like the review it is
A yes or a no with a paragraph attached still needs an answer, and it still deserves a good one.