How To Manage Your Reputation On Facebook

How to Manage Your Reputation on Facebook

For many social media users, Facebook isn’t just a place to chat with friends and family. It’s a source of news, entertainment, and even product and service information. Users can “look for recommendations” and receive suggestions from friends or fellow group members, then check out the profiles and reviews of those businesses.

Careful reputation management is essential for any contractor that wishes to maintain a presence on Facebook. How you spread the word about your page and how you respond to reviews, good and bad, makes a huge difference to how your business is perceived.

Facebook reviews are a key way homeowners learn more about your business. Take control with CraftJack’s Reputation Manager.

Facebook Reviews and Reputation Mgmt

Facebook Reviews And Reputation Management

The idea of reputation management is something all contractors should pay attention to. Consumers have unprecedented access to information about businesses in their area. Rather than relying on word of mouth from close friends and family, Facebook users have access to the collective wisdom and viewpoints of everyone who’s ever used a contractor and felt compelled to leave a star rating.

The reputation of a contractor can live or die depending on the number of reviews they have and the sentiment of those reviews, as well as the way they conduct themselves when answering messages.

How To Leave A Review On Facebook

The social media platform has done away with Reviews on the kind of local business pages most contractors have and now uses Recommendations instead. Any Reviews an existing business already has will remain in place. It’s incredibly easy for a consumer to leave a recommendation. All you need to do is visit the business’s page, click on the Reviews tab, then click either “Yes” or “No” to the question “Do you recommend this company?”

After doing this, you’ll be invited to leave a comment about the company. This gives you a chance to talk about what was good or bad about the service.

Because this is so easy to do, users are more likely to leave a review on Facebook than they are to leave a review on a dedicated site such as Trustpilot, where they’d have to make more of an effort to visit a site they’re less familiar with.

Can You Delete Reviews On Facebook?

One common misconception about reputation management is that if you get a bad review, you can just delete it. That’s not really how reputation management works. It’s not possible to remove a review from Facebook just because it’s negative.

It’s possible to remove offensive content, but for other issues, you’ll need to respond thoughtfully to mitigate any potential damage to your reputation.

How To Remove Reviews From Facebook

You can delete individual comments on posts you’ve made on a page you control or within a Facebook group. Reviews and Recommendations are not under the control of a page owner, however.

If someone posts something that’s vulgar, offensive, illegal in some way, or clearly spam, you can report the offending Review or Recommendation and have it manually reviewed by Facebook. If Facebook agrees that the comment goes against the site’s Community Standards, then it will be removed.

How To Respond To Reviews On Facebook

Responding to reviews is one of the most important parts of reputation management for contractors. It’s a good idea to respond to every review that’s left for your business, whether it’s positive or negative.

Take a moment to say “Thank you for leaving a review/recommendation” to any positive comments you get. If the user leaves a specific message describing the job you did, then your response can elaborate, saying “I’m glad you’re happy with your new shower” or “I’m pleased to hear you liked the cabinets,” for example.

If the user mentions something they weren’t happy with, offer to get in touch with them to resolve that issue. Make sure you really do follow up with them after saying you’d like to make things right.

Posts that are entirely negative are harder to deal with. If you take pride in the work you do, hearing someone being incredibly critical of it can be hurtful. That’s why it’s a good idea to step away from the keyboard for a few minutes to calm down. Once your initial instinct to defend yourself has subsided, you can start writing a constructive reply.

A good approach is to:

  • Thank the user for their feedback
  • Say you’re sorry to hear they had a bad experience
  • Take responsibility for the issue
  • State that you take pride in offering good service
  • Offer to make things right

Avoid getting drawn into arguments about whether things did or did not happen. Keep your reply short, simple, and factual. Remain calm and polite, even if the comments are abusive.

Write your response to the review in a word processor and reread it a few times before posting it. Get a colleague to take a look at the content of your response if possible. Post when you’re clear-headed.

Remember that even the best businesses get the occasional bad review. Consumers won’t be put off by one or two negative posts in a sea of positive ones. They will be put off, however, if they read the comments and see the contractor or business owner arguing with customers.

CraftJack Is Here To Help

Reputation management can be a tricky business, and time-consuming too. If you’d like some help with managing your online presence on Facebook, Google and other platforms, contact us today. CraftJack is here to help you make a great first impression on social media so you can grow your business and reach prospective customers in the places they enjoy spending their time.