By Christine O’Malley
Executive Director of Health Sciences
Fulbright Specialist 2014
Our communications training at the University of Gondar is in full swing. The training takes place here in the e-Learning center.
We’ve covered branding, and we’re getting into content.
Yesterday we had a great discussion about inviting your audiences to share content via social media. One of my examples of how this could go awry was the McDonald’s 2012 fiasco with #McDStories. (For more: http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2012/01/mcdialysis-im-loving-it-mcdonalds-twitter-promo-fail/)
Of course the question came up about responding to negative comments in social media. McDonald’s response to the above was to pull the McDStories campaign and eventually the tweets died down.
On Friday, we’re going to delve more into strategic engagement in social media, including handling negative comments.
I invite our readers to use the comment box on this blog to chime in. How would you advise our trainees on the following:
- In managing an organization’s social media, do you respond to or ignore negative comments? Why?
- How often do you post on your organization’s social networks? What’s the minimum? What’s too much?
Thanks for sharing with our group!
This is a great topic, and is definitely a question asked often by social media managers. My advice would be to try to turn it into a positive interaction. Respond by addressing the bad but highlighting the good, and look at it as an opportunity to connect with someone who is not viewing your brand (or at least some aspect of it) favorably– try to change their mind! Alternatively, if your organization tends to have fairly high engagement from its followers/fans, sometimes it’s best to let them defend the brand instead. If you have enough loyal followers, the negative comment will get buried in a sea of positive ones!
If the comment uncovers a valid concern, I would both respond and request that the community weigh in, as this is a rare and valuable opportunity to receive feedback on programs and approaches that may need to be readjusted.
If the comment is based on misinformation or a simple misunderstanding, we would seek to correct it with facts and support.
Sometimes, the response may come from someone who is generally disgruntled. If the person is consistently flaming the organization, I won’t respond. Most of the time, the community will come to the defense, which is quite a validating process.
As for the second topic, I used Facebook and Twitter primarily at the college in which I used to work; in my new position, the community uses LinkedIn primarily, so that is where we focus our efforts.
This is a great topic and I agree with both of the previous posters. The only thing I would add is that it is important to monitor the situation closely, because a negative comment can become a real problem for the organization if more “disgruntled” voices” than positive ones weigh in on the subject at hand. I had this happen once in a previous organization I worked for. There was a huge negative response to a new policy and almost no supporters weighed in positively on the matter. It felt like everyone was angry at the college. If there is a valid concern–and before a tidal wave of bad feelings arises against the organization, policy, or product–the organization may need to take additional steps. Examples could be an invitation to a “town hall” meeting if this is a local situation (we were fortunate to have that option in my example); an invitation to call a special hot line to talk to someone; instructions redirecting people to a web page where the organization can more fully address/resolve the issue, etc. Of course, the preferred method to deal with the situation is through the forum people chose to voice their concerns; but, sometimes the answer is just too complicated to explain via social media.
Our response varies — like Kathryn said, we do try to address concerns, misinformation. At times when this doesn’t seem possible, and the commenter is looking to engage negatively, we let the forum respond. It’s surprising how often other members of our community will step in to try to make it right. Also, we work to add additional comments to steer the conversation away from the negative and not let a bad interaction take over our stream of interaction.
I think keeping an empathetic and open approach is always important. You have to understand where a person is coming from, then try to address the concern in a way that shows you understand, even if you are not going to change the action that spurred the comment in the first place. For more aggressive commenters, I think taking the approach Libby mentioned above is the right one. Letting the group self-moderate can be more valuable than having the institution state its case. Lastly, and this is more on Twitter, I’ve found some value in DMing someone and offering an offline conversation via phone or email. That is not at the expense of the online conversation because you should talk where the reader wants to talk, but it can be effective in defusing a situation. Stepping out from behind the logo can have value in the right situation.
A totally unrelated comment was posted on one of our FB entries. The writer was critical of one of our researchers, claiming results from a study were falsified. We didn’t respond or take it down because the poster had been on his soapbox in other venues. Also, he had shown bad faith by secretly taping and then transcribing an hour-long explanation from the researcher of methodology. We thought responding or deleting the comment would fan the flames. However, we were prepared to rebut the claims in case it should go further.
Our response depends on the comment. If there is a generally disparaging remark about something in a video on YouTube, for example, we ignore it. If there is a comment on Facebook from an unhappy client, we respond directly to that person. Our policy is to apologize for poor communication or services, and provide an email address for the individual to discuss the specific situation further privately. Most people have been happy to be heard, and will allow us the opportunity to deal with the incident. in a constructive manner.
We try to post to our College of Veterinary Medicine Facebook page about three times per week; sometimes more often; and the same for our Veterinary Medical Center page. We share a variety of animal humor – memes with adorable puppies are always popular, and since we are a veterinary school we have the perfect excuse for cute animals. We try to offer regular humor interspersed with college-specific stories, at about a 50/50 split, although I have read that the division should be more like 80/20 with only 20 percent being specific to your business. We also re-purpose web stories and news by posting links to them from our Facebook page and Twitter feed. Very rarely we have posted twice in the same day – morning and afternoon – but I always fear posting too frequently and annoying our audience. Interestingly, posts with actual photos of our students, faculty and staff are often more popular than the memes. Our Linked In account is managed by our Office of Career Management. so I am not sure how much they post.
There are two main responses when it comes to crisis:
1. Active listening
2. Turn a negative into the message you are seeking to convey
When the concerns are valid, acknowlede what you are hearing and respect the view. Get ahead of the complaint as best you can.
If not valid, still recognize and respect the feelings, and work to spin the message.
Most people want to be heard. Recognizing and doing that can diffuses a lot of situations.
Thank you Christine O’Malley, for making this happen. I have learnt a lot in your class. I am sure the rest of your students have also enjoyed attending your course.
It’s been a great experience for me as well! Thanks for the comment.