Guest Post:  Kelly Paull

Negativity? What negativity?

Surely MY page will never have any angry client venting their anger! Time to get real. There will come a day that someone posts something on your page that you do not like. “That’s easy,” you are thinking, “I’ll just delete it.” Yeah, that’s what Chapstick thought earlier this year when they deleted a few disgruntled comments from their fