Ask a Question Customer’s Questions
Professional Presence and Damage Control
First of all, let’s make one thing clear: this is not about you. People who post hateful comments are usually angry at Facebook for interrupting their Facebook experience with an ad. They don’t seem to understand that Facebook chooses where and how often to display ads.
You can respond politely and explain how Facebook makes money. You can ignore or delete the post. If you love inflaming the situation, and controversy is your thing, then absolutely follow your instinct and argue with the haters. Personally, we don’t have time or interest in this. However, it can be a useful tactic because the more comments you have on the post, the better—Facebook will see your post as being very popular, and relevant, and will show it more often.
Let’s assume that you want to be civil, though, because your question implies that. You can mitigate the problem by choosing different options for your ads. When advertising and promoting your content, select Current Fans Only instead of Friends of Fans. This way, only the people who already know your product or company will be able to comment.
Sometimes Facebook will automatically promote your content to Current Fans and Friends of Fans. You have the option to delete the Friends of Fans ad units inside your Ads Manager.
Having a corporate social media presence is about relevance, not about showing or hiding things. Your clients don’t need to see photos of your dog, or whatever else is on your personal Facebook page. They don’t need to know which politicians you voted for —that’s an easy way to lose clients!—or which football team you support. Bring people together instead of forcing them apart. Get people interested in your products, services, or events, not your personal life.
Corporate doesn’t have to be boring. Show us your personality—your company culture is a big part of who you are. Give customers insight into how things run at your HQ.
Show them the backstage pass type of experience: your office coffee machine getting a good workout, a new delivery of iMacs, a photo of a new or long-term employee, an introduction to Bob in the warehouse, and so on.
Virtually no review site will remove a negative review just because you asked it to. If it did, who would trust its reviews? However, most sites that post user reviews will correct, redact, or remove content that contains factual errors or lies. There may even be a legal obligation to do this, in some jurisdictions. You can’t just point your finger and call someone a liar, though; you must provide a good reason for the site to go back to the reviewer to ask for more details. So dispute every fact in the review and ask for proof of the claims. Ask to see a copy of the receipt, or provide a tracking report from the shipping company that shows the product was delivered—ask for proof and provide proof. Since the reviewer deleted his account, he probably cannot be contacted to validate his claims, and you may be able to have the review deleted on these grounds. Amazon, for instance, has in the past removed negative reviews if the reviewer deletes his account or fails to respond to inquiries from a seller.
Make sure you do this under the pretense of good customer service. You want to resolve the issue with the customer, not just nuke every bad review you find. Even if your true focus is removing that review, keep in mind that if you are successful and the customer is still upset, he’ll just go somewhere else and post his review plus a follow-up that paints you as a vindictive and predatory business. When it comes to online reviews, if you fight fire with fire, everybody gets burned.