3 ways how business handle criticism on social media
The fast paced digital world has brought about confusion on how a business should handle criticism. Businesses are not able to hide from critics regardless if they are present in social media or not. Which makes it as top reason why some companies are not looking into social media marketing as part of their online marketing strategy. Critics are everywhere and some people are willing to create a “diss” page on your behalf.
Practically, everyone on social media has complained about a company product or services either on their business page or personal account. But the question still lingers: what if you are the business on the receiving end? How do you handle the critics? Do you deny, apologize, deflect or defend? Read on to get the answers.
Here are some workable solutions on how to handle criticism on social media.
Turn negativity into positivity
Proficient social media community managers have learned tricks of harnessing the positivity in the negativity. Either they play around with some puns, of course if the situation allows such as a rhetoric question being asked by a follower. Or the social media managers might choose to respond to the criticism with as much positivity as possible. For instance, research indicates that a disgruntled customer will undo a bad review they’ve done if the company handles the complaint with as much patience as possible.
Ideally, a company should incorporate the handling of complaints with their social media marketing strategy to ensure they have ready solutions when needed.
Keep your ears to the customers
Listening to your customers is one for the laws in social media. You should continuously monitor the conversations regarding your brand from customers online. If you are keen enough, you will notice signs of rebellion or complaints which are triggered by a number of mistakes made by the company. To simply act and control into the situation quickly, in essence, you should not wait for a public relation nightmare to catch you off guard. There are number of tools that you can use to monitor your follower reactions such as Google alerts and social mentions.
These tools will give you a heads up if or when someone mention your chosen search terms such as the company’s name or products. In order to stay alert, you need to keep track of these types of conversation even after normal working hours.
Be ready for anything
Responding to any comment made would be ideal, making it one of an effective reason to gain social media followers. However, in a full blown public outcry, you might have limited resources. In such a scenario, you can direct followers to other pages such as a promotion web pages on your site detailing any new development on the handling of the matter. That way, you are helping the audience to negate negativity about your company.
Leave a Reply