Online reviews don’t just belong on your business listings. When shared across multiple marketing channels, they can have a wider impact on trust, decision-making, and ultimately, purchases. By repurposing reviews, they can have a longer shelf life and make a bigger impact on customers at different stages of the marketing funnel.

In this blog, we’ll explore how you can maximize your online reviews across off-site marketing channels, including emails, ads, social media, print, in-store, and more. By using reviews strategically, you can turn every positive testimonial into a powerful marketing asset that reaches more people and keeps your reputation top of mind.

Step-by-Step: Turning Reviews Into Marketing Assets

To make the most of your reviews, it helps to follow a clear process. The eight steps below walk you through everything from auditing your existing reviews to creating assets, measuring performance, and keeping your content up-to-date. This gives you a repeatable process that you can rely on each time you want to bring your review marketing to life.

1. Audit Your Reviews

Start by collecting your reviews from each platform so you can see all the reviews you have to choose from. You could do this in a spreadsheet or Word document, or by connecting your reviews to a review management tool that collates all your reviews for you.

A thorough audit helps you understand what you already have and where there may be gaps. If one of your key services, products, or USPs is missing from your reviews, you may want to focus on generating more reviews first.

2. Choose Which Reviews to Repurpose

Once you have a clear picture of your reviews, select the ones that you want to repurpose in your marketing. Highlight reviews that are relevant to your audience and your offering. If you offer multiple services or products, choose reviews that cover each to avoid confusing potential customers. Some services may be better used on certain channels.

Pick a variety, including some with lots of detail, and some with short soundbites that would work on other channels. Avoid heavily editing reviews, but you may need to pull out sections of longer reviews, as lengthy reviews may not work on all channels.

3. Ask Permission

Even though a customer has chosen to leave you a public review, it doesn’t necessarily mean you can do what you want with these.

While it isn’t illegal to reuse reviews, it is best practice to ask for permission, especially if you are using the reviewer’s full name or photo, or cutting the review down in size. Seeking permission means no surprises for the reviewer later down the line when they see their name in lights.

Don’t use reviews where there is information that could violate a customer’s privacy, even if this is information they have shared themselves. This is especially true for healthcare providers or financial institutions that are subject to specific laws relating to online reviews.

4. Map Reviews to Channels

Next, decide which reviews work best for each marketing channel. Punchy quotes work well for social media and paid ads where space is limited, while longer testimonials may perform better in emails, blog posts, or print materials.

Matching the message to the right channel can help connect with your audience at different stages of the buying process. Reviews focused on your offering and customer support may work well for top-of-the-funnel marketing assets, while specific reviews on products or services could help get customers that are close to buying over the line.

Not sure which channels you could use? Keep reading and we’ll explain your options.

5. Design Assets

Time to get designing! Turn your chosen reviews into marketing assets such as social media graphics, videos, or print materials. You may choose to hire a designer to help with this, or tools like Canva can go a long way in creating simple on-brand assets that fit different channels.

Include the star rating, review platform name, and reviewer’s name, where possible to add social proof. If you can, include a link back to the review platform so readers can check the source and feel sure you’re being truthful in your marketing. Don’t over-edit or embellish the review content, as this will harm trust in your business.

6. Measure Performance

Before hitting ‘Publish’ on your review marketing, think about what success looks like for you. If you’re already running campaigns without review social proof, compare these to your new review campaigns to understand what works best.

Look at engagement, click-through rates, and conversions to see how your review marketing is landing. If the marketing channel you use doesn’t have simple measurement options, consider adding trackable links using tools like Google Tag Manager, BitLy, or HubSpot to see how your campaign is performing.

7. Refresh and Rotate

Reviews are not a one-time asset. While the shelf-life of a review can be extended by using it in your marketing, old or outdated reviews can make your business seem stale or make customers think you have no recent successes to shout about.

Continue to ask for new reviews, and update your marketing materials regularly with these. Using the same reviews over and over can have a diminishing effect, with customers less influenced by seeing the same review multiple times.

If you’re using your overall star rating from a specific review platform, make sure this is automatically updated, or if that’s not possible, manually update this frequently. If what a customer sees doesn’t match the truth, they may feel that you have misrepresented your business, even if it was true once upon a time!

Choosing Marketing Channels for Review Marketing

Once you’ve nailed your review marketing strategy, it’s time to decide where they’ll make the biggest impact. Different marketing channels reach people at different stages of the customer journey, so choosing the right mix helps your message land at the right moment.

Review Sites

Of course, potential customers will read your reviews directly on review platforms like Google, Yelp, and Facebook. Keep your profiles up-to-date, respond regularly to reviews, and monitor closely to be aware of what customers are saying about your business.

Unlike local business websites, business listings can use review schema, so this may be your best chance of getting those elusive stars next to your business name in search results.

Your Website

Your website is where potential customers go to learn about your business from the source. It’s the best place to tell your story in your own words, without third-party influence. You can showcase reviews directly on your website by embedding them in key pages like your homepage, service pages, or contact page.

Many review management tools offer review widgets that can show your best reviews on your website by pasting a small bit of code. It’s also powerful to use reviews in the places where customers are making decisions on your website, for example, next to enquiry forms or pricing pages. This social proof helps to reassure customers that what you’re saying about your business is backed up by the experiences of real people.

Paid Ads

Reviews can make a big difference in paid campaigns on social or search. Short quotes or star ratings can help your business stand out, and instantly tell searchers what makes your business unique.

Keep the messaging authentic and relevant to the ad’s goal. Ads often have little space to impress a potential customer, so make any quotes short and sweet. Ads on social media often work best as part of a larger campaign, rather than being the first thing a potential customer sees of your business.

Social Media

Social media is ideal for sharing reviews in an engaging and visually appealing way. Turn reviews from happy customers into posts, stories, or even short videos paired with visuals of your business in action.

Regularly sharing reviews on social media gets your best feedback seen by a wider audience, but also may encourage customers to write a review for you with the hope that their message will get shared too!

Email Marketing

Email is often an underappreciated channel for many local businesses. The best thing about email is that the audience is already engaged in your business, as they will have chosen to opt into hearing from you.

Including reviews in emails adds credibility to your messages and can help move subscribers toward action. Add reviews to your welcome emails, newsletters, or include a short quote in your email signature. Featuring reviews in emails reminds your audience of real customer experiences.

Case Studies

Reviews are a great way to identify happy customers who may be willing to share their experience in more detail. Identify positive feedback and contact those customers directly, or reply to their review and invite them to get in touch if you don’t already have their details. This can lead to rich case studies built from genuine customer experiences.

Case studies let you showcase the entire customer experience from start to finish. They provide credible content that can be used across marketing channels to give potential customers a clear idea of the value your business offers.

Printed Marketing Materials

Online reviews also have a strong use in offline marketing. Share reviews in printed marketing materials such as brochures, flyers, or even as part of adverts in local magazines or newspapers.

Featuring short, genuine quotes and star ratings in print builds credibility with potential customers who may not yet be aware of your business, and extends the reach of your online reputation to offline channels.

Invoices, Receipts, and Packaging

Every customer touchpoint is an opportunity to build trust. Including reviews or star ratings on invoices, receipts, or packaging reminds customers of the positive experiences of using your business and encourages repeat business. These may even translate into more reviews.

In-store Displays and Signage

For businesses with a physical location, in-store displays and signage are great ways to showcase reviews. Displaying customer quotes and star ratings from top review sites on walls, windows, or posters reassures visitors that you stand for good customer service.

But be aware, it may be harder to regularly update reviews that are printed and on display. It may be best to avoid printing overall star ratings, numbers of reviews, or dates of reviews as these can go out of date very quickly. Also, be aware that if a review talks about a service or product that you later stop providing, or a staff member who later leaves, you may need to update the in-store signage.

Keep Your Reviews Working Harder

Your reviews are more than just testimonials on a listing; they’re powerful marketing assets. By sharing reviews across online and offline marketing channels, you can extend their reach, longevity, and influence.

To keep this impact growing, make review marketing part of your regular workflow. Continue collecting fresh feedback, monitor your profiles, and update your materials so everything stays accurate and relevant. The more consistently you use your reviews, the more they will work for you by building trust, supporting conversions, and showcasing the great experiences your customers have every day.

Love them or loathe them, online reviews are big business. Your star rating can play a huge part in whether someone chooses you or your biggest competitor. In 2026, standards are at an all-time high; consumers now expect higher star ratings and more recent reviews than ever before. In fact, 31% of consumers will only use a business that maintains a 4.5-star rating or higher.

But we all know reviews aren’t always fair, honest, or in some cases, even real. From glowing fake feedback to defamatory lies, the world of online reviews can get a little sticky, legally speaking. 

Consumers Demand Real Consequences for Fake Reviews

Fake reviews remain a major concern for consumers and businesses. Misleading feedback can influence decisions and lead to wasted money. According to our Local Consumer Review Survey, the public appetite for “slaps on the wrist” has vanished.

Today, 97% of consumers believe businesses should face formal punishment for using fake reviews. When asked what those consequences should look like:

• 57% believe businesses should be banned from review platforms entirely.
• 46% want them removed from Google search results.
• 16% believe faking reviews should result in criminal charges or jail time for the business owner.

In this guide, we’ll break down the key legal rules and cases that every US business and review writer needs to know. 

Reviews and the law: TL;DR

The reality of reviews 

Good, bad, or fake, every online review is subject to the law.

For businesses, it’s not just about customers breaking the law; your own actions can also lead to legal headaches. Staying up-to-date on the law can help you avoid lengthy lawsuits and significant fines. 

Review site guidelines vs. the law 

Let’s start with guidelines. Yelp, Google, Facebook, and all other reputable review sites have extensive terms and conditions and review guidelines for users to follow.

These guidelines aren’t the same as the laws around US reviews. Doing something perfectly legal may get you a telling off, or even a ban from some review platforms if it’s against their own rules.

For example, there is no hard and fast rule around incentivizing for reviews, but platforms, including Yelp, are firmly against this. 

When you sign up for review platforms, you’ll often end up agreeing to their terms and conditions. This means that, in theory, if you break these, you could end up breaking contract law. Of course, what’s included in these terms can’t be illegal, but there’s more to think about than just US law. 

The big one: FTC Final Rule on Consumer Reviews and Testimonials

In October 2024, the Federal Trade Commission announced its long-awaited online reviews Final Rule, formally known as 16 CFR Part 465: Trade Regulation Rule on the Use of Consumer Reviews and Testimonials. 

While not the first legislation influencing online reviews, this Final Rule seeks to give clear national guidance on a previously grey area. It aims to stop the buying and selling of fake reviews, with big penalties against “knowing violators”.

This includes: 

Fake reviews and testimonials 

Reviews and testimonials are now banned if they are written by someone who;

1. Doesn’t have real experience of a business
2. Misrepresents their experience. 

This includes AI-generated fake reviews, or fake review attacks by real people aiming to damage or boost a business’s reputation unfairly. It also covers testimonials falsely attributed to celebrities.

It is now against the law to buy and sell fake reviews if the business “knew or should have known” that the reviews or testimonials are false.

Buying positive or negative reviews 

Businesses can no longer give money or other incentives if they are conditional on customers writing a positive (or negative) review. This is true whether the incentive is clear or just implied. 

This doesn’t mean that incentives are completely out of the question. Businesses are still legally allowed to reward customers for leaving a review as long as it’s unconditional on whether this review is positive or negative. However, make sure you check the individual review site’s guidelines before doing this, as platforms including Yelp are against this.

Insider reviews and testimonials 

Reviews written by someone with a vague link to the company are now prohibited. This includes reviews written by managers and officers, and any testimonial that the business should have known was written by a company insider. 

It also imposes rules on reviews solicited from immediate family members, employees, or employees’ families. Transparency is key here. If a family member or employee has a legitimate reason to leave a review, they must disclose their connection to avoid misleading consumers. 

Review suppression 

Businesses are not allowed to threaten or attempt to intimidate review writers to prevent or remove negative reviews. This includes both physical and legal threats. 

The Final Rule also bars businesses from misrepresenting the reviews shown on their website as if they represent all or most submissions, when in fact negative reviews have been hidden or suppressed. 

This doesn’t mean you need to showcase your worst review front and centre on your website. But if you claim you have a perfect five-star rating on Google and this isn’t actually true, you could be fined. 

Company-controlled review websites

The Final Rule makes it clear that businesses can’t pass off websites they own or control as independent sources of reviews or opinions if these include reviews about their own products and services. 

This applies to company-run microsites, blogs, or platforms that look like review hubs but are in fact controlled by the business being reviewed. Even if the reviews themselves are genuine, failing to disclose a link is considered deceptive and could land you a fine. 

Misuse of social media influence indicators

This is not related to online reviews, but the Final Rule also stops the buying and selling of fake indicators of social media influence (e.g., followers or views by bots or hijacked accounts). 

This is limited to cases where the buyer “knew or should have known” that these indicators were fake and misrepresented their influence. This practice can mislead consumers about a business’s popularity or credibility.

Fines and the Final Rule

Rulebreakers won’t face jail time, but instead face civil penalties (AKA fines) of up to $51,744 per violation, or per day for ongoing violations. That’s not exactly pocket change for most local businesses. 

Before the Rule, the FTC needed to jump through additional hoops to bring enforcement under Section 5 of the FTC act. Now, they can fine violators directly. 

It’s important to note that the Final Rule doesn’t replace earlier laws or cover all areas of online reviews law (which we’ll touch on below). Instead, it strengthens the toolkit for the regulators, businesses, and local marketers fighting against fake and unfair review practices. 

For those who want to dig deeper, the FTC has published the full 163-page ruling, which lays out the specifics of what is and isn’t allowed. 

Other US laws and online reviews 

While the FTC’s Final Rule on Consumer Reviews and Testimonials is a strong cover all for fake reviews and misrepresentation, it isn’t the first rule to touch the murky world of online reviews. 

Previous laws and cases already tackle some of the more pertinent issues surrounding reviews, while the Final Rule covers the gaps.

Other laws to be aware of include: 

• Defamation laws
• Anti-SLAPP rules
• The Consumer Review Fairness Act (CRFA) 2016
• Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act

We’ll cover each in brief below.

Defamation laws

When it comes to online reviews and the law, one of the biggest legal risks comes down to defamation. In the U.S., defamation is defined as “a statement that injures a third party’s reputation”. To prove defamation, it must be: 

1. A false statement pretending to be a fact
2. Published or communicated to a third person
3. Be malicious or negligent in its intent (i.e., they knew it was wrong or should have checked)
4. Caused harm to the reputation of the subject 

Opinions (“The food was bland”) are protected by the First Amendment, but false claims presented as fact (“The food was laced with arsenic”) can cross the line into defamation. 

Sharing a genuine bad experience is protected. But making up or exaggerating facts to damage a business’s reputation could land a reviewer in court. 

Anti-SLAPP rules 

SLAPPs (strategic lawsuits against public participation) have been used to intimidate or silence people through costly and baseless legal action. 

In the past, some businesses have attempted to sue customers that left negative (but perfectly truthful) reviews. Even when these cases had no real chance in court, the threat of legal proceedings can intimidate reviewers into taking down their reviews. This kind of intimidation not only harms the reviewer, but also stops other consumers getting a full picture of a business. 

The introduction of Anti-SLAPP laws aimed to stop people from using threats of lawsuits to those exercising their First Amendment rights. These laws remain in place and continue to protect free speech and public participation in honest opinions and criticisms.

Consumer Review Fairness Act

The Consumer Review Fairness Act (CRFA) 2016 is a federal law that protects consumers’ rights to share honest experiences online. It made it illegal for businesses to add clauses to contracts that prevent customers from posting honest reviews or penalize them for negative feedback. It also tackled the requirement for customers to give up intellectual property rights in reviews. 

This law meant that customers could speak freely about their experiences without being punished or fined by businesses. 

Like with the FTC Final Ruling, breaking the terms of the CRFA can lead to fines. 

Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act

When it comes to online reviews, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act is one of the most important laws businesses probably won’t have heard of. Essentially, it shields websites and review platforms from being held liable for content posted by users. 

This means if a customer leaves a negative review, a business cannot then sue Yelp or Google for hosting the review. If a business is unhappy with the legality of the review, it must either take the reviewer to court or attempt to get the review taken down if it’s against the site’s terms and guidelines. 

Review responses and the law 

It’s not just the practices surrounding reviews and what customers can write, but also how businesses choose to respond. Responding to reviews is a key part of managing your online reputation, but these responses are still bound by the law.

California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA/CRPA)

California’s CCPA and CRPA privacy laws protect consumers’ personal information and regulate how businesses can use it. When responding to reviews, avoid sharing any details that could identify a customer or reveal private information. 

Other states including Virginia, Connecticut, and Utah have their own privacy protections in place. Avoid the risk of a lawsuit no matter the location of your customers and never disclose personal information without consent. 

HIIPA

For healthcare businesses, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) is a critical consideration when responding to online reviews. 

HIPAA protects patients’ private health information, meaning you can’t share any details about a patient or their treatment in a review response, even if the patient has publicly shared their own details. Avoid mentioning appointments, treatments, diagnoses, or any other information that could identify the patient. Even thanking a patient by name can be risky. 

If a reviewer raises a serious concern, the safest approach is to address it in private by asking the reviewer to contact you directly. This way, there is no chance of breaking the rules. 

GLBA

Financial services businesses such as banks, credit unions, or lenders should be familiar with the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA) when responding to reviews. GLBA protects consumers’ private personal financial information, including balances, credit history, and other sensitive financial data. 

This means businesses can’t disclose any financial information in review responses, even if the original review raised specific concerns on these. Like with HIPAA compliance, the best way to tackle issues is to encourage the reviewer to get in touch privately. 

How to handle illegal reviews

Reviews sometimes cross the line into defamation, false accusations, or harassment. When this happens, it’s important for businesses to act carefully and legally. Follow our step-by-step plan to make sure things don’t get worse. 

1. Stay calm and assess the situation

Start by assessing whether the review is truly illegal or just hurtful. A review only crosses into lawbreaking if it includes defamation or involves threats or harassment. As you assess, keep in mind the Streisand Effect: could the effort to silence the review actually draw more attention to it? 

2. Document everything

Before taking action, make sure you have a full record of the review. Save screenshots, note the date and time, and capture any related correspondence with the reviewer. This evidence is essential if you escalate to the review platform or go down the legal route. 

3. Contact the review platform

Review platforms, including Yelp and Google, have procedures for reporting reviews that violate their terms of service and content guidelines.

Provide clear evidence that the review is false or illegal. Be prepared that platforms are often cautious and may only act when the violation is clear-cut.

4. Get legal advice

If you think the review may break the law, consult a lawyer who specializes in defamation to help you decide if your case has merit. Next steps may include a cease and desist letter or even pursuing a full lawsuit. 

Keep in mind that the bar is high: courts generally won’t punish opinions, so legal action tends to only be successful if you can prove the review is false. 

5. Get more reviews 

While you’re working your way through potentially lengthy legal and review platform processes, work on strengthening your overall reputation. Encourage recent customers to share their genuine experiences so that the illegal review has less visibility and effect on your overall star rating. 

Stay smart, stay legal

Online reviews are a powerful tool for businesses, but the legal landscape in the US around them is complex and constantly evolving. Between the FTC’s Final Rule on Consumer Reviews, defamation and anti-SLAPP protections, and state-specific privacy laws, it’s easy to get tangled in legal grey areas. 

The good news? Most honest reviews and responsible responses are perfectly fine. Don’t buy fake reviews or indulge in dodgy practices, and you’ll stay on the right side of the law. 

Please remember nothing here replaces professional legal advice. When in doubt, a qualified lawyer is the only person who can guide you safely through online reviews and the law. 

According to Yell Business, reviews can also help improve communication and customer service. They give your business credibility and act as social proof, even for very new businesses. Online reviews also provide other customers with valuable company information, with first-hand insights that business owners may not have thought to share.

Reviews are also becoming more prominent as a content format in their own right. Star ratings are increasingly visible in search results, with review add-ons for Google Ads and ratings in local search via Google Business Profile (formerly known as Google My Business). Sometimes, snippets of actual reviews appear in results, making them a highly visible source of information and a frequent stop on the customer path to purchase.

In ranking terms, reviews are also important. The 2017 LocalSEO Guide ranking factors study pegged reviews as one of the most important local ranking factors. The number of good and bad reviews received was determined to play a part in local pack positioning, as was the speed and frequency of response.

Responding to reviews is a way of showing the world how much you care about the customer experience — as well as being a way to earn a few more local SEO brownie points. All reviews should be acknowledged promptly, but it’s particularly easy to succumb to temptation and respond to a negative review as soon as you see it. Before you give in to this impulse, it pays to be aware of the six core types of reviewer so you can formulate an appropriate, effective response to fit.

1. The First-time Reviewer

With 94% of consumers open to writing reviews, though just 69% having written one in the last 12 months, there are still plenty of shoppers out there who haven’t ever felt moved to review a business.

When you do encounter a first-time reviewer, keep in mind that if yours is the first review they’ve left, they clearly feel quite strongly about their experience (whether good or bad).

How to deal with the First-time Reviewer

You should take a first-time reviewer seriously and if good, appreciate that your service must have been outstanding to push them into leaving a review. Make sure to pass this feedback on to your team, and congratulate them on a job well done!

On the flip side, negative reviews must be delicately handled and considerable thought given to the response.  It’s unlikely that you will receive further interaction after the initial review, even when you do respond, but that shouldn’t impact how you proceed.

In the case of a negative review, ask yourself if there is any truth in the feedback and if changes need to be made internally to rectify the issue being flagged up. If valid, your response should outline the steps that will be taken to avoid this issue again in the future. And, if you disagree with the reviewer’s claims, politely and professionally provide your side of the story. This will help provide context to readers. 

2. The Serial Complainer

Serial complainers are the exact opposite of first-timers and will be prolific reviewers. They’ll have a long and storied history of leaving negative reviews and will likely review every business, product or service they use. They may well be incredibly picky and have unrealistically high standards or expectations of what they have actually paid for.

How to deal with the Serial Complainer

Tread carefully here, as the serial complainer has had lots of experience with other businesses just like yours. They are professionals at making you look bad. Your response will need to be very measured while also addressing the points made. Look at how other businesses have fared when dealing with them and avoid making the same mistakes.

Be aware that the serial complainer is very likely to continue the conversation and will respond back to your comments, often with additional complaints or disagreements. And if you can’t change their mind, don’t be too disheartened! 

3. The Direct Communicator

The direct communicator won’t mince words. They’ll get straight to the point and expect someone senior to take note. These are people who don’t direct their reviews to the world at large, but to you, the business owner.

If they’re negative, they’ll want to receive a very personal response and likely want to have the discussion on the public review site rather than over a private email conversation.

How to deal with the Direct Communicator

When dealing with a direct communicator, don’t be tempted to be similarly abrupt in your response.

Be clear but not overly wordy and don’t resort to a direct or confrontational style. Avoid making excuses too – the direct communicator values straight talk and expects swift action.

4. The Storyteller

The storyteller takes time to craft exceptionally detailed reviews.

They will share the smallest of details and paint a picture of their entire experience – typically including lots of information not directly related to the product or service being reviewed. You can recognize a storyteller by the length of the review. There’ll also be plenty of the reviewer’s own recommendations, suggestions, and advice.

How to deal with the Storyteller

If your storyteller is posting a negative account of their dealings with your business, take time to check and re-check your response before posting, as the storyteller will often be highly critical of replies which aren’t equally as thought out.

This doesn’t mean you should match the tone or length – don’t be tempted to add lots of background info if it doesn’t serve a purpose. Likewise, if they’re sarcastic and snide, don’t be tempted to match this tone, as it’ll likely backfire, and potentially damage onlookers’ opinions of your business.

5. The Sharpshooter

The sharpshooter pulls no punches. The review will be brief and to the point,  and perhaps poorly written or rushed. Don’t respond in kind to a sharpshooter or go too far the other way with a long-winded response.

How to deal with the Sharpshooter

When dealing with a review from a sharpshooter, be conscious that your reply should be concise but not short. Use succinct, clear sentences rather than wordy, elaborate ones to better reflect this type of reviewer’s communication style.

6. The Faker

Most businesses will have fallen victim to a fake review at least once. If you’re in that boat, you’ll agree that the faker is the worst kind of reviewer.

A faker has never used your business or purchased your product. Despite this, they have a grudge and delight in leaving one-star reviews with made-up complaints to damage your online reputation. They may be working on behalf of a competitor (or even be a competitor!) Do some research on them and see if they have links someone who would have beef with you. The review itself may also shed some light on this.

How to deal with the Faker

If you suspect a review is fake, check your customer records to determine if they have ever used your business.

Don’t be tempted to reply straight away if you think it’s fake. Instead, take a look at BrightLocal contributor Ben Fisher’s guide to getting fake reviews removed. In the meantime, focus on acquiring new positive, genuine reviews to push the fake one star down.

We’d love to hear your thoughts

What kinds of reviewers have you encountered and what tips do you have for responding? I’d love to hear about your experiences in the comments below.

Not only can this help you identify potential issues and address them promptly to minimize their impact, but it also enables you to respond quickly to all reviews left for your local business. 

This is important for two reasons. Firstly, businesses that respond to reviews tend to perform better in local search. And secondly, because today’s consumers actively check for review responses from business owners. 

How do you monitor reviews?

Monitoring your online reviews simply means you’re going to keep tabs on customer feedback left for you on relevant platforms like Google, Yelp, or Facebook. You can do this manually by checking each review platform individually or by using review monitoring tools.

The first step to monitoring online reviews for your business is to make a list of review sites. This should include both general review sites and industry-specific review sites relevant to your business. If you’re in the hotel or restaurant business, that could mean Tripadvisor. If you’re a tradesperson, that could be Angi. If you’re a contractor, Houzz. You get the idea.

If you’re unsure which review platforms are most relevant to you, you could ask your customers which ones they use. 

You can also add competitors into the mix here and piggyback off their activities. Find out which review platforms they’re most active on—do they have certain badges on their sites, such as a badge from TripAdvisor or Trustpilot? When you search for the company name, which review sites appear at the top of the results page?

As you build your list of sites to monitor, keep a record of any important sites that you don’t already appear on. You’ll need to initiate the review generation process on these platforms.

Manual review monitoring vs. review monitoring tools

When it comes to online review monitoring, you have two options—use a review monitoring tool like BrightLocal’s Reputation Manager or do it manually. 

Manual review monitoring is more time-consuming and runs the risk of reviews being missed. To reduce that possibility, ensure that:

• Your email address is registered with the review platform
• You’ve opted in to receive an alert each time a new review is published. Consider setting up a dedicated email folder for review alerts. 

A review monitoring tool is a more efficient and effective way to keep track of your online reviews.

It’ll do the time-consuming task of checking for new reviews for you. This removes the risk of reviews being missed and enables you to respond promptly. This means you’ll be able to take action quickly in the event of a negative review appearing. Many even offer the opportunity to respond immediately in the tool.

Tools usually allow you to monitor all your review platforms in one centralized location, too.

Whichever route you choose, be sure to keep a log of the frequency of reviews, the volume of negative versus positive reviews, and any action taken as a result of each review. If the rate at which you’re earning new reviews slows down, then further action will be needed to understand why that’s the case.

Understanding trends in your reviews

If you’re manually undertaking review monitoring, you’ll need to carry out an additional task to then make sense of your data. To understand the sentiment and identify common themes, you’ll first need to consolidate the text of the reviews together in one central location, such as a shared Google doc. 

Once you’ve done this, you can use a word cloud generator (Google has a free app here) to help you make sense of the data. The word cloud will show you common words and phrases that have been used. This will give you insight into which products, services, and themes are being discussed most frequently.

Look out for phrases such as ‘fast delivery’, ‘helpful’, ‘good customer service’, and individual product names. This will clue you in as to what people are liking, buying, and wanting more of.

You may also notice that there’s a correlation between these attributes and the reviews in a prominent position on your Google Business Profile. Google takes note when people regularly mention a particular element of service, such as ‘fast delivery’ or ‘outdoor dining’, and will add this as a highlight to your GBP on mobile devices.

How to use BrightLocal for online review monitoring 

If you’re looking for a streamlined way to track reviews across multiple platforms or for multiple business locations, BrightLocal’s Monitor Reviews is a strong option (if we do say so ourselves!) 

Monitor Reviews pulls in reviews from more than 80 review sites, including the big ones like Google, Yelp, Facebook, Tripadvisor, and Angi, as well as industry-specific platforms, all in one handy dashboard. 

This means you can see every new review without hopping between multiple websites, as well as respond to reviews and showcase the top ones on your website, all using BrightLocal. 

Here’s how to get started: 

1. Sign up or log in

Log in to your BrightLocal account, or start a 14-day free trial if you’re new here (welcome!) Then choose the business location or create a new one. Connect your Google and Facebook listings, and BrightLocal will start finding your reviews in the background.

2. Choose the review sources to track

Click Actions → Edit Report Settings to add the additional review sites you want to monitor. You’ll need the listing URLs for each site.

3. Set up alerts

While in the Reputation report settings, choose how often you want the report to run and how often we should email you with your review insights—daily, weekly, monthly, or only when new reviews are found. This ensures you never miss important feedback.

4. Spot trends with Review Insights

Use the Review Insights overview to dig into your review data and see where you need to improve. You can:

• Track review growth over time and spot spikes
• See your average star rating across all review sites
• Check the distribution of star ratings
• View the split of rating per review site to know which sites to focus on

5. View and respond in Reviews → Manage Reviews

After analyzing the data, jump into the full reviews in Reviews → Manage Reviews. Here you can:

• View all your reviews in one place
• Filter by star rating, review site, timeframe, or reviews that haven’t been responded to
• Respond directly to reviews (learn how here)

For more advice on mastering online review monitoring with BrightLocal, enroll in our free Academy course: Level Up Your Local SEO with BrightLocal.

How do I monitor Google reviews?

Monitoring Google reviews can be done either manually or by using an online review monitoring tool. Manually monitoring involves checking Google Business Profile (GBP) for new review alerts. You’ll also be notified via email when a new review is shared, with this notification going to the email address used to manage the GBP account. 

To access reviews, log into GBP and select ‘Reviews’ from the left-hand navigation.

How do I track negative reviews?

You can perform online review monitoring to identify negative reviews as they appear. This can be achieved by using a review monitoring tool or by manually checking the review platforms associated with your business. 

It’s important that negative reviews are quickly addressed to prevent damage to your reputation, so an automated tool is often the best bet. You can find our tips for how to handle negative reviews here.

Track Your Reviews in Real-time

Good or bad, monitoring online reviews doesn’t have to be time-consuming. Whether you track them manually or use an online review monitoring tool, you can see feedback as it comes in, respond quickly, and spot trends to help build reviews across the platforms that your customers use. Here’s to five stars! 

• Approximately 30% of all online reviews are estimated to be fake
• Review fraud is responsible for around $300 billion of harm to US consumers
• Google blocked 240 million fake or policy-violating reviews in 2024

Fake reviews erode consumer trust in a local business. Whether it’s via Google, Amazon, Yelp, or Facebook, negative reviews could cause your local search ratings to suffer, costing you search visibility and putting you at a disadvantage against competitors. They also undermine your efforts to build a strong review profile, something that could have taken years to achieve. 

Public patience for these tactics has reached a breaking point, too. According to the most recent Local Consumer Review Survey:

• 97% of consumers believe businesses should face punishment for fake reviews.
• 57% of consumers believe businesses caught using fake reviews should be banned from review platforms entirely.

And now, fake reviews are not just unethical, but illegal too. The 2024 Federal Trade Commission’s Final Rule on Consumer Reviews made it illegal to create, buy, or manipulate fake reviews. It also gave the FTC the authority to impose significant fines on violators, making it more important than ever to understand how to spot fake reviews. 

What are fake reviews? 

When you think of fake reviews, you might picture a business owner writing a few harsh comments about their biggest competitor. But fake reviews are far more widespread and sophisticated than that. 

A fake review is any rating or comment that doesn’t reflect a real customer experience. They can unfairly boost a business or harm a competitor. There are several common methods used to create fake reviews:

Insider Reviews

Insider reviews are probably the most well-known type of fake reviews. They come from friends, family, or employees posting positive reviews to help a business look better or make a competitor look worse, even if they have not actually used the product or service. 

These reviews are more likely to come from a genuine desire to help a friend’s business succeed, rather than an attempt to actively damage a competitor. While these may seem less worrying than some of the big fake review networks, they are still illegal in the USA.

AI-generated Fake Reviews

The sharp rise of AI tools like ChatGPT has made it much easier for fake reviewers to churn out convincing reviews at scale. A study published in ScienceDirect highlights that AI-generated reviews are often less specific, exaggerated, use repetitive language, and show lower levels of empathy. Of course, using AI doesn’t automatically make a review fake, but it has made it far easier for fake reviewers to post en masse.

Review Extortion Scams

Review extortion scams happen when someone threatens to post negative reviews, or refuses to remove ones they’ve already written, unless a business pays them or provides free products.

These attacks often involve multiple fake one-star reviews appearing in a short period, sometimes including phone numbers or suspicious profiles. Businesses should never pay up and instead report the scam reviews to the platform.

How to report fake review extortion scams to Google

Learn How

Incentivised Reviews 

Some businesses offer gifts, discounts, or payment in exchange for positive reviews. While this doesn’t automatically mean a review is fake, it increases the risk of overly positive or misleading feedback. Asking for only positive reviews is against some review platform rules (including Yelp and Google). 

And guess what? It’s also now illegal in the US.

Fake Review Brokers

Fake review brokers (sometimes known as review farms) are organized networks that hire people or use bots to post fake reviews from multiple accounts.

While these services can temporarily boost visibility, they carry a high risk. Platforms like Google regularly detect and remove inauthentic reviews, and businesses associated with brokers may face account suspensions or even fines. 

Review Brushing Scams

In review brushing schemes, sellers send low-value products to random people to create “verified” purchases and leave five-star reviews using consumers’ real names and address data bought or found online, or through hijacked accounts. 

Which? found more than one million UK shoppers receiving items they never ordered on Amazon, only to see fake reviews linked to their names. This manipulation distorts product ratings and misleads consumers, undermining trust in online reviews. Amazon has stated that review brushing is prohibited and advises customers to contact customer service immediately if they receive unsolicited packages.

Review Bombing

Fake review campaigns, sometimes called review bombing, happen when people who haven’t used a business flood it with negative or prank reviews. These can be triggered by a news story, a social media trend, or an attempt to “cancel” someone. 

While they can feel overwhelming in number, they are usually easier to spot than genuine reviews and easier for review platforms to take down once reported.

Why Businesses Buy or Post Fake Reviews

Fake reviews usually have a clear goal. Some are posted by competitors trying to boost their own ratings or damage a rival. Others come from disgruntled customers, ex-employees, or even people with personal grudges. Occasionally, it’s done just for fun, especially if your business is well-known or goes viral.

Many businesses don’t write fake reviews themselves. Instead, they hire third-party services or use social media groups where users post reviews for a fee. Buying and selling reviews is now big business, with Amazon launching legal action targeting more than 11,000 websites selling fake reviews.

Understanding how to spot fake reviews is essential. Fake reviews can mislead customers, damage your reputation, and even affect local SEO rankings. 

How to Spot Fake Reviews

With bad actors getting ever more inventive when churning out fake reviews, it pays to know what a fake review really looks like. As a small business owner, being able to identify malicious or phony feedback is the first step to removing fake reviews. 

1. Look for clusters of reviews posted simultaneously

Multiple reviews appearing at the same time could be a sign that something is amiss. If the timing for several reviews matches, it may be that the business has purchased feedback, paid for five-star listings, or offered incentives such as cash or free products to customers in exchange for their rating.

If you’re a local business that has been subjected to a series of poor reviews in quick succession, checking if the time of the submissions is roughly the same could be an indication that they are fake. If that’s the case, it may be that a competitor is trying to drive down your star ratings. 

2. Be wary of over-the-top descriptions

Receiving complimentary feedback about your business, your team, and your services is a bonus of being proactive about building your review profile. 

However, comments that seem incredibly over-the-top, enthusiastic, and effusive could be suspicious. If the language seems to be very exaggerated in its praise, it may be that the reviewer isn’t genuine. 

According to research conducted by MIT, deceptive reviews (those submitted by consumers who actually haven’t made a purchase from the business being reviewed) have a tendency to use repeated exclamation points such as ‘!!’ and ‘!!!’ in the text of the review.

3. Look for specific details

A lack of detail and specific information also gives food for thought when it comes to deciding if a rating is genuine or not. While most of us will admit to leaving just a star rating and perhaps a word or two when we’re pushed for time, a lack of detail can also indicate the person writing the review doesn’t have first-hand experience with that product or service. 

4. Be alert for words such as refund or discount

Another warning sign that a competitor could be manipulating their review profile to artificially boost their local business is the use of words suggesting monetary payment or free products. Be alert for words such as gift code, voucher, discount, and refund, which may suggest that the reviewer has been paid or coerced into leaving a positive rating.

Incentivizing reviews is against most platform guidelines. 

5. Look for very similar reviews

If a local business has several reviews, but many of them are worded in much the same way, it’s likely you’re looking at a series of fakes. Genuine customers sharing their genuine experience of a business will naturally write in different ways, and use different styles of language and varied vocabulary. Fake reviews are often created and posted in bulk, so they are little more than duplicates. 

6. Check for unnatural writing styles

Fake reviews often stand out through how they’re written. Watch for all-caps titles, poor grammar, or repetitive phrases like “the best” or “highly recommended.” These can signal a review written for algorithms, not people.

Reviews overloaded with photos or videos can also raise suspicion. Research from Which? found that incentivized reviewers are often asked to include photos and videos. Finally, check the reviewer’s profile. No profile picture, little activity, or a pattern of similar glowing reviews can all hint at fakes.

Spotting Fake Reviews on Google

Google reviews are one of your most valuable online assets as a local business. Not only is it known to be a local SEO ranking factor, but it also directly impacts consumer decision-making.

Knowing how to spot a fake Google review can therefore help your business to weed out unscrupulous feedback and protect your online reputation. 

1. Check the reviewer’s Google profile

New accounts are often created just to post fake reviews, so they’ll usually have only one or two ratings to their name. You’ll see the number of Google reviews they have posted displayed as a number under the account holder’s username. 

2. Examine the reviewer’s activity

As well as seeing the number of reviews a user has posted, you can also see the reviews themselves. 

Check if the places reviewed are within the same local area. If most places are in entirely different locations, such as different states on the other side of the country, they may not be genuine. 

3. Inspect the images

Sometimes fake reviewers are asked to include images to make their feedback look real. If the photos don’t seem related to your business or look out of place, that’s a strong clue the review isn’t genuine.

4. Look at timings

From the user profile, you can also check the frequency of review postings. Has the reviewer posted clusters of reviews at the same time, or are they sporadic? A flurry of reviews posted at the same time suggests that the reviews may be fake. 

5. Cross-reference with your sales logs

Compare your sales logs with the name of the person leaving the review to determine if they are a genuine customer. You don’t have to be a customer to review a business, but if you have lots of new fake reviews from people you’ve never heard of, this could be a fake review attack. 

6. Look at the reviewer’s profile picture

Fake reviewers often won’t share too much personal information on the profiles they create. Along with other red flags, the lack of a profile picture raises suspicions. Likewise, very generic or cartoon images can also indicate that the reviewer is attempting to hide who they are. However, it’s not required to add a profile picture, so many reviewers may have chosen not to upload one. 

7. Review the details carefully

Real reviews usually include accurate details about the experience. Check if team members or services are mentioned correctly, or if the review refers to things you don’t offer. Inaccuracies are a tell-tale sign that the review has been created by someone without first-hand experience of your business.

How to Spot Fake Facebook Reviews

Facebook remains one of the most important platforms for local businesses. Knowing how to spot fake Facebook reviews is essential for protecting your business and maintaining trust with your audience.

1. Look for vague text

Genuine reviewers will often pick out specific aspects of their experience, whether good or bad, to explain why they recommend (or do not) that business. Very brief, vague comments can be one clue that the recommendation is fake. 

2. Watch out for over-the-top compliments

Excessive superlatives or language that feels exaggerated often indicate a review was written to artificially boost ratings. Descriptions that sound too good to be true are a tell-tale sign that you’re looking at a fake review. 

3. Check the reviewer’s profile picture

Much like with Google reviews, the lack of a profile picture or the use of a cartoon image instead is another warning sign that the reviewer isn’t genuine. Facebook reviews are tied to the reviewer’s Facebook account, so it’s much more likely to be a profile picture of a real person. 

4. Explore the friends list

Clicking on the reviewer’s profile picture will take you to the profile page. How many friends are on their friends list? If the profile doesn’t have any Facebook friends, or only very few, you have another indication that the review is fake. 

Spotting Fake Reviews in Specific Industries

While all consumer reviews matter, in some industries, being able to trust the content of a review is even more important. For professions such as lawyers, healthcare workers, real estate brokers, and so on, dishonest reviews could have serious consequences, including financial loss. 

How to Spot Fake Hotel Reviews

Hotels rely heavily on reviews to attract guests, but not all ratings are genuine. Be cautious of all five-star reviews, as even top properties will have a mix of ratings. Check the most recent reviews to see what guests are actually experiencing, and look for comments that differ sharply from the general consensus. Comparing reviews across multiple platforms can help spot inconsistencies.

Suspicious reviews can be reported to TripAdvisor. Hallmarks of fake reviews include a large number of five-star reviews from users who have only submitted one review, and reviews from lots of users who haven’t reviewed other locations. Buying reviews, offering incentives for reviews, or posting reviews for your own business are all against TripAdvisor review policies.

How to Spot Fake Reviews in Real Estate

With intense competition and huge commissions at stake, it’s no secret that real estate can be a cutthroat business. If you suspect a competitor may be inflating their profiles with fake reviews, watch the language closely. Reviews filled with acronyms or excessive industry jargon can be suspicious.

Check whether the review mentions the property, as genuine reviewers usually reference the home they bought or rented. Also, look for honest feedback about challenges or delays. Buying a house is seldom straightforward. If every review claims the process went perfectly, it could indicate fake or incentivized reviews.

How to do local SEO for real estate

Learn More

How to Spot Fake Reviews for Healthcare Professionals

Fake reviews are especially concerning in the healthcare industry, where patient health could be put at risk by unscrupulous rivals. The description of the service should be realistic and match the actual care provided. It’s unlikely that anyone will wax lyrical about teeth cleaning at the dentist, so a review that is extremely complimentary should raise a red flag.

Reviews that repeatedly mention other healthcare providers may indicate that the reviewer has been paid to paint the rival in a bad light. Likewise, reviews that mention certain branded products multiple times should be treated with a degree of suspicion. 

What to Do When You Spot Fake Reviews

So, you know how to spot a fake review, but what steps should you take next to ensure your rivals aren’t gaining an unfair advantage? 

Each platform has its own specific procedure that you’ll need to follow if you suspect a review is fake, whether that’s a review that impacts your own profile or is benefiting a competitor.

1. Respond Professionally 

Before reporting a review, consider replying calmly and courteously. Even if the review is fake, a measured response demonstrates that you take feedback seriously. This is especially important on platforms like Google, where removal can take time. Use clear, professional language to address the concern without getting emotional. Don’t be afraid to (politely!) say you’re reporting the review as you don’t believe it’s real, so readers know to take it with a pinch of salt.

If you’re monitoring your reviews using a tool like BrightLocal, you should be able to both spot them quickly and respond instantly. 

Helpful review response templates

Start Responding

2. Report the Review 

Report the review through the review platform’s official tools. Sometimes reports aren’t removed immediately, so be prepared to appeal and submit supporting details, such as incorrect references or suspicious reviewer activity. Proper documentation strengthens your case.

3. Get More Real Reviews

The best way to protect your reputation is by getting more reviews. Encourage happy customers to share their experiences naturally and often. A stream of authentic reviews balances out any misleading ratings and shows future customers that your business consistently delivers great service. 

The Consequences of Fake Reviews 

With reviews playing a significant role in both sales and SEO, fake reviews are becoming increasingly common, but the risks are also growing. This raises several issues for businesses and consumers alike, with consumers increasingly likely to be faced with fake reviews and businesses increasingly being placed at a disadvantage if they don’t join unscrupulous competitors in buying or faking reviews to win visibility.

However, there is a concerted effort to crack down on fake reviews, so any investment in fake reviews is likely to backfire sooner rather than later. Fake reviews come with serious risks for any business. 

As well, penalties are immediate and visible across different review platforms. Yelp maintains a Wall of Shame highlighting companies caught offering or paying for fake reviews, warning potential customers of dishonest practices. Google takes action too, putting accounts in “review jail,” which can block new reviews from being shown, as well as showing a “suspected fake reviews” label on your Google Business Profile. 

Posting a fake review might seem harmless or even helpful, but it’s never worth it. The risks are real, and the fallout can hit your business hard. Do the right thing: keep things authentic, grow your reputation naturally, and stay in control of your story online.

Although reputation management and review management are often used interchangeably, they’re not the same thing. Review management focuses on collecting, monitoring, and responding to online reviews, which is an essential part of building local search visibility and winning new customers. Reputation management is broader and encompasses the entirety of a business’s reputation. 

In this guide, we’ll explore reputation management and online review management, identifying the key differences, explaining why they matter, and describing how local businesses can master them. 

What is online reputation management?

We live in the Information Age. Details about a business, its products, its personnel, its culture, its ethics, and how it treats its customers are available on demand, online, and in any location. 

Whether you’re the head of a large national business or you run a ‘mom-and-pop’ convenience store, what people say and think about your brand and business matters. 

Online reputation management (sometimes known as online presence management) is the strategy to ensure consumers find positive content about your business. A TrustPilot study found that a company’s positive online reputation was the biggest factor affecting consumer trust. 

Online reputation management includes a range of tactics to emphasize favorable content and opinions about your brand. A reputation management strategy will consider how to conduct the brand messaging, how to amplify reviews, how to secure positive media mentions, and include plans for dealing with a PR crisis arising from negative publicity.

What is online review management?

While reputation management covers the full scope of brand perception, online review management focuses on one of the most influential factors: customer reviews.

Reviews are used at each stage of the buyer journey, and play a key role in the final decision to purchase or not. Our research finds that 97% of consumers read online reviews when browsing for local businesses, with 70% saying they’ve written a review in the past year. Turn your back on reviews, and they’ll face your customers without you.

The power of reviews isn’t restricted to review platforms. A cohesive online reputation management strategy will allow you to repurpose and leverage your reviews across a range of channels to amplify their impact. This could mean sharing reviews on social media, posting them on your website, creating case studies with them, or showcasing them in a TV ad.

How to build an online reputation management strategy

Developing a reputation management strategy doesn’t need to be intimidating. Think of it as a fact-finding mission followed by the creation of a plan to focus your efforts on the things that matter most to you.

Step 1: Research your current online reputation

Your first task is to understand where you stand right now. What are people saying about you? How are they rating your products and services? What is their perception of your business?

Assembling all of this information can be daunting, but you don’t have to do it manually. There are numerous tools available to automate and speed up this process.

For small amounts of data, take a sample of statements from across these channels to get a general idea of how people are feeling about your brand. Be sure not to let your unconscious bias lead you to pick only very good or very bad comments. Cast a broad net.

Step 2: Send an NPS survey

NPS (Net Promoter Score) is a scale that runs from -100 to 100. You ask a series of questions and then apply the scale to measure how willing your customers are to recommend your business.

NPS helps you to understand loyalty and sentiment. This is useful when developing your online reputation management strategy as it shows you what you’re working with, highlights any reputation problems to address, and indicates where your focus should be. 

You can use a tool such as Reputation Manager to ask your customers to give you feedback or reviews, and then apply the NPS scale to determine how they feel. Make sure to repeat this on a regular basis to see where you’ve improved. 

If you don’t want to email your customers, you could add an NPS pop-up to your site. Many popular CMS systems, including WordPress, have NPS plugins that you can simply download and activate.

Step 3: Find out what matters to your customers

The purpose of this step is to find out what your customers expect from you.  Are they likely to forgive slow shipping if your customer service and product quality is top notch? Do they expect a highly personalized service or do they appreciate more straightforward communications?

A crucial part of this stage of the process is determining where your customer spends their time online. Which social networks do your demographic favor? Which newspapers do they read? Which forums are they active on? Which review platforms do they use?

The purpose of asking these questions is to narrow down where it’s most important to build and manage your reputation. Referring back to the research conducted in step one should give you the answers to these questions.

Step 4: Set online reputation management goals

For the time you invest in your online reputation management strategy to really pay dividends, your actions must be both measurable and accountable. The goals you set will directly influence the tactics you choose, and gauge whether or not your approach is effective.

Ask yourself what you want to achieve. For example, if the results of your NPS survey were disappointing, do you want to see that improve by the end of this project? How are you going to go about that? Does your poor online reputation stem from a genuinely poor customer experience? If so, you’ll need to start by resolving that.

You could well find that you need to add to or adjust your goals as you begin to execute your chosen reputation management tactics, and that’s fine. Don’t be afraid to adjust them as you get to work so that they continue to help you measure the success (or otherwise) of your efforts.

Step 5: Decide on your tactics

Deciding on the tactics you’ll use for reputation management is the final piece of the strategic puzzle. From review generation to social media monitoring, you’ll need to choose the activities that help you meet your reputation goals. 

You might decide to take on some of these tasks yourself or within your team, but it’s also worth remembering that there are online reputation management services available to save you time.  

Reputation management tactics

Deciding on the right tactics can feel tricky, so here are some tried-and-true approaches to consider. 

Google Business Profile monitoring

Consumers naturally turn to Google when they want to find a local business or share their experiences, with 60% of consumers defaulting to Google or Google Maps for local searches. And yet, only 35% of SMBs have a Google Business Profile (GBP).

Claiming and monitoring your Google profile lets you stand out from the competition, collect reviews, and be visible where your customers are already looking.

In addition to the reviews function, GBP has lots of other useful features for online reputation management, such as the option to share news and offers via Posts and respond to questions in the Q&A section.

If you haven’t claimed your GBP listing yet, it’s free to do so. Our guide has step-by-step instructions.

Social media monitoring

Today’s consumers don’t just use social media to catch up with friends; it’s increasingly a place to discover new brands and products, aid in decision making, and connect with local businesses. 

Adding a social media monitoring tool to your reputation management arsenal means you can keep abreast of what’s being said about your local business on social media. Popular options include HubSpot, Hootsuite, Buffer, and Sprout Social.

Monitoring brand mentions on the web

Opinions and comments about your local business aren’t just restricted to review platforms and social media; they can appear anywhere, from local newspapers and trade press to industry forums and blogs.

Keeping tabs on brand mentions online can be largely automated. Simply go to Google and set up a Google Alert for your business name.

It’s also advisable to set up alerts for your own name if you’re closely associated with the business and any brands or products specific to you. If you have the budget, there are a number of dedicated tools available. Brandwatch, Awario, Mention, Meltwater, and Brand24 are good starting points.

Public relations

Reputation management marketing isn’t just about reacting to what people are already saying; it’s also about actively creating positivity around your business. Traditionally, this falls under the umbrella of public relations and generating positive press about your company.

Gone are the days when this meant you had to be well-connected to every editor on Fleet Street. Getting your name in print is entirely achievable for local businesses, though it takes time to build momentum and secure coverage..

With that in mind, you’ll need to incorporate other PR tactics, such as sponsoring local events or organizations and entering local business awards. Both of these are also good ways to build links back to your site from reputable, relevant local sources to help with your local SEO.

HubSpot has a series of free PR templates, along with examples and tips for creating a newsworthy press release to boost the chances of your news getting picked up by journalists.

Crisis management

We’ve all heard the old saying that ‘failing to prepare is preparing to fail’. Crisis management is one area where it really does pay to be prepared. The last thing you want is to find yourself faced with a crisis and have no plan in place for minimizing the damage.

The easiest way to do this is to create a list of the worst-case scenarios you can think of. Divide them into levels of crisis, such as bad, very bad, and the worst, and then outline what to do in each instance.

Crisis management is a big deal, so it’s worth doing your research. Meltwater has a free crisis communications guide, and the Chartered Institute of Public Relations also has a best practice guide.

If you need a little inspiration, take a look at examples of the best-managed PR crises from brands, such as KFC (running out of chicken), Starbucks (reacting to the actions of a racist employee), and Crockpot (ever seen This Is Us?)

Online review management

31% of consumers will only use a business that has 4.5+ stars, making review management essential.

Online review management covers four core areas:

1. Generating reviews
2. Monitoring reviews
3. Responding to reviews
4. Showcasing reviews  

How to generate reviews

When it comes to online reviews, the recency of reviews matters as much as the quantity to consumers and search engine algorithms alike.

The best way to boost your review count is simply to ask for reviews. One easy way to do this is to set up an automated email or SMS that goes to consumers soon after their purchase or visit. Your request should thank the customer for their business and request that they leave a review to share their experience. 

If your favored review platform offers a widget, you can install this small piece of code on your site to display a button inviting visitors to review your business.

Or if you have a physical brick-and-mortar store, you could hand out cards requesting a review with purchases, or have a tablet set up by the exit with your preferred review platform loaded up. This will encourage customers to leave a review right then and there. Tripadvisor and Yelp provide businesses with free stickers to pop in the window so make sure to grab yours.  

How to monitor online reviews

If you don’t have reputation management software, general review sites along with niche review platforms will need to be monitored manually. 

To monitor performance and find out about new reviews, it’s often much easier, quicker, and more effective to use an online reputation management tool like BrightLocal’s Reputation Manager. This is especially true if your business is present on lots of review sites or you’re managing multiple locations.

How to respond to online reviews

Negative reviews can be detrimental to your online reputation if left unanswered. So, you’ll want to reply promptly to address concerns raised and attempt to restore confidence in your business (read our tips for responding to negative reviews for inspiration). 

Replying to reviews can be as simple as creating a few different templates to thank each customer for their feedback. Make sure each response is personalized to reference the reviewer’s name and refer to specific points they raised in their review. As a starting point, try: 

• Thanks so much for your feedback [name of reviewer]. We’re delighted to hear we were able to help! 
• Hi [reviewer name], We’re happy to hear that you enjoyed your visit and look forward to welcoming you back again soon! 
• Hello [reviewer name], It’s great to hear that you enjoyed the [service or product]. Thank you for sharing your feedback! 
• Hi [reviewer name], Thank you for your kind review and detailed feedback. We’re glad to hear you appreciated [insert points from review]. Your comments help us improve, and we hope to see you again soon.

How to showcase online reviews

Because reviews are so important in aiding consumer decision-making, you’ll want to show off your five-star reviews on your own site. This will serve as a conversion optimization tool and provide social proof. 

Some review sites have widgets you can add to your website to show your best reviews. If you’d prefer to use reviews from a range of different review sites or jazz up the design, you’d be better off with a third-party tool like BrightLocal’s Showcase Reviews. 

A final option is to manually add your favorite reviews to your website. However, this process is the least efficient, as you’ll need to regularly set time aside to update the reviews you showcase.

Mastering online reputation and reviews for long-term success

Reputation management builds a positive image for your business, while review management ensures that customer feedback actively supports that image. Reviews are often the first thing people see, making them the foundation of your reputation online.

When combined, these strategies help you highlight positive feedback, respond effectively to criticism, and guide how your brand is perceived. By managing both reputation and reviews together, you can boost visibility, earn trust, and create stronger customer relationships for long-term success.

The benefits of online reviews for local businesses span a number of different areas, but key to their usefulness is that they offer social proof, are used as a reference point for local consumers seeking trustworthy local businesses, and are a known local SEO ranking factor.

Broadly speaking, these advantages can be split into two camps: increased visibility and increased sales.

What are the benefits of online reviews for customers?

Let’s explore the benefits of online reviews, and learn how reviews can be used to drive local business success.

