Many businesses have a Facebook page that they use for marketing. Many times in the planning stages and sometimes after something unfortunate happens, businesses will need to decide their policy on bad Facebook comments.
Yesterday I had the pleasure of moderating a panel at the Maine Association of Nonprofits conference, Social Power: The Emergence of Social Media as a Force for Social Change. One of the panelists, Natural Resources Council of Maine, brought up a great point about bad Facebook comments. She said that leaving up bad comments and responding is actually your chance to set the record straight. I would have to totally agree!
Deleting a negative comment can actually anger the commenter more. Most times they just want an answer, help or more information.
Set some ground rules
- Talk to your team about what is acceptable, what is not and how you will handle an unfavorable comment. Of course any post that includes foul language, is threatening, malicious or spam may be removed. You can even create a page on your Facebook company profile explaining what will and what will not be tolerated.
- Figure out how you will deal with criticism. It is tempting to delete an unfavorable comment but don’t. Acknowledge the criticism and take this opportunity to educate, explain or set the record straight. Opening the dialogue may be more beneficial than you thought.
- Have a plan for if you do delete a comment. Consider grabbing a screen shot of the post before you delete it and save it somewhere. You never know if you may need that again.
It may be hard to stomach bad comments but take a deep breath, maybe a walk and respond accordingly. Like my panelist said yesterday, use this as an opprtunity to set the record straight or deflect to better news.
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