Social media supplies society with an array of messaging about brands, businesses, and individuals that can be both positive and negative. While many would love to receive only positive remarks, messages, and reviews, the reality is that it’s not possible to achieve. So what happens when negative content pops up about your brand?
Is there a way to go about removing it from your profiles or do you leave it out there and do nothing with it? The answer is exactly what we are detailing in this article so you can become better equipped to deal with negative content, specifically reviews you receive on social media.
Monitoring Online Presence for Negative Reviews
If you are still becoming acclimated to the social media platforms available, the biggest message you need to take away about monitoring your online presence is: Always know what is being said about you or your brand. Having a ‘set and forget’ mentality will not get you anywhere.
Negative reviews can be found in a few different places on social media, most notably in the reviews section of your business pages. They can also be found on ads, in groups, on threads, and in your in-feed content. Overwhelmed by the array of places you can find damaging reviews? Don’t be. There’s a clear method businesses can use for managing the content on their social media pages.
Social Media Marketing & How It Can Help
Social media marketing and management are rather new-age business tools that can be implemented to help harness the full scope of your social media presence. They’ve become key in providing businesses with the capability to engage with online consumers, generate more leads and potential sales, and craft how they are viewed by a larger online audience.
As with any piece of the marketing pie, social media plays a large role in providing your brand with opportunities to engage with potential, current, and previous customers by showing them what it is that makes your company’s reputation stand out. By managing content, comments, messaging, and responses on a daily basis you gain access to control the atmosphere surrounding your business. Having a savvy team dedicated to monitoring and managing your social media presence will allow you to nip issues before they become full-blown PR mistakes.
Where Do I Start When I Find Negative Content or Reviews on Social Media?
First things first, don’t fret if and when you find negative content on your social media pages!
Receiving negative feedback is going to happen from time to time and should be seen as a career booster rather than a business crusher. Did you know that 82% of consumers in the online space will actively seek out negative reviews?
People love to read what businesses are saying to reviewers and vice versa. Sometimes, those searching for what’s being said will further the discussion and build stronger input for businesses to build on.
As a part of daily monitoring and management of your social media pages, time must be set aside to find, address, and on occasion, remove harmful or negative content. While it’s not every day that you may receive this type of messaging, the potential is out there and it should not be left unattended.
Here is an inside look at the action Reputation Rhino takes to address negative content found on social media, using a key social media management strategy:
- Assess – Assessing the tone, content, and premise for the negative review left on your social media is the first step to understanding why an individual is upset or raising their concerns publicly.
- Acknowledge – See why or where this person could have created a basis for their negative response. Was it the content you produced for your social pages, product flaws, delay in their ordering process, or appointment? All are valid and potential reasons for why they are not happy. Keep these and others in mind as you follow the next step.
- Generate Solutions – As you acknowledge where the negative feedback is coming from, you then need to think of solutions that could be provided to the customer or client to help them understand your willingness to grow and learn from any mistakes that may have occurred. While a solution isn’t always able to be provided, having a response generated that gives the feeling they are being heard is very important.
- Respond – Provide a response that acknowledges your concern for their feelings, what you may have done wrong, and shows how you are going to take action. Include the solutions you came up with from the previous step to show what you will be doing to be proactive.
What To Do When Negative Content Escalates
While not every negative review may warrant a response, it is important to address each one to make the individual feel heard. However, if a negative review escalates and requires further discussion past what is provided as an initial reply, take the conversation out of the public-facing eye. You can reach out by using direct message functions in the platform the review is left on, email, or a simple phone call, to address what is happening with the individual more thoroughly.
Also, depending on which social media outlet you are receiving negative responses on, you have options to potentially hide, or delete content that is harmful or goes against community guidelines. Deleting content is one of the last actions you want to take, but in some cases, it is necessary to de-escalate unruly individuals from further potentially harming you or your brand’s community.
Utilizing the method of removing negative content and reviews, generally applies to vulgar, cruel, derogatory, blasphemous, or legally negative rhetoric that can go viral or have legal action pursued upon. Most negative reviews or messages can be automatically monitored for language used that fits into those categories listed through each platform’s business management tools available regarding messaging.
Who to Reach Out to for Reputation Management Services
Negative reviews on social media can be detrimental, but they can also be a spotlight for positive sentiment around your brand’s desire to care for its clients or customers. You are the deciding factor as to how and what people will see on your social media pages, so choose to be proactive!
Take action by implementing social media marketing and management practices to align with your overall marketing strategy and goals. The tips we shared on how to manage negative reviews and content will help you not only stay clear internally in your organization but come off as reputable and engaging to your brand’s external online community.
If social media management hasn’t been a core focus for your business, or is something you’d rather not think about diving into, it’s time to find someone who can help. Reputation Rhino is the world’s leading online reputation management company. We specialize in online reputation management services that include finding, addressing, and managing negative reviews and damaging content on a variety of online platforms including social media.
We understand that not everyone has access to the tools and resources we’ve spent years building a library of, and that’s why we offer these great services. To share! We want to help you stay in the spotlight for all the right reasons.
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