1. Reviews are often used by customers when searching for local businesses

Small businesses are especially well-placed to benefit from positive reviews on sites like Google, Yelp, or Facebook. Our annual research into online review trends finds that 97% of consumers read reviews when looking for local businesses, with 41% saying they use reviews every time.

This means that a strong review profile can help highlight your excellence, especially as consumers will see your reviews when they’re looking at your products or services. If your customers go looking for reviews and there are none to look at (or worse, only bad ones!) they might move on to the next business.

2. Reviews help customers trust businesses

Reviews are a vital tool in establishing trust among customers, which is essential for beating competitors to sales, bookings, or subscriptions. 63% of consumers lose trust in a business after seeing mostly negative reviews—a pretty sizable chunk of your potential new customers. Positive feedback shows that a business delivers on its promises, helping customers feel confident choosing you over competitors even if they haven’t heard of your brand before.

When shopping or researching online there’s no salesperson to question, so online reviews from peers provide valuable information about the company, product, or service. 49% of people trust reviews as much as recommendations from a friend or family member.

Reviews give shoppers confidence when it comes to making a purchase, with average star ratings, volume of reviews, detail offered in reviews, length of reviews, and recency all enhancing confidence levels.

3. Positive reviews win new customers and drive sales

Trusting a review isn’t a passive action and doesn’t happen in isolation. When consumers trust online reviews, they tend to do something next. That action could cover anything from calling the store, visiting the location, buying online, or making a booking.

Think of the relationship between positive reviews and new business as a revenue relationship. The better your review profile, the more revenue you could potentially earn.

Having a range of good reviews gives you a head start in the race to secure business over a competitor. 31% of consumers will only use a business that has 4.5+ stars.

One oft-cited study found that an increase of one star in a restaurant’s Yelp rating increased revenue by 5-9%. While this study is a little out of date, it’s no big leap to assume that the link between online reviews and revenue growth still remains.

4. Reviews give businesses a chance to connect with customers

For many consumers, how you respond to reviews is very telling and can make or break the reputation they’re building of your brand. Businesses that respond to every review are more likely to be used by 80% of consumers.

Responding to reviews gives you a chance to interact with your customers, thank them for their business, learn from their experiences, and express your company culture to potential shoppers. How you handle negative reviews can also be positive as you’re demonstrating that you take customer feedback seriously.

5. Reviews help businesses get better

Online reviews are inherently valuable because they put you in your customer’s shoes. This gives you real-world insights into how your business can better serve those it relies on for survival. While they’re the reviews that all business owners dread, negative reviews can actually be the most useful of all.

If you run a hotel and guest reviews routinely mention ‘slow check-in’, for example, you have a heads-up that your process likely needs fine-tuning to ensure a more positive first impression.

6. Reviews help build your reputation beyond your website

Consumers rarely start their search on your site or at your business location. Instead, they turn to platforms like Google, Yelp, Tripadvisor, Facebook, or Angi to compare local options. And what do these platforms have in common? Reviews for businesses!

Collecting online reviews across these sites helps you reach customers in the discovery phase, not just those who already know your business. These reviews don’t just build credibility for people looking at your listings—they also influence how you rank on many of these platforms.

Once you have a strong review profile, make the most of it in your marketing. Showcase positive reviews on your website as social proof, feature them in email campaigns, and share them on social channels. Don’t wait for potential customers to stumble across your reputation: put it front and center on every channel they use.

7. Reviews impact local SEO rankings

We’ve established that consumers love reviews and, in many cases, use a good or bad review to validate their decision to do business with you. Search engines also take a similar stance.

It should come as no surprise that reviews and SEO are closely linked because they have much the same objective. A search engine wants to help its users find the right product, service, or information in the timeliest manner possible. One of the key benefits of reviews is to help consumers find the best local business for their needs.

Having a strong local SEO presence is non-negotiable if you want to ensure the long-term success of your business, and this is one reason why reviews are important for online visibility.

According to the Local Search Ranking Factors Survey, reviews play an important role in ranking in the local pack in Google search results. Google considers the relevance, distance, and prominence of a business when deciding which listings to show first, with reviews impacting its assessment on prominence.

Having reviews on a number of review platforms, lots of positive sentiment, and having keywords within the text of reviews are all used by search engines when deciding rankings. Sterling Sky also found a significant link between rankings and how recently reviews were gained, even if the business already had a strong review profile.

Google confirms that the star rating and frequency of the reviews your business receives makes a difference to your search position: “High-quality, positive reviews from your customers can improve your business visibility.”

8. Reviews influence AI responses

Reviews are also increasingly shaping the way AI tools like ChatGPT and other large language models provide recommendations for local businesses.

When consumers ask AI-powered tools for recommendations, responses are built on a range of data sources including business listings, reviews, and business’s own websites.

BrightLocal research found that LLMs use reviews from Yelp, Google Business Profile, and other sources to form responses, with Yelp being used as a source in a third of all searches with local intent. This means that having strong, fresh reviews across multiple general and niche platforms increases your chances of being surfaced in AI-driven recommendations.

Appearing in AI results matters for local businesses because it increases visibility to customers who rely on AI tools, potentially driving new leads, calls, or visits. As AI search becomes part of the consumer discovery journey, reviews are more important than ever. They don’t just help humans make decisions; they help machines too.

9. Reviews unlock Google Ads

A strong review profile can also boost your advertising efforts. For Google Ads, you’ll need at least 100 reviews and a minimum 3.5-star rating to activate the shop ratings ad extension.

Star ratings and reviews also have an impact on rankings within Local Services Ads, with businesses with higher star ratings and more reviews booking more jobs, according to Google.

How businesses can improve online reviews

Reviews will happen whether or not you make them a priority for your business. We live in an age where consumers treat online reviews as the norm, rely on them to make purchase decisions, and create an impression of new businesses.

There’s no doubt that consumer expectations are high in this area, and that can be daunting for any local business owner or marketer. You need a constant influx of reviews, a high quantity of reviews, new reviews added daily to compensate for older reviews losing value, and even available resources for responding to reviews.

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If you want a stronger review profile, to improve online reviews and maximize the benefits of online reviews for your business:

1. Deliver memorable service: Going the extra mile encourages glowing feedback that surprises and delights your customers.
2. Ask at the right moment: A friendly follow-up email, text, or thank-you note with a review link to your preferred review sites makes it simple for happy customers to share their experience.
3. Keep reviews fresh: Consistently adding new reviews keeps your business active, trusted, and top-of-mind.
4. Respond with care: Thank customers for positive reviews and show you’re listening by handling negative feedback thoughtfully.
5. Manage reviews with ease: BrightLocal’s Reputation Manager helps you monitor new reviews, respond quickly, get more reviews, and showcase your best customer feedback.

Ultimately, understanding why reviews are important, embracing the benefits of online reviews, and managing reviews for businesses helps you build trust and attract more customers.

As one of the most-used review platforms out there, Yelp is a powerful tool not only for consumers, but increasingly search engines and AI tools to figure out which businesses are top notch. 

In this article, we’ll explore what makes Yelp business reviews special, and how to use them for local business success.

What are Yelp reviews? 

With Yelp, customers post reviews of local businesses that potential customers can see when looking for services like yours. 

Yelp business reviews combine star ratings (1-5 stars), detailed comments, and user-generated photos and videos to help potential customers choose between local businesses. 

It’s designed to be local-first, helping consumers discover the next restaurant, dentist, or car dealer to try and trust. While it specializes in brick and mortar businesses, Yelp also helps mobile businesses and contractors such as plumbers and electricians connect with customers.

Why do Yelp reviews matter?

As we’ve already mentioned, our annual Local Consumer Review Survey shows that Yelp is one of the most popular review platforms for consumers. Data shows that in recent years it’s become the second most popular site for reviews behind Google.

Every day, 2.5 million people visit Yelp looking for local businesses. And with more than 308 million reviews to sift through on the platform, strong Yelp reviews make it easier for potential customers to trust your business.

Yelp reviews can have a big impact on the bottom line. Back in 2011, a Harvard Business School study found that a one-star improvement in restaurants’ Yelp ratings led to a 5-7% increase in revenue. 

Today, Yelp reports that 82% of users go on to hire or buy from a business they found on Yelp within a week of searching. Frankly, leaving your Yelp profile unclaimed and uncared for is leaving money on the table. 

While the exact Yelp algorithm remains a closely guarded secret, a steady stream of high-quality reviews will help your listing get seen by more potential customers. Yelp’s default search focuses on the user’s search terms and distance, as well as the business’s ratings, transactions using Yelp’s tools, user engagement data, and relevant reviews. 

And now, it’s not just your real-life customers who are looking to Yelp for information; it’s AI, too. We found that Yelp is used as a source in a third of LLM searches for local business-related prompts. Not only do LLMs use Yelp to extract business information, but they also pull content from customer reviews to answer queries. Yelp also entered a partnership with Perplexity AI and is used as a source in nearly all of its results.

Put simply, Yelp reviews are a key part of building a strong online presence and attracting new customers.

Claiming Your Business on Yelp

The first step to getting reviews on Yelp is to get your business listed on the website. Before you go ahead and add your business, you should first check if it’s already there by searching for your business.

You can follow our step-by-step on how to add or claim a Yelp listing, but the gist of it is:

• Create a Yelp business account
• Add your information, like business phone number, address, website, and category
• Verify your business, either by phone or email
• Add images and descriptions
• Add additional locations

Then you’re ready to start collecting reviews.

How to Optimize Your Yelp Business Page

Much like your website, your Yelp business page needs careful optimization if you want to maximize results.

A complete, keyword-rich Yelp profile with eye-catching photos and videos helps you get found and gives customers confidence in choosing your business.

The first step in Yelp optimization is to check you have all your information filled out. This includes your business name, address, phone number, website, business categories, and more. Make it simple for customers to reach you and trust your information, because mistakes can cost you leads.

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Much like other business listings, Yelp is open to user-suggested edits. It’s important to regularly review your profile to check that your details stay accurate and consistent across the web. It’s also important to keep everything up to date, which you can do from centralised tools with your other listings.

Tools like BrightLocal’s Active Sync allow you to manage listings, including Yelp. They help you monitor them for unexpected changes, keep track of reviews, and push out your own updates. 

What is a ‘good’ Yelp review? 

So you know you need to get loads of good Yelp reviews for your business… but what does that actually mean? 

In short, a “good” Yelp review is genuine, detailed, and helpful. Reviews that describe specific experiences, mention particular products or services, and include photos or videos are highly likely to be useful to Yelp users. 

The Local Consumer Review Survey shows that customers pay attention to recent reviews, high star ratings, and the overall number of reviews when deciding which local businesses to trust. A business with a steady stream of positive, detailed reviews instantly looks more credible and appealing.

Yelp reviews tend to be longer and more detailed than other review platforms. Research from the FTC found that just 2% of Yelp reviews contained fewer than 100 characters, compared to 50% of Google reviews. For consumers looking for genuine advice, Yelp is often the first port of call. 

When writing a review, Yelp users are guided using Interactive Review Topics that suggest areas to cover. Once these are included, you get a satisfying green tick. 

Yelp has its own criteria when choosing which reviews to highlight. Reviews are categorized as Recommended or Not Recommended, with the latter tucked behind a link. Some of this is due to Yelp’s big position on non-incentivized reviews (more on this below), but unfavorable or incomplete reviews can also be filtered if Yelp doesn’t know enough about the reviewer.

