The social giant wants to tweak it content

May 27, 2015 07:17 GMT  ·  By

Yelp has been struggling, and Facebook can and will take advantage of the opportunity and start pushing critics’ reviews of restaurants in its users’ news feeds.

The time when Facebook was a mere social networking site where people logged in to interact with their virtual friends is long gone.

Earlier this month, the company announced its partnership with media outlets like The New York Times or Buzzfeed to publish instant articles in the feed so that users would not have to go to external pages to read the content.

In an attempt to diversify the editorial content published on the site, Facebook will now help people who are having doubts about what restaurant to choose and could use some advice from professionals. And by professionals, I mean those people who are paid to eat and have the right to be squeamish and picky about the dishes they get for free.

A specialist's advice is always welcome

Since regular customers’s reviews can often be misleading, as some of them tend to be quite subjective, new clients could use an impersonal opinion from an experienced eater.

What’s more, a Facebook spokesperson confirmed to Casey Newton from The Verge that they will include negative reviews as well given that the latest feature, is meant to help users make the right decision based on factual information, not necessarily promote a particular restaurant to detriment of another.

They also added that they have already rolled out the feature to thousands of restaurants.

The social media giant is intent on increasing its users’ engagement on the site. However, unlike the recently launched Instant Articles, users will have to click on the link appearing on the screen, and they will be taken to the review.

They are still experimenting with the integrated reviews so there might be some changes on the way. It will also be interesting to see if restaurants are ok with the idea of having sharp commenters influence their customers.