Facebook Professional Services finder is the network’s latest attempt to organize, categorize, and rank the best local businesses in your area. While that’s good news for Facebook users, it could be game-changing news for some local business owners, Yelp, and Google reviews.
Basically, local businesses with the best Facebook reviews and ratings (amongst other speculated factors) will rank higher when a user performs a search using their new Professional Services finder.
This week’s #SocialMediaMinute will cover how to use Facebook Professional Services to find local businesses.
Keep in mind, while this is obviously important for acquiring new local customers, this new search feature could also be used by people looking to visit your city or town.
Learn more by watching the short tutorial video below.
Video Tutorial
How to Use Facebook Professional Services
To search for local businesses with the best Facebook reviews and ratings, navigate to https://www.facebook.com/services/ .
From here, you’ll have the ability to input your search if you already know what you’re looking for and Facebook should automatically recognize the location you’re searching from.
You can also scroll down to see the most popular business or organization categories. Businesses in the categories listed below should really pay attention to this update:
- Plumber
- Spa, Beauty & Personal Care
- Event Planning
- Pet Services
- Medical and Heath
- Arts & Marketing
- Automotive
- Business Services
Finally, below the showcased categories you’ll see a complete list of all local business categories you can choose from.
Now once you’ve performed a search or clicked-though a listed category, Facebook will populate a list of local businesses in your area with the highest ratings or reviews (amongst other factors), an interactive map, and each listings latest review including reviews from your friends.
Other Possible Ranking Factors
This new search feature was quietly rolled out in December 2015 and Facebook hasn’t mentioned other factors that may increase your Facebook Professional Services search ranking. Here’s a few of my ideas:
- Proximity to your location
- Engagement rate
- Amount of fans
- How complete business information is
- Facebook page message response time
- Amount of reviews from your friends
- Competition in area
Takeaway
Facebook has a load of review and ranking data compiled since Pages were first launched and I’m sure they’d love if members began using their search feature when shopping as opposed to other search engines, Google reviews or Yelp.
So it’s a good time to make sure your Pages’s category, phone number and business address are correct. Also don’t be afraid to solicit and take reviews seriously.
I’d also suggest verifying your local business page with a grey check mark and proactive marketers should also consider requesting a Facebook bluetooth beacon to install at their location.
How does your local business Page rank on Facebook? What other factors do you think will determine rankings? Let me know in the comments below and make sure to come back next week for more social media tutorials.
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