Negative Comments on Social Media: How to Protect Your Brand Name?

By: Zain Nabi  |   July 11th, 2013   |   Social Media

Receiving negative comments on social media about your product or brand is not uncommon. People tend to vent their frustration out loud even if the problem they are facing is a result of their own fault. However, as a strategist you must be aware of how important and critical it is to make sure you do not get negative comments on social media and if you get them you must know how to tackle them.

 

One of the main drawbacks of negative comments on social media is that they go viral instantly even if they do not represent the truth. So it is very essential to devise such a strategy that would help you protect your brand name from negative publicity. We have got some tips here from Craig Robinson, an online writer, via Andmine, about how to deal with negative comments on social media.

 

Planning, according to Craig, is very important. You must be prepared to face any sort of situation all the time. So whenever you devise your strategy always consider the negative comments you could get from your audience. This will help you prepare in a better way and while it will not bar the audience from making negative comments it will give you a chance to prepare and deal with any problem.

 

Acting quickly is another important tool. If you wait for the next day to answer the query or comment made today, chances are the people in the online forum where the comment is made start discussing it and hence it could lead to a debated without your involvement. Craig writes:

 

“The goal here is to act as quickly as possible once you begin to receive negative comments, feedback, reviews, etc. you want to be able to get out in front of the issue(s) before things go viral and beat your brand name down into the dirt. By acting quickly, you can even help prevent some potential disasters; i.e. if a customer has a big complaint, responding quickly may help prevent future issues.”

 

A very crucial step that could hit backwards is deleting comments. If you receive negative feedback and delete that comment it would bring no good to your strategy and in fact turn the table on you. Craig explains dealing with such situations:

 

“If you can’t handle some light criticism with a smile on your face, then you’re probably going to show off a totalitarian side, attempting to delete, block and ban everyone to say something you don’t agree with. Totalitarianism is a snowball-effect kind of thing. So unless it’s outright spam or obscene, leave the comments standing and respond politely.”

 

Photo: Contentlead