It can’t be helped. No matter how lovable your brand is, somebody is on the Internet mocking you. Worse, they are hating on you. Closing your Facebook page’s wall to other people may be a good idea to prevent unwanted wall posts, spam and messages of hate, but it could also hurt your brand as it will make your customers and fans feel shut out and not part of the experience.
What makes social media, particularly Facebook pages, different from just publishing content on blogs and websites is interactivity. Limit the posting capability of the people who liked your Facebook page and you will effectively push your fans and customers away.
Haters to the Left
Some people don’t like a specific thing about your brand. Some people outright hates your services or products just because they can. You can’t escape haters because they are everywhere. Instead of shutting them out, you should try to determine where the hate is coming from.
Was it because of your new company logo?
Was it because of your brand’s new direction?
Was it because your brand has not experienced any significant changes in the past few years and your customer are starting to get tired of it?
Hate can come from several possible reasons and the best way to deal with it, even in such a cold and impersonal medium such as the Internet, is to take it on head first. Don’t run. Don’t panic. Haters can smell fear.
What Haters Are Capable Of
Some haters will just post long and winding messages detailing why you screwed up and why your brand is now dead. These haters are easy to understand. They were upset about your decisions and they’re taking it out on your Facebook wall. However, there are haters who will hate just because it’s cool. It’s easy to troll a Facebook page if there is a hot issue going on. And it’s easy to gain attention by posting unnecessary hateful messages when hundreds of people are checking the page every few minutes to see if there’s a new hateful comment. People can be exceptionally cruel when they get into that whole angry mob mode. Your brand’s name is on the line so you will just have to do what’s best for your brand.
Deal with It
Let’s say your brand hosted an event and nothing went according to plan. You invited a lot of people and the marketing campaign you unleashed on your Facebook page went viral. Thousands went to your failed event and now they’re all pissed because you wasted their time and money. Now your Facebook page’s wall is overrun by hate messages.
Your first instinct would be to delete all negative posts, remove the public’s permission to post on your wall and post retaliatory updates targeting those who have posted inappropriate messages of rage on your pristine Facebook wall. Worse, you can simply ignore everything and go about your daily social media marketing process.
The best way to deal with this situation is apologize for your mistakes, let the people voice out their concerns and take in all the negative comments, even the ones not called for. You only need to establish your professionalism. You don’t need to convince everybody that they should do the same. The more you engage haters with retaliatory comments, the more they will rage on your wall.
Learn from Your Mistakes
When a swarm of angry fans or customers take over your Facebook page, do not nuke it. Those people care enough about your brand to say something bad about it. You just have to remember this and the things you did wrong and pretty soon, you’ll be out of the On Notice list of everybody.
Written by Gino Carteciano
Gino is a blogger and freelance writer who works with people like the folks at the MSDSonlineEnvironmental, Health & Safety blog. Also, he likes explosions.
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With me, it is like I will appreciate the negative feedback more than those always -too-good-to-sound lines. People who know that i am not that good but they never criticize