How to deal with negative comments on social media

How to deal with negative comments on social media

By Angela Baker

How Brands should deal with negative comments on social media 

Social media is such a powerful tool for so many brands, helping us to engage and connect with our customers in ways that weren’t possible before.

Social media can also increase brand awareness, website traffic, and ultimately generate more sales.

Remember that flip books, brochures, and infographics are great tools for content marketing in any industry. But obviously, social media is a fantastic platform, which can bring opportunities.

However, what are you supposed to do when you receive negative comments. Whether they’re from internet “trolls” or from genuine followers or customers?

There are multiple ways that brands and social media managers respond to negative comments, here are some ideas for you.

Respond in a kind way

Even if the comment makes you angry or upset, it could be worth responding in a thoughtful way. If you react in a similar way to the comment, you could only exasperate the situation.

Not only that, the “customer is never wrong” mantra still exists on social media. If people see you reacting negatively to a customer, it might not be a good look for a brand.

No matter how wrong they really are, respond in a polite and helpful manner. Just like you would in real life, it won’t help you to be defensive and argumentative back.

Give them an apology and a solution

It’s crucial that you not only apologize but offer a meaningful solution too.

Many brands will publicly tell a customer to DM them for a solution, rather than giving any information out on the timeline – this will still suffice.

If you simply apologize, the customer won’t feel like you, as a brand, handled the situation adequately. In turn, the word of mouth marketing could be damaged.

Offering an apology with no solution often makes it appear like the brand doesn’t really care.

In the rare chance that you gain a lot of negative comments, and can’t prepare replies and solutions to every single one, one big generic post is what a lot of brands do.

Take Jaclyn Hill cosmetics, as a great example. Her latest lipstick launch received thousands of negative comments and reviews – she posted on her social media that every single customer would get a full refund.

Don’t ignore or delete

One thing that you shouldn’t do is ignore the comment unless it’s certainly fair to.

The internet is filled with internet trolls and other bot accounts. If you have a comment which is clearly random or just trying to be nasty, ignoring, deleting and blocking could be the right choice for you.

If your account is being harassed and tormented by an account, regularly, social media gives you the option to report them.

However, if a comment is from an upset customer or follower, you should not react in this way. Again, this will make the customer feel like you do not care.

You should always respond in some way or another, to both negative and positive comments.

If a brand deletes their comment, very often they will be bombarded with a magnitude of comments which are accusing of curating out all negative social media comments.

Be vigilant

You can’t react if you do not know about it. Many brands now have a social media manager, whose sole purpose is to post, reply, and engage with customers. It’s an important role, which helps negative reviews, comments, and opinions be kept to a minimum.

Social media managers should always track every single platform, including blogs. Google alerts allow you to be notified as soon as you are mentioned online – this helps monitor conversations, articles, and posts about your brand.

It’s important that you don’t only focus on the negative, too. Spend equal time thanking the positive comments as you do apologizing to the negative.

Take the spotlight away from them

In the past, the negative experience of a brand wouldn’t be seen by many people. Now, with social media – one negative Tweet or status has the possibility to go viral.

It’s your job to make sure that the spotlight is taken away from a negative comment or review before it becomes a big deal.

We suggest that you ask if you can take the complaint or comment somewhere else. This shouldn’t be seen as an attempt to silence a critic, but more to take the attention away from the public eye. This will minimize the chance of other people watching or considering doing the same.

Simply reply to them asking if you can privately message, phone or email them.

Obviously, taking a comment out of the spotlight is not the same as deleting it. We recommend that you reply with a constructive response, rather than allowing multiple people chime in and ask about the situation themselves.

Keep track of an issue

You may believe that a problem has been resolved, but that doesn’t mean that the commenter has disappeared. You must keep track of their accounts, just to make sure that they’re not still writing negative comments, with a bad taste in their mouth.

It’s actually very likely that they’ll interact with your brand again, often in the form of replying to somebody’s else’s comment.

The customer won’t become outspoken advocates against you if you treat them well and help them. That’s why being polite, helpful, and sincere is so essential with social media.

Don’t feed the trolls

Social media is full of so-called “trolls,” these are people that are purposely being nasty and attempting to cause trouble.

Any kind of response to these trolls only encourages them further. It’s a weird concept, but trolls are notorious online.

In fact, when an account gains more followers and attention – they have more chance of being targeted by trolls. Social media is incredibly bittersweet in this way.

We understand, it can be challenging to ignore these types of trolls, especially when they are continuously trying to aggravate a response from you. So, what should you do?

The best thing is to ignore, report, or block. It could also be worth replying once, with an open, meaningful response just to give viewers the truth about a situation.

If the trolls are being hateful, they will eventually be banned from social media platforms. It’s something that many people are trying to work against, the way you deal with it should always be in the best interest of you and your brand.

Always keep your promises

Acknowledging a complaint and promising a resolution is one thing, actually following up on your pledge is an entirely different thing.

You absolutely need to follow up on any promises that you made to a customer. If you don’t, it has the possibility of making the situation worse.

For this reason, always make sure you’re promising resolutions that are doable.

Conclusion

Social media is an excellent platform for companies, which offers a fantastic chance to improve customer service and convert engagement into sales.

Negative comments are inevitable on social media, and how you deal with them is extremely important. The goods news is, if you treat them well, and follow through your promises, they won’t prove detrimental.

Always reach out to necessary help and support services, on social media, when you feel like anything is happening unfairly or aggressively. Social media should be about communication, not about arguing.

By Angela Baker, who is a self-driven specialist who is currently working as a freelance writer at  Studicus, Wow Grade, and Supreme Dissertations writing services and is trying to improve herself and her blogging career. She is always seeking to discover new ways for personal and professional growth and is convinced that it’s always important to broaden horizons. That’s why Angela develops and improves her skills throughout the writing process to help to inspire people. Also, she writes for LiveInspiredMagazine, rounding out her professional writing career.