subject: Dealing with negative comments in Social Media Campaign [print this page] Dealing with negative comments in Social Media Campaign
Here's another question I'm asked often, and is usually a major ingredient as to why a business is afraid of the Social Web What happens if someone opens talks negatively about my brand/business?
It's interesting that the Web has made everyone's voice heard. The power of the Social Web can make and break anyone's online reputation.
There's nothing worse than discovering that someone out there has had a bad experience with you and are now trying to "warn" others at the expense of a loss of new customers/credibility/reputation.
So how do you deal with it?
Firstly, it must be said that you CANNOT delete any comments made by a third part on a website that is not your own. You can report their comment as spam' or as a harmful' comment, but doing so unleashed a new can of backlash that is best not to experience.
The best thing to do is respond. Listen to their comment. People that complain are in genuine need of being heard, and most often, they want to be heard by someone that can take them seriously, and to take action.
Respond and keep in mind their problem. Say something like "we're sorry to hear that we disappointed you and we would love to make it up to you with a (coupon/incentive/insert a What's-In-It-For-Me)".
By doing so, not only are you providing a solution to a problem you may/may not have caused directly, but you're also reinstating into the commenter's mind that you're willing to make it work.
Anyone else that comes across your exchange of open dialogue can form their own opinions about you/your services/your products and the last thing they will see is your response to a problem and not an unresolved problem.
So what you're in fact doing is concreting the fact that yes, you're a human, yes, you're interested in making everyone happy, and yes, you care about your Social reputation.
By asserting such things in the eyes of the mass online consumers, you're becoming a more transparent' business, meaning you're establishing an increased level of trust with consumers that come your way.
More awesomely, your Social Media engagements become active search results on first pages where Google has allocated Twitter results so if you ignore a negative comment, it you literally come back to bite you on the arse.
