How to Handle Negative Comments on Your Social Media Page
A social media site is a platform that offers users the freedom of self-expression, often without the same inhibitions that are present in person-to-person communication. When you’re managing a social media page for business marketing purposes, chances are that you’ll come across comments that are harmful and inappropriate. Even though you can’t control what people say online, McCauley Marketing Services wants to inform you about methods to minimize the amount of damage that a person can do in the comment section.
Monitoring Your Social Media Accounts
The first step in protecting against inappropriate comments is staying meticulously aware of the activity on your page. Marketers should have their social media accounts linked to a notification program that sends a message when a new comment is posted. Google Alerts is a popular tool that does this for any popular social media platform. You can adjust the settings to become notified about specific types of activity that occur on the pages that you manage. There are many options for digital social media alerts, so it could beneficial to try a few to find out which one works best for you. Moreover, like all technology, notification programs have their occasional glitches, so it’s important to regularly check pages to ensure that nothing has been missed.
Reporting Offensive Comments
When you run an active social media account, it’s likely that you’ll run into comments that are outright offensive. Action should be taken quickly to prevent other potential clients and customers from reading them.
Many sites have built-in methods of reporting comments to help prevent future incidents from occurring. All Facebook posts have a “Report Link” that makes it easy for an account manager to notify Facebook employees, so action can be taken on their end. While waiting for a social media site to review an offensive post, you can hide or delete it from your page. Hiding a post makes it only visible to the person who made it and their friends, whereas deleting a post removes the content permanently.
Transferring a Conversation to a Private Message
Some social media conversations are too sensitive to be held publicly. If you wish to engage with an individual who made an explicit comment on your page, it’s best to do so while you’re out of the public eye. Sending them a well composed and polite private message is exponentially better than publicly hashing out grievances. As with any communication, make sure that your language is HIPAA compliant to avoid any unwanted issues.
Social media is one of the most powerful tools to a marketer. It allows for seamless interaction with potential customers and immediate feedback on running promotions. One of the key responsibilities for a social media account manager is knowing what to do when an undesirable comment is posted. For more information on social media marketing or if you would like to schedule a complimentary consultation with our experienced marketing professionals, please contact McCauley Marketing Services today. Don’t forget to follow us on Facebook, Twitter for additional tips, news, marketing tactics, and more.