The Social Reviews widget puts customer reviews on an Elementor page. It can pull them from a Facebook Page or a Google business listing, or you can type them in by hand with the Manual source.
It can show them as a wall of review cards or as a compact Badge that summarises the rating. This page walks through every section of the panel.
Requirement – This widget is a part of The Plus Addons for Elementor Pro, make sure it’s installed & activated to enjoy all its powers.
Before You Start
- Edition: Pro — Social Reviews ships only in The Plus Addons for Elementor Pro. The widget does not exist in the free plugin at all: no widget file, no CSS and no JavaScript, so there is nothing to fall back to.
- Prerequisite: Elementor (free) installed and active.
- Widget to enable: go to The Plus Addons > Widgets, search for Social Reviews and turn its toggle on.
- No account needed: the Manual source needs no token, no key and no login. It is the one source you can use straight away.
- Prerequisite: your server must be able to make outbound HTTPS requests. Facebook and Google are called server-side while the page renders, not by the visitor’s browser.
Watch it in action
Content > Content
This is where you choose what the widget is and how it is laid out.
| Setting | What it does | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Type | Reviews shows individual review cards. Badge shows one compact summary block instead. Almost every other section in the panel depends on this. | Reviews |
| Style | Three picture choices with no text under them. Style-1 puts the name and stars at the top, then the review, then the source logo and date. Style-2 leads with the review text and drops the name below it. Style-3 leads with the stars and shows no source logo at all. | Style-1 |
| Style layout | Only appears when Style is Style-2. Two variants, labelled layout-1 and layout-2 in lower case. | layout-1 |
| Layout | Grid, Masonry or Carousel. See the note below — Carousel switches three whole sections off. | Grid |
| Social Reviews | The repeater. One item per source. Add as many as you like. | one item |
The Social Reviews repeater
Open an item and the first thing you choose is its Source. Everything below changes to match.
| Field | Shown when | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Source | always | Facebook, Google or Manual. |
| Access Token | Source is not Manual | The Facebook access token, or the Google Places API key. Facebook rows also get a Generate Access Token button. |
| Page/Place ID | Facebook or Google | The Facebook Page id, or the Google Place ID of the location. |
| Result Type | Default, Negative or Positive. | |
| Language | Which language to ask Google for. Default en. | |
| User Profile Image, Username, Review Message, Date, Rating Value (1-5) | Manual | The review itself, typed in by hand. |
| Platform | Manual | Which logo and wording the card carries: Facebook, Google or Manual. Choosing Manual reveals Platform Name and Platform Logo so you can supply your own. |
| Rating Icon | always | The icon used for the rating. A star by default. |
| Category (For Filter) | always | A label for this row, used by the category filter. The placeholder suggests e.g. Category1, Category2. |
| Max Results | Type is Reviews | How many reviews this row contributes. Default 6. |
Content > Review Option
Only shown when Type is Reviews.
| Setting | What it does | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Negative Review Stars | Re-rates a one-star Facebook review as 1, 2, 3 or 4 stars. | 1 |
| Display Id & Exclude | Prints each review’s id next to it inside the Elementor editor, so you can copy one. Nothing is printed on the published page. | off |
| Exclude Post Ids | Ids to leave out, comma separated. Only shown when the toggle above is on. | empty |
Content > Badge Options
Only shown when Type is Badge. A badge is one block that summarises the rating instead of listing reviews.
| Setting | What it does | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Postfix Content | Text after the badge figure. | Recommended By |
| Prefix Content | Text before it. Style-1 only. | People |
| Show Recommended | Shows the recommendation line. | on |
| Prefix Content Text | The question above the buttons. | Would You Recommend |
| (Single | Multiple) Button | Shows the recommendation buttons. | on |
| First Button / Second Button | Their labels. | YES / NO |
| Show Icon | Shows the source icon on the badge. | on |
Content > Columns Manage
How many review cards sit side by side. Hidden in the Carousel layout, which has its own column settings.
| Setting | Default label | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Desktop Column | Column 4 | four cards across |
| Tablet Column | Column 3 | three across |
| Mobile Column | Column 2 | two across |
| Columns Gap/Space Between | 15 px on all four sides | px, % or em |
The dropdown labels do not match the numbers stored behind them. Choose by the label you can see — Column 4 really does give you four columns.
