Michele Hider
Director of Priority Communications
www.prioritycomms.co.nz
Social media is a great tool for encouraging two-way communication between businesses and the people they care about. But what do you do if it turns feral?
Your company’s Facebook page has been running smoothly for years – you’ve been posting great content and have plenty of followers – until a sudden stream of unpleasant posts are made by an anonymous troll. This cowardly individual’s intention is to sour the conversation on your page and damage the reputation of your company. What do you do?
The rules have been broken but no-one will really want to know. A response from Facebook will likely take several days, and Police won’t be that interested if you can’t identify the troll and no-one has been threatened.
A successful defamation, harassment or breach of privacy claim requires the troll to be found; unfortunately tracking an IP address can be a long and expensive exercise.
From our experience, it’s not uncommon for trolls to take aim at company Facebook pages, although it’s often hard to work out why. These people may simply be haters wanting a fight, an aggrieved ex-employee, a vengeful ex-partner, or even the guy you accidentally cut off on your way to work that morning.
The key with any troll is to not care too much and certainly not to get into a fight.
Having said that, pause and make sure you are doing the right thing by your customers and contacts. Just because it’s anonymous doesn’t always mean that what that person has to say isn’t valid.
If you think there is a genuine problem, see if you can find out who they are and ask them to contact you directly.
Don’t let anonymous comments interfere with your business. Anonymous Facebook haters are very easy to spot and the garbage they post will usually provoke positive responses from your Facebook followers. You also have the option of removing their posts – a good move if the posts are offensive to you, your staff or your company.
If you are worried about a potential troll on your Facebook page, you can tighten your security so that visitor posts have to be pre-approved. This stunts conversation to some degree, restricting the potential for positive feedback to your page – but may be worth it temporarily. Comments can’t be pre-approved; they can be removed, hidden or responded to with a post reflective of your business’ values.
Social media is a great tool for encouraging two-way communication between businesses and the people they care about. It’s not always plain sailing, but certainly worth the effort.