Like all review sites, fake Yelp reviews can be a challenge, but Yelp has measures in place to combat these. 

Yelp-specific review features 

Yelp business reviews are more than just 5 stars and a couple of words. Yelp continually enhances its platform to provide users with richer, more engaging ways to share and discover experiences. Check out some key Yelp review features:

Video and image reviews

Visual content is powerful. Users can upload photos and short videos to Yelp reviews to showcase their experience and help potential customers know what to expect.

Community-generated information

With Yelp, it’s not just reviews you need to keep a close eye on. There are plenty of opportunities for the community to share information and get questions answered by others. If you’re not monitoring these, misinformation could easily sneak in. 

Review Insights

Yelp launched AI-powered “Review Insights” for restaurant, food, and nightlife businesses in December 2024. This feature summarizes customer sentiments using intuitive icons, helping users quickly grasp the overall sentiment of reviews. This feature isn’t widespread yet, but could be one to watch for the future. 

Review Contributor Badges

Yelp’s Recognitions program awards badges to active reviewers who contribute valuable content. Similar to Google Local Guides, these badges highlight top contributors and encourage quality reviews across various categories. The Yelp Elite Squad launched in 2025 to highlight the most prominent reviewers, with perks and exclusive events. 

Advertiser perks

For businesses with the budget to boost visibility, Yelp offers advertising and profile-enhancing features, including:

• Yelp Ads: Promote your listing in search results and competitor pages
• Request a Quote: Let customers contact you directly–super useful for service area businesses! 
• Yelp Guaranteed: A money-back guarantee for customers using eligible services
• Verified License: Showcase your credentials by showing Yelp has checked your license is legit
• Portfolio: Display your best work and projects
• Business Highlights: Emphasize the key offerings and features that make your business stand out 

Promoted listings put your business in front of more people, but you’ll need a strong review profile so those extra eyes see you as a business worth choosing.

By leveraging Yelp’s features, businesses make it easier for potential customers to find and trust them. Yelp is constantly evolving to improve the experience for both customers and local businesses, so it’s important to stay up-to-date with the platform’s latest features.

How to get more Yelp reviews

We are often asked how to get more reviews. In many cases, the answer is simply, “Just ask.” 

But when it comes to asking for Yelp reviews? This is not the case. 

Yelp has very strict guidelines on review solicitation. Yelp believes that asking for reviews can lead to biased ratings, as some businesses only ask happy customers for reviews (also known as review gating). They say:

“It shouldn’t be about who has the time and resources to ask the most people to write reviews. Great Yelp reviews and ratings should come from consumers who had a great experience that they’re inspired to tell others about.”

But that’s not to say your Yelp listing should be a secret from your customers. Make it simple to find your Yelp profile, linking it on your website, in emails, social channels, and even in-store. Businesses in the US and Canada can request a Find Us On Yelp sticker to pop in their window or at the front desk to spark customers to leave a genuine review.   

The best way to get good reviews is to deliver exceptional customer experiences that naturally motivate reviews, but of course, that’s far easier said than done! 

Responding to reviews on Yelp

You should always be responding to the reviews you receive, both positive and negative. 

When you get a negative review, your response says a lot about your business. If you’re defensive or quick to anger, it’s going to make you and your business look bad. But apologizing for the bad experience and publicly attempting to make it right can go a long way in the eyes of review readers.

If people see that you’re happy to respond to reviews, they’re more likely to leave them. 

Reputation management software can help you stay on top of your reviews, so you can action feedback and respond as soon as possible. 

Using your Yelp reviews

Getting reviews is only half the battle, and where many businesses stop. But we believe the real value comes from how you use these to make a better business. 

Reviews can have a huge impact on future customers, so why not make sure your best reviews are seen beyond those looking at your Yelp listing? Highlight glowing reviews on your website, social channels, emails, and print materials to build trust with potential customers. You can easily and professionally display your best feedback with Showcase Reviews, part of the BrightLocal Reputation Management offering.

But don’t just stop at promotion. Every review is also a window into what your customers think. Keep an open mind to complaints or common suggestions: these could highlight areas where you can improve. Keep an eye on competitors’ reviews too. If their customers rave about something you don’t offer, consider whether it’s worth adding to your own services.

In short, stop seeing Yelp reviews as testimonials of your past work. They’re opportunities to grow in the future.

Yelp and you

Yelp remains one of the most important review platforms, especially for businesses in the US and Canada. It continues to shape customer decisions and is increasingly used to feed AI tools with valuable insights. 

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Keeping your profile up-to-date and engaging with your customers on Yelp ensures you remain visible and trusted by potential customers. 

Data confirms that consumers overwhelmingly turn to Facebook to research products and services more than any other platform. In fact, 51% of consumers say they use Facebook most for that purpose, with just 30% preferring YouTube instead. 

Source: Lucid Software

Why do Facebook Recommendations matter?

Facebook Recommendations provide a simple way for potential customers to judge whether a local business could be a good fit for them. As with other review platforms, Recommendations on Facebook allow consumers to share their experiences of local businesses with their peers. This is something that many local consumers value as a key part of their decision-making process when choosing a local business. 

The latest Consumer Review Survey confirms that more consumers are reading online reviews than ever before, with 97% reading reviews when researching a local business. 

While this is a powerful statistic in its own right, it becomes even more compelling when combined with the fact that local consumers turn to Facebook more than any other social network for business and product information. These two behaviors clearly illustrate the potential power of a positive review profile on Facebook.

Over the last four years, Facebook has made Recommendations more important for Pages and made them a more prominent feature. It’s made it even more essential to claim your Facebook Page.

One of the interesting things about this new emphasis on Recommendations, is that social media is primarily a peer-to-peer space. This lends itself perfectly to reviews and the influence of reviews on Facebook, especially given how many people put as much trust in online reviews as they do personal recommendations. As a local business, knowing how to get Recommendations on Facebook can allow you to tap into the benefits on both sides of that coin. 

How do Facebook Recommendations work?

Previously known as reviews, there are two types of Recommendations on Facebook. The first is where users can take to their feed and ask for someone to recommend a product or service (such as a local handyman, date venue, or removal service). Other Facebook users can then respond with suggestions of local solutions that fit the bill. 

The second type is where Facebook asks if a consumer recommends a business that they’ve used, with the local consumer able to select simply yes or no. 

After making their choice, there’s the option to provide a more detailed text-based review, giving more context to the feedback. 

The Page visitor will see a points-based score out of five. 

Reviews gathered prior to the switch to Recommendations will still be displayed on the reviews tab, but it doesn’t appear that the additional information offered by reviewers choosing from the ‘yes’ or ‘no’ options is currently published. Facebook is in the process of making changes to how its review system works, so this may change and we’ll update this information to reflect any new developments as they happen. 

How do I find Recommendations on Facebook?

Locating your Recommendations on Facebook is easy. Simply log into your Facebook account, pull up your Facebook Page, and look for the ‘reviews’ tab along the top of your screen (just below your cover image). 

How to Get Recommendations on Facebook 

Growing your positive Recommendations on Facebook isn’t as daunting as you might think. 

Check That Your Reviews Tab Is Enabled

The very first thing to do before devising a strategy for requesting Recommendations on Facebook, is to ensure that you’ve enabled the reviews tab. If you’ve previously received reviews, Recommendations will also be enabled unless you’ve turned them off. 

To check, you’ll need to log into Facebook and have your Page open. You’ll see a ‘Manage Page’ menu on the left side of your screen. Scroll down to the ‘Settings’ option. 

Next, click ‘Template and Tabs.’ 

Now you can turn reviews on or off with the toggle. 

Devise Your Review Request Strategy 

If you’re already in the habit of requesting reviews for other platforms, such as Google Business Profile (formerly known as Google My Business), you can use many of those same techniques to get more reviews on Facebook. 

• Email: You may already be sending out emails to customers after you’ve successfully delivered the purchased product or service. Your email review request template can easily be adapted to include Facebook as an option for those who are happy to leave a review of your business. Include a link to your Facebook Page and a brief outline of how to locate the reviews tab. 
  
• SMS: SMS is a tried-and-tested method of growing your review profile and can work just as well for Facebook as other mediums. Just be sure to include your Facebook Page link in your SMS review request to get the full benefit of the incredibly high SMS open rates.

• Share a post on your Page: If you already have a respectable follower count on Facebook (or other social networks) share posts on a regular basis inviting your followers to leave a review. The standard rules of requesting a review apply here — be polite, thank your followers for their time, keep your message brief, and provide clear instructions for how to do so. Given the creative freedom you have on social media, you could even include a video or graphic with your post to demonstrate how to leave a review.

Requesting reviews on social media, finding reviews and feedback, and sharing those reviews with your social audiences isn’t quite as straightforward as you may expect. The reason? Many social reviews take the form of user-generated content rather than formal star ratings or recommendations.

Mastering this aspect of your reputation management can yield rich rewards, thanks to social media’s increasingly important role in the decision-making process.

Handling user reviews on social platforms works a little differently than your standard review management. So we’re going to give you tips to get back to basics.

What are Social Media Reviews?

In its simplest form, a social media review is feedback given about a particular business, product, or service posted on a social media platform.

However, that isn’t quite the full picture. One of the challenging characteristics of social media reviews for local business owners is the wide range of formats this feedback can take.

Some sites have a specific review option where users can rate or recommend a business or local service provider. One familiar example of this is the Facebook Reviews and Recommendations tab on Business Pages. Other popular sites, such as Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, and LinkedIn don’t offer this clear review functionality.

That doesn’t mean that users don’t share reviews via their favorite social channels. Instead, it means reviews are shared in the formats they do have available to them. This could include detailing their experiences in a comment, sharing multimedia such as images or tagging local business profiles. 

How do reviews on social media differ from reviews on traditional review sites?

If you’ve been handling review management for any period of time, you’ll be familiar with how traditional review sites work and how to ask for reviews in a traditional manner. There’s a set structure and format which often takes the form of a star rating plus comment system. That’s not the case when dealing with many reviews on social media.

Only a very small number of the major social media networks have formal review structures in place (Facebook and YouTube which has a thumbs up/thumbs down system are the two notable exceptions). 

Due to this lack of infrastructure, most consumers share reviews in the same way they share their regular content on social media. That means reviews may take the form of comments, status updates, or tags.

The result is consumer feedback on local businesses that’s not always clearly marked as a review. This makes life difficult for local businesses asking for reviews on social media or seeking out consumer feedback which their clients are organically leaving independently across their preferred social networks.

You may find reviews for local businesses shared as:

• A status update posted on an individual consumer’s own profile or feed
• A comment left on a third-party post (such as a post by a friend asking a question or requesting recommendations from their network)
• A comment or reply left in response to an update from the business itself on their official page
• A picture or gallery of pictures, in a feed or as a temporary story
• A video
• A tag
• A retweet or reshare
• A thumbs up or down or star rating on a network which enables more traditional reviews
•  In the form of a direct message to the business via one of their official social profiles

That’s a lot, and often people won’t even tag you, so you could miss valuable information or feedback.

How do you find social media reviews?

Social media reviews can be particularly powerful. That’s because globally, online consumers spend 2.28 hours per day on social media.

Finding inspiration for things like products and services is among the top 10 reasons consumers spend so much time each day scrolling their social feeds. Pinterest, for example, is used by people to find ideas they particularly like the look of, including travel itineraries, local restaurants, or ways to improve their homes. Likewise, finding similar information is the second most common reason Instagram users log on. It’s a similar story on LinkedIn, Reddit, and Twitter.

