This same principle can work for Twitter and your blog. On Twitter, don’t worry too much about people seeing negative comments–the medium moves fast enough that unless you’ve pissed off a lot of people, few people will see one negative tweet. The important thing is that you be seen responding in a mature, professional manner like we’ve detailed above. The same thing goes for your blog: especially if you have comment moderation, it’s tempting to just mark negative comments as spam. But, unless someone is being unnecessarily rude or vulgar, it’s best to respond maturely and politely–just like you hopefully would if someone were complaining in person. Always remember the old chestnut: you can’t control other people’s actions, only your reaction to those actions.
P.S. Remember: no amount of damage control can fix a lousy product. There is no marketing, PR or social media strategy in the world that will allow you to get away with selling something that sucks for very long. But, unfortunately bad experiences happen, even at great businesses. It’s up to you as a manager to know how to handle it when those unhappy customers get online and decide to tell the world.
Want to know more about using social media for your business? The Vital social team provides social media coaching and strategy for business. Get in touch with us today to learn more about our services.