Content > Filter Option
Turns the values you typed into Category (For Filter) into a row of filter buttons above the reviews. Hidden in the Carousel layout.
| Setting | What it does | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Category Wise Filter | Switches the filter row on. | off |
| All Filter Category Text | Label of the button that shows everything. | All |
| Category Filter Style | Preset look for the buttons. | style-1 |
| Filter Hover Style | Preset hover effect. | style-1 |
| Filter Alignment | Left, Center or Right. | Center |
Content > Load More/Lazy Load
Shows only part of the wall at first. Please read the limitation below before you use this section.
| Setting | What it does | Default |
|---|---|---|
| More Post Loading | Select Options (off), Load More or Lazy Load. | Select Options |
| Maximum Posts Display | How many show before the button. 1 to 200. | 8 |
| More Posts On Click/Scroll | How many each click adds. 1 to 30. | 4 |
| Button Text | The button’s label. | Load More |
| Loading Text | Shown while it works. | Loading… |
| All Posts Loaded Text | Shown when nothing is left. | All done! |
Content > Extra Options
| Setting | What it does | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Refresh Time | How long a fetched result is cached. 1 hour, 2 hour, 6 hour, 1 day, 1 Week — the plugin’s own spellings. | 1 day |
| Text Limit | Truncates long reviews. | on |
| Limit On | Character or Word. | Character |
| Limit Count | The cut-off. 1 to 2000. | 100 |
| More Text / Less Text | The expand and collapse links. | Show More / Show Less |
| Display Dots | Adds an ellipsis at the cut. | on |
| Content Scrolling Bar | Gives each card a fixed height with its own scrollbar instead of truncating. | off |
Content > Performance
Performance (off by default) stores the fetched reviews so the page does not call Facebook or Google on every visit. Save Data (Enable or Disable, default Disable) controls whether that store is kept in the database. There is also a control for clearing it again.
Style tab
Universal styles every card at once. Facebook, Google and Manual style each source separately. Show More Text, Scroll Text, Load More/Lazy Load, Filter Category, Main Area and Sub Area cover the rest. Carousel appears only in the Carousel layout.
How It Behaves
- Grid and Masonry are the same markup with a different packing rule. Six manual reviews at Column 4 came out three per row in Grid; Masonry packed the same six by height.
- A carousel shows several cards at once and autoplays. With six reviews it rendered four cards side by side, six dots underneath, and had already moved on by itself when the screenshot was taken.
- Each repeater row is fetched on its own. One source failing leaves the others alone — it just adds its own error card to the wall.
- It works at phone width. The same six cards rendered one per row in a 390 px viewport.
Limitations
- Load More and Lazy Load do not currently load anything. On a published page with six manual reviews, Maximum Posts Display at 3 and More Post Loading set to Load More, clicking the button left the count at three, changed the button to Loading… permanently and raised a JavaScript error. Lazy Load likewise never went past the initial count. No credential was involved, so this is not an API problem. Until it is fixed, show every review you want visible.
- Review text is truncated out of the box. Text Limit is on by default with Limit Count at 100 characters, so longer reviews end in …Show More before you change anything. Turn Text Limit off under Content > Extra Options to show reviews in full.
- Three sections disappear in the Carousel layout. Columns Manage, Filter Option and Load More/Lazy Load are all skipped when Layout is Carousel. The carousel has its own column settings under Style > Carousel.
- The column dropdown labels are inverted against the value they store. Picking Column 4 gives you four across; the widget stores
3. Go by the label you can see, not by any number you may have seen in exported data. - Carousel arrows are off by default. A carousel straight out of the box shows dots only. Turn Show Arrows on under Style > Carousel if you want them.
- In the Carousel layout the source logo is rendered very large. With Style-1 and the default carousel settings, the Google and Facebook logos fill most of the card, and a Manual row with no Platform Logo set draws a big grey placeholder. In the Grid layout the same logos are small.
- A failed connection produces a pink card, not an explanation. A Facebook row whose Access Token is wrong renders a card reading Something Wrong (that spelling is the plugin’s). A row whose token and Page/Place ID are both completely empty renders exactly the same card, so the message does not tell you whether you mistyped the token or never pasted one.
- Google’s error is passed straight through, with a misleading prefix. A wrong key renders Error No : 200, The provided API key is invalid. and REQUEST_DENIED. The 200 is the HTTP status of a request that succeeded and came back carrying an error — it is not an error code, so do not go looking one up.
- The review ids are visible in the Elementor editor only. Display Id & Exclude prints the id next to each review inside the editor; on the published page no id is printed anywhere. Copy the ids while you are still editing.
- There are two sections called Extra Options. One appears when Type is Reviews and one when it is Badge, and each has its own Refresh Time. Setting one does not set the other.
- Reviews are fetched on your server, and cached. Nothing is requested from the visitor’s browser, so a source that works on one host can fail on another that blocks outbound requests. Refresh Time (default 1 day) decides how often the request is repeated.
- Two different carousel controls are both labelled Arrows Style. One picks the arrow design, the other their position. Check which one you are looking at.
Not verified
So you know exactly what has and has not been checked:
- A wall of real Facebook or Google reviews. This page was checked without ever entering a real access token, API key or place id, so what the finished Facebook or Google feed looks like once connected was not observed for this revision. Everything below that does not need a credential was checked on a published page.
- The Generate Access Token button. The Facebook login popup, and whether it really fills Access Token and Page/Place ID for you, needs a real Facebook account and was not exercised.
- Result Type and Negative Review Stars. Both act on data returned by Facebook. With no token there was nothing to filter or re-rate, so neither was observed working.
- The five-review cap on the free Google Places API, and whether Performance plus Save Data accumulates more than five over time. Read from the code and from Google’s own documentation, not measured.
- Exclude Post Ids actually removing a review. The ids are editor-only, and the five values tried without opening the editor did not remove anything. That is inconclusive: it is not evidence the feature is broken, and it is not evidence it works.
- Clicking a carousel dot. The carousel was seen to have advanced on its own (autoplay is on by default), but a dot click did not move it in the one measurement taken, and arrows are off by default so there was none to click.
- Performance, Save Data and Delete All Transient. The cached path was never exercised — what is written here comes from the panel’s own notes and defaults.
- The Style tab. Only the three content Style presets were rendered; no colour, typography or per-source styling control was exercised.
- Content Scrolling Bar and its Height slider. Labels and defaults only.
- The free plugin’s behaviour. The widget’s files are absent from the free plugin, so there is nothing to render; a page was not additionally loaded with Pro deactivated.
Troubleshooting
The widget is not in the Elementor panel
Two things to check. The Pro plugin must be active — the widget does not exist in the free plugin. And it must be switched on in The Plus Addons > Widgets.
I see a pink card saying Something Wrong
That row could not reach its source. Check the Access Token and the Page/Place ID on that row. The same card appears whether the fields are wrong or completely empty.
My reviews are cut off mid-sentence
Text Limit is on by default at 100 characters. Raise Limit Count or turn Text Limit off under Content > Extra Options.
The Filter Option section has vanished
You are in the Carousel layout. Filters, Columns Manage and Load More/Lazy Load are all unavailable there.
Clicking Load More does nothing
That is a known fault, not your setup — see the limitation above. Turn More Post Loading back to Select Options and show every review you need.