Local business owners simply can’t afford not to know what their customers are saying about them socially.

The bad news is finding social media reviews isn’t as straightforward as monitoring traditional review platforms. Predominantly taking the form of user-generated content (UGC), sniffing out reviews across the social media ecosystem requires some manual research and a platform-specific approach in certain cases.

So let’s have a look at how to do it across different social platforms.

Finding reviews on Facebook

Finding reviews on Facebook is more straightforward than on many other social networks thanks to the star rating and recommendations system. If you’re already in the habit of asking for reviews on social media, you may already have a series of ratings and recommendations stored up. Finding them is easy. Just go to the Reviews tab at the top of your Page. You’ll see an overall star rating and then comments left by consumers who have opted to add a comment alongside their recommendation.

It’s important to keep in mind that not all consumers will leave a comment when recommending your business. Some may offer feedback and reviews on your main page rather than via the Reviews tab. There are a couple of ways this can be done.

A local consumer could comment on a recent post you shared and provide feedback about their experience, for example. You should already be regularly reading and responding to comments left by followers on your Page. If not, you’ll need to get into the habit of reviewing comments so you can pull out any review content.

A second way that a Facebook user may review your business would be to write a post on their own profile and tag your business Page. When your Page is tagged in a post, you’ll see an alert appear on the Notifications bell. Review these regularly so you don’t miss any reviews.

Many people may share a photo on their own feed and write something without tagging your business. Unfortunately, these can be nearly impossible to find. You may be able to come across them with some searches, but it may not be worth the time and effort.

Finding reviews on Instagram

Unlike Facebook, Instagram doesn’t have a formal review or ratings system for local businesses. That means you’re most likely to find customer feedback in the form of comments on your posts, tags in Stories or Reels, via direct message, or as comments made during live streams.

Instagram users also have the option of posting images, videos or captions to their own page and then tagging your business. When your profile is tagged, you’ll receive a notification via the alert icon.

Instagram content discovery is heavily dependent on hashtags. Some users may not @tag your profile when sharing their experiences of your local business but will use your brand name as a hashtag. You can manually search for brand-related hashtags using the search bar within the Instagram app. 

In some instances, if users have uploaded a Story or post about your business, they may tag the location instead of the Instagram account. These physical locations won’t be connected to your account and you won’t receive a notification.

You can, however, still view all the posts from a location tag by searching your business name in the search bar and clicking on the pin. You’ll then be able to select a particular location from the list and view all the media uploaded that tagged that location.

Finding reviews on TikTok

Similar to Instagram, the process of finding reviews made on TikTok requires some research.

With no formalized review or ratings system (though the testing of one has been rumored), you’re left to find customer feedback in the form of comments on your posts (including any livestreams you may do), videos tagged with your location, and mentions/tags of your business account in video captions. You should be notified of any tags of your business, so keep an eye on your notifications. 

Like Instagram, TikTok has a certain reliance on hashtags. It’s worthwhile to take the time to check the hashtags related to your brand. You will have to search this manually in the app as there’s no way to follow hashtags. 

However, you can add a hashtag to your favorites, which can then be accessed by going to the saved icon on your profile and scrolling to the far right to hashtags, creating a shortcut to all the hashtags you may want to keep an eye on. 

Finding reviews on Twitter

Posting reviews on social media isn’t always straightforward for consumers, who’ll often find there is no formal mechanism for sharing their feedback with local businesses. Twitter is one of those platforms.

With no structured public rating and review system in place, you’ll instead need to monitor the platform for Tweets that mention or tag your business. Typing your business name into the search box enables you to see posts, photos, or images which talk about your business, even when the original poster hasn’t tagged your profile. 

Finding reviews on Pinterest

Pinterest is a top destination for local consumers in search of products and services. That means it’s an important one to consider when searching for reviews on social media.

You’ll need to manually search for comments and imagery about your business on Pinterest as there’s no means of tagging other profiles or pages. Once you’ve entered your business name as the search term, you’ll need to click on each image to view any associated comments. From here, you can also click through to any linked third-party content such as blog posts or magazine articles for additional context.

General tips for finding reviews on social media

Don’t forget that users can send direct messages via social media. These can be a treasure trove of review content, especially if your clients prefer social channels for customer service.

Get into the habit of checking your notifications and alerts regularly for each of your social profiles. This will ensure you don’t miss new comments, DMs, posts to your pages, or tags.

If you find monitoring your social media profiles manually is too overwhelming or time-consuming, a social media marketing tool such as Hootsuite or Sprout Social can be used to automate the task. Our top social media tools resource is a great starting point. 

Tips for Responding to Reviews on Social Media

Because social media is a popular source of product discovery and business information, reviews on social media can be particularly helpful for local consumers. Research suggests that recommendations and product reviews are incredibly impactful and can turn browsers into buyers.

Your own responses to those reviews can add additional value and help to turn a negative review into a more positive customer experience.

With 97% of consumers in total reading online reviews for local businesses, feedback shared via social networks is something you can’t afford to ignore.

Knowing how to respond to online reviews is a core skill for any local business owner. Luckily, many of the tips you’re already familiar with as a result of your existing review management strategy are transferable to social media.

1. Respond as promptly as you can

Speed matters when responding to reviews. A fast response clearly demonstrates that consumer feedback is important to your business and something that you value.

Responses that take days or weeks to materialize signal to the original reviewer (and anyone reading the review later) that the customer experience isn’t a priority for your business. To speed up your response timeframe, try one of our handy review response templates.

2. Personalize your response

A personalized response shows that you have taken the feedback on board and appreciate the effort made by that local consumer.

Use the poster’s name or social media handle where possible and try to reference some aspect of their review in your reply. This shows both the original reviewer and other readers that you’ve taken time to digest the feedback and value your clients. 

3. Be authentic

Your review responses should read as if they came from a person, are genuine, and are authentic. If necessary, edit your review response template so the content is more in line with your own brand identity and tone of voice.

4. Recognize that engagement is key to social media success

Engagement and interaction matter to social media users. More and more, today’s consumers expect to receive a response when reaching out to brands via their social channels. 18% of US consumers say they expect a brand to respond to a comment within an hour while 76% expect engagement from that business within 24 hours. Taking the time to like, share and respond to comments, both good and bad, can help your business to meet consumer expectations and forge stronger connections with prospects.  

5. Have a plan to deal with negative reviews

There’s no getting away from the fact that sooner or later, you’ll have to respond to negative reviews.

Having a plan in place to deal with those reviews can make the experience less stressful and anxiety-inducing while also ensuring that you remain professional, polite, and offer a productive response.

When dealing with negative reviews, it’s even more important that you acknowledge the review quickly. Begin by thanking the customer for their feedback, apologize for their experience, and where possible, outline a suggested course of action to resolve the issue.

Those leaving a negative review may be tempted to continue the conversation in the public domain. Don’t be afraid to take the conversation offline after your initial response by inviting the reviewer to get in touch via phone, email, or direct message. Be sure to share the appropriate customer service telephone number or contact information to demonstrate your willingness to speak further in a more private setting.

Generating Reviews on Social Media

If you know how to ask for reviews on social media, you can gather valuable comments and opinions about your business from a range of new sources. What’s more, generating reviews socially means your Facebook, Instagram, and other social platforms can begin to play a direct role in conversions.

Develop platform-specific posts

An easy way to begin requesting reviews on social media is to develop a few platform-specific posts inviting your customers to share their experiences in the comments.

Image requirements, caption lengths, and the use of hashtags can vary considerably from platform to platform. It’s always advisable to tailor your review request post to suit each network’s recommended dimensions and format to get the best possible response.  

With your chosen platform’s guidelines in hand, you’ll need to select an eye-catching image and create a clear caption inviting previous customers to share their feedback. Don’t forget to add relevant hashtags where appropriate. To make life easier, you could also request that your audience uses a specific hashtag in their review – this will help you find those comments later if your page isn’t tagged.

On Facebook, provide instructions for locating the Reviews tab at the top of the page. For other social media networks, you’ll need to ask for replies to be left in the comments or for users to tag you in their feedback posts.

If you’re a Twitter for Business user, you can request feedback from consumers directly after they interact with you via a Customer Feedback prompt. 

Experiment with formats 

The nice thing about asking for reviews on social media is that you have plenty of scope to be creative. In addition to standard in-feed posts, consider what other post formats your chosen network offers. 

On Instagram, try sharing your review requests as a Story or creating a Reel. On Facebook, you could create an image carousel of previous reviews and invite your Page fans to share their own experiences. For LinkedIn, you may want to keep things more professional and share a link to a feedback form or invite your followers to share their thoughts in the comments below.

Send an email or SMS

Most consumers are happy to leave a review when asked to do so. The issue is that not all businesses know how to ask for reviews. This prevents them from following up with their clients after a store visit or purchase to request feedback.

28% of local consumers say that they would ‘always’ leave a review for a local business if they received an email or SMS request.  Try these tips for using email to request reviews and this advice for sending review requests via SMS.  

Don’t offer incentives for reviews

Don’t be tempted to offer incentives for reviews, such as discount codes, free samples, or competition entries. Incentivized reviews can be looked on unfavorably by local consumers, who may suspect whether a review is genuine or has been created for financial benefit.

Read more: Review Gating and Risky Review Schemes to Avoid

How to Showcase Your Reviews on Social Media

For over 15 years, we’ve been tracking whether consumers trust reviews as much as personal recommendations. While trust in reviews has fluctuated over time, it still sits at a significant 49% today. That means nearly half of consumers place as much trust in the views of strangers online as they do in the people they know, underlining just how influential reviews remain in the decision-making process. It makes sense then, to showcase your best reviews as much as possible across your social media channels. You can showcase all your reviews on social media, not just those originating on Facebook, Instagram, and similar.

Share to your Stories

You can share a stream of your best new reviews in real-time via Stories (available on both Instagram and Facebook). You can either take screenshots of the review, clip the review box, or use a tool such as Canva to create a custom graphic. Sharing via Stories means that your post will only be visible for a temporary period, so you’ll need to combine this method with other options. The benefit of sharing to Stories is that this content format has higher levels of engagement and interaction.

Create a Highlight

Create a Highlight spot on your Instagram feed dedicated to reviews. Each time you’ve shared a new review to Stories, just click to add it to your Highlight. Over time, you’ll build up a store of reviews, easily accessible in one location directly from your profile.

Upload a carousel post

Many social media platforms allow you to upload multiple images and videos as a single post. Viewers can then cycle through your slides, without having to scroll through multiple different posts. With research showing that these carousel-style posts tend to generate more engagement and reach than a single image, this can be an effective way to draw attention to your most glowing reviews.

Repost and reshare

Research has found that 85% of people consider user-generated content to be more influential than content created by brands directly. That makes positive images, posts, and experiences shared by consumers inherently valuable on social media.

When you come across images, videos, comments, and posts from consumers, you can repost and reshare that UGC to your own feed. This is easy to do on most platforms and allows you to fill up your content calendar without having to create new posts yourself. 

Pin to the top of your feed

When posting customer reviews on social media, you may find they quickly slip down the feed as new content is shared. You can ensure that your most valuable reviews remain at the top and highly visible by pinning them. Several platforms offer this feature, including Instagram and Twitter. Once pinned, that post will stay at the very top of the feed until unpinned.