SMO Strategies: How to Respond to Negative Comments on Social Media

Social media engagement is a powerful brand-building tool. It can take your company closer to your target market, enhance your marketing ventures, and elevate your business’s online brand authority. An exceptional digitalmarketing agency can accomplish all these feats and more in a few months’ time through rigorous user engagement and regular content publication.

However, social media engagement is a tricky business. While interacting with users humanizes your brand and bolsters your reputation, it also opens the opportunity for external comments and reactions. Think about what would happen to your hard-earned credibility when negative feedbacks started appearing on your company’s official social media pages.

Do not let negative comments undermine your brand credibility. Consider these strategies when responding to complaints in social media.

     1.    Always respond, never retaliate. Unless the user left a profanity-ridden spam-like comment, it is your duty as a company to address his/her message. Think before you respond. No matter how questionably invalid or infuriatingly accusatory the feedback is, never lash back at the user. Remember, everyone is entitled to their opinion.  

     2.    Get in touch with the commenter privately. Social media platforms have private messaging options. Contact the user who left the negative remark and do your best to resolve the problem. If the commenter refuses to cooperate, initiate a cautious conversation using the public messaging option of the host social media site. Make sure that your chosen online marketing company is prudent with their responses.

     3.    Do not delete valid remarks. If you are looking for an online marketing company to help you field unfavorable comments, do not hire one whose first plan of action is to delete the offending feedback. Any digital marketing agency worth its salt would evaluate the legitimacy of the remark, establish the cause of the problem, and respond accordingly to the commenter.

     4.    Block unreasonable and aggressive users. If the commenter persistently posts baseless negative feedback, ban them from your social media page. This course of action is also applicable to users who repeatedly comments slurs, derogatory remarks, and expletives.

     5.     Never make excuses. This is one of the biggest no-nos of social media engagement. Playing the blame game and offering flimsy excuses will only land your business in hotter waters. Avoiding accountability will only lower the credibility of your company. Find a social media marketing company that provides high quality SMO Marketing to increase your visibility on social platforms which increase awareness of a product/services, brand or event by using a number of social media channels to generate viral publicity.

Negative comments in social media have been known to tear down years’ worth of brand-building efforts.

The crux of the problem lies in the amplification effect of social media. If a user calls you out on something, other users are also made aware of this complaint and it snowballs from there. It does not matter if the feedback is baseless, the unfavorable information is already out there for public consumption and escalation.

Consider the response tips mentioned above when dealing with negative comments. Partner with a digital marketing company who knows how to deal with the ugly side of social media.