How brands can handle negative Facebook comments
10 min read
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As a track record expert, I have handled a entire vary of public relations concerns by means of Facebook, and if there is just one problem that will generally be as current as demise and taxes, it is destructive responses on social media! It is not unusual for corporations — regardless of whether they be Fortune 500 firms, mom-and-pop outlets, churches, or non-revenue — to experience destructive feedback on Fb. So, I have geared up an up-to-date listing of pro recommendations on how to take care of the negativity.
I have penned on this matter beforehand – six many years ago I wrote “10 practices for handling haters on Facebook”, and furnished a related record of recommendations. Having said that, interfaces at Fb have transformed some due to the fact then, and there are far more choices for one particular to contemplate relating to how to handle negativity as correctly as attainable.
I remind you that a “light touch” is commonly the pretty very best approach to handling negativity on Facebook. When individuals experience like they are currently being controlled, “managed,” or that their voice is suppressed, they could escalate to one thing a lot more intense and a lot more harming than a mere detrimental remark. Occasionally the impulse for lesser providers is to suspend or delete their Fb Page when confronted with a ton of this negativity.
Allow me inform you that this impulse should really commonly be suppressed. Men and women submitting destructive opinions on social media are searching for respect and acknowledgment, and a Facebook comment can be a tension release valve that keeps them from escalating into putting up negative messages in a lot less manageable arenas like evaluations or weblog posts. It can also help avoid them from spiraling into credit card chargebacks, lawyer normal problems, or even lawsuits.
With that “light touch” philosophy in thoughts, right here is my mystery arsenal of tactics for dealing with negative remarks posted on Facebook Pages.
Making an attempt to diffuse the negativity by responding politely and professionally can in some cases straight away acquire things down a notch and can be viewed as an all round favourable by other consumers who will see the sequence. This is an chance to display screen that you are qualified, even in the facial area of criticism.
Acquire affordable criticism severely, such as responding with some correct variation of, “We see your position, and we are likely to function to do greater.” For shopper service concerns, try out to go the unfavorable interactions out of the public eye by expressing a little something like, “We would like to address this with you right – you should mail us an e mail or simply call us so that we can talk about the specifics.”
Normally, steer clear of “returning fire” by matching negativity with negativity. Even though it may possibly be fulfilling to earn at 1-upmanship or insult an obnoxious human being, you are losing the visual appearance of professionalism with the relaxation of your audience, and throwing away time and sources on factors that are not your targets.
All over again, if you fulfill negativity with negativity, you may possibly induce an escalation that will value considerably a lot more than a few detrimental reviews. But, if replying is not likely to do the job and build an general constructive narrative, proceed to the following recommendations on this checklist.
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Disguise damaging remarks
Facebook offers a single of the best set of social media management resources out there. If you do not want a remark to look on one of your posts the place all can see it, you can simply click to disguise it from look at. The Hide handle link appears under the publish or on the ideal facet if you hover over it, enabling a couple distinct management alternatives that involve “Hide”. The good part of this alternative is that the destructive comment will even now show up to be obvious when the particular person who posted it views the comments, and also their buddies will continue to be in a position to see it.
You can also reply to their comment, as for every my to start with idea above, so when you disguise their comment, replies to that comment are mechanically hidden from absolutely everyone else on your Web page as perfectly! This can diffuse the anger of the commenter some, as they experience they have attained their intention of broadcasting a assertion. Brief of replying and taking care of the remark in the public space, this is the finest selection readily available. If you are limited on time, or your Site receives far far too numerous remarks on a day-to-day foundation for you to offer with, see the other recommendations below for additional alternatives.

Delete damaging reviews
Very similar to the Hide regulate, Facebook will allow you to delete responses from your Page completely. I recommend that you initial wait a whilst for the specific to see that their remark has been visible so they do not retain returning to repost it. Then, click on on the three dots beside the remark and select “Delete”.
You will want to use Disguise in most cases so that the consumer does not return and repost, but deleting it could be the most effective choice in some circumstances, specifically where some others have circled in to incorporate their possess responses to the primary detrimental just one.
Restrict the commentators!
At the time you have removed a destructive comment by hiding or deleting it, you could then limit the commentators on the article so that the critic are not able to return and increase the negative matters all more than once more.
After a write-up is built on a Facebook Website page, one might restrict the commentators by clicking the a few dots in the higher ideal corner and picking “Who can remark on your submit?” This brings up a menu of options for Community, Pages you follow, and Profiles and Pages you point out. Selecting “Pages you follow” or “Profiles and Web pages you mention” will make it so that only those people in all those teams might remark. This locks out your adverse commentator from the publish. You could also do this proper immediately after publishing.
But, there is a destructive ramification to limiting the commentators: Fb takes advantage of submit interactions, such as comments, when figuring out how lots of people today in your followers record are most likely to see the write-up on their timelines. As soon as you limit commentators, you are hence sandbagging your marketing initiatives to a diploma.

Wait around. Delete. Repost.
If you just want to scrub the slate cleanse and start off above with out the damaging baggage, you can usually delete your authentic post, and then article it anew. Accomplishing this will eliminate all the opinions.
Even so, there are considerable downsides to this. Just as with the choice of limiting the commentators, this de-optimizes the article this sort of that less individuals could see the more latest edition.
Facebook displays posts to your followers according to an algorithm that limits or will increase visibility based mostly on a number of components, including how a lot of persons have by now interacted with the post. So, a post that by now has a selection of likes or reactions, reviews and shares will get rid of all those useful alerts and begin around at floor zero. And, you can hope that men and women who had currently interacted with the first article will believe that they do not need to have to react to, comment on, or share the exact publish all around once again – besides for the unfavorable commentator who may return to deface the put up with their comment all over again. So, you could reserve the delete-and-repost tactic for only serious scenarios where a put up has grow to be some type of negative, chaotic, feeding frenzy mess.
Set up default moderation for your Page
Firms have prolonged needed a usually means for environment all visitors’ remarks to be moderated by default so that they can look at and approve them, rather than owning every thing posted to their Pages’ remark part. Consequently, it continues to be stunning to me that there definitely is not a location to do this on Facebook.
Having said that, I invented a hack back again in 2016 that permits you to do this with the “Content Moderation” settings, which allows you to have a precise established of keyword phrases instantly hidden by default so that you have to approve any feedback that contains individuals words and phrases in advance of your total audience will see them.
I developed a checklist of the top rated most well-liked English terms, which can be included to Facebook’s Information Moderation location. The terms are based on word usage frequency from a number of resources. There are in excess of 1,500 phrases in this checklist, and I guarantee they will block 95% to 99.99% of comments from becoming publicly posted on your Webpage – and due to the fact they will cover most remarks, the people who put up the feedback will not understand they are remaining moderated!
There is now a profanity filter in the Website page settings that will continue to keep reviews that contains powerful language from turning out to be seen just like the Content material Moderation instrument – you should really leave that filter turned on for most Pages. Be sure to note that you will need to have to review and manually approve all the responses to your Webpage right after implementing this, so it will improve your workload some. If you do not approve remarks, you will finish up lowering the visibility of your posts in Facebook’s algorithm.
This seriously need to only be made use of for Internet pages that have a chronic difficulty with spam and/or destructive and inappropriate opinions. Also, be aware that there are some difficult types of remarks that will slip by, unmoderated, with this process. (I will not describe how a couple of can slip by means of, since that could give people today tips.)
To use the list, down load this CSV and then upload it to your Facebook Page making use of the Written content Moderation environment.

Block the damaging commentator from your Web site
Does your Webpage have a continuous heckler? This comes about at instances. If so, you can use the Facebook Site settings to ban them from the Web page so they will no more time be ready to submit reviews.
Underneath the Page’s options, locate the link for “People and other Pages”, click on it, and then lookup for the person less than “People who Like this Page” or “People who adhere to this Website page.” Once you have situated them, simply click the box next to their avatar icon to pick out them, then click on the equipment icon button in the upper appropriate of the Page and choose “Ban from Page” in the little popup menu. If the heckler is not listed amid those people who like or comply with the Website page, simply click on the box titled “People who Like this Page” that is just earlier mentioned the table listing persons who like the Webpage. Then, decide on “Ban a particular person.” Kind in the person’s title, decide on the suitable person and simply click to conserve.
There are some difficulties with this solution. Extremely determined haters can established up new Fb accounts underneath other names, and return to keep on heckling the Web site. Also, a person will recognize they are banned when they try out to access the Web site, and this may perhaps encourage them to put up negativity somewhere else in channels that you may possibly not be capable to regulate or impact as very easily. So, continue to keep in intellect the adage that when you want to preserve your good friends near to you, you may possibly want to retain your enemies nearer!

Employ the service of a 3rd-occasion moderation provider
For organizations that are posting to several social media platforms, or that have thousands of followers interacting with their posts, dealing with all users’ remarks, which include the destructive types, can be a activity requiring spherical-the-clock administration capabilities and a considerable time determination. As I outlined over, some of the techniques I deliver are much less desirable due to the fact they can impair the advertising achieve of posts on Fb.
If you do not have time to manually assessment and unhide neutral and positive reviews that will get hidden by my search phrase content material moderation hack, you may want a additional dynamic and intelligent option, these types of as using a 3rd-bash moderation service to handle the assessment of feedback. Working with such a service is recommended for huge brands, social media influencers, and individuals with large acceptance Web pages that have quite a few countless numbers of followers.
These providers can help your crew to much more efficiently take care of feedback and provide a lot more sturdy settings for automation of what to or not to reasonable. A selection of solutions give Fb remark moderation, so you will want to review them to obtain one that fits your company scenario. 3 of the major kinds from my stage of watch are Respondology, Clever Moderation (which can work by way of Hootsuite and Hubspot), and Statusbrew.
Be conscious that there are some interface variances amongst Classic Fb Web pages and their “new Internet pages experience”, but most of the directions I supplied previously mentioned are quite parallel. Fb also features a tutorial to Site moderation, but it does not give all the nuance and suggestions that I have outlined previously mentioned.
Social media stays a hard beast for several corporations to tame, but ideally my tips over will help you navigate strategies accessible to you for dealing with destructive Fb remarks and commentators so that you will have less head aches. Remain tuned for an impending write-up on techniques for dealing with negativity on Twitter!
Views expressed in this posting are people of the visitor creator and not automatically MarTech. Personnel authors are stated in this article.
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