Reviews on both Google and Facebook are great for business owners. Each platform provides great digital marketing potential. Focusing on Google reviews will help you:
- Improve your ranking on the world’s most popular search engine
- Manage how feedback is shown
Reviews on Facebook will help you:
- Become visible on the biggest social media platform
- Engage in direct conversation with customers
If you are a business owner looking to improve your online marketing strategy, review platforms are among the most valuable tools you can use. Google is the most popular, with nearly 67% of consumers checking reviews here before making a decision.
In the final quarter of 2019, Facebook was accessed by 1.66 billion people per day, rendering it a massive audience base.
Both of these platforms can help to make your information accessible to a significant pool of people, allowing you to improve both your global and local SEO.
However, when it comes to Google vs Facebook reviews, which are the most beneficial for both large and small businesses?
Why Google?
Improve your ranking on the world’s most popular search engine
This search engine far surpasses any other on the planet in terms of popularity. It processes approximately 40,000 queries and search results per second.
It’s almost certain that anyone seeking your company’s products or services will be doing so using Google. For this reason, it’s vital that your business page is displayed as effectively as possible within the results.
Google reviews can help you to do this. For example, if your customers regularly submit online reviews via this platform, they count as fresh content related to your company. This reveals that there is current interest in you as a business, so you’ll rank higher.
Manage how feedback is shown
One of the great things about Google reviews is that they can be easily managed through the free Google My Business tool. Once you’ve signed up, you can update and optimise your company’s snippet description, manage its location on Google Maps and display reviews.
With great feedback and star ratings visible the moment you appear in the search results, customers will be instantly more likely to trust you. This is because third-party reviews of this kind act as a kind of “social proof”, whereby existing users can influence potential customers.
Become visible on the biggest social media platform
Facebook remains the most popular social site in existence, currently tipping the scales at 238 billion users. Most people use the platform for recreation, so your company’s reviews can be easily shared and discovered by users going about their daily online business.
Effectively, by creating a Facebook Business page, your online marketing approaches can infiltrate the day to day lives of social media users.
It’s easy to ask for recommendations on Facebook.Users regularly share the Facebook Business accounts of companies across their collection of friends in response to requests for a certain product or service.
The more this happens with your business, the more likely distantly connected users are likely to come across your details in their own feed – even if they weren’t originally looking for you.
Engage in direct conversation with customers
Unlike posting a Yelp review or seeking out any other third party site dedicated to consumer feedback, Facebook is a platform that is used for engaging in a casual, social manner.
As thanks to its social, relaxed nature, Facebook Business is a great place to respond to customer feedback and start a conversation.
Negative reviews can be handled in a straightforward manner by responding quickly, acknowledging and apologising for the problem and expertly diffusing the situation. Suggestions made by customers can be welcomed with enthusiasm and gratitude.
All of this happens in the very public arena of Facebook, helping you to significantly improve your credibility and customer relations and persuading potential clients that you care about their individual experiences with you.
Whether you are a local business or an international corporation, the more online review platforms you use, the more good feedback you can share on your company’s website. You can do this with both Google and Facebook responses.
It’s a great idea to collect reviews for this purpose, as this means the content on your site can be updated regularly and you will be more likely to climb a little further up the search engine results each time.
Ultimately, Google is a vital tool for any company wishing to perform well in terms of search, but Facebook offers a means of engaging with the customer on a more personal level.
To make the most of these online marketing opportunities, the next step is to create both a Facebook Business and a Google My Business account and start encouraging feedback from your clients on both platforms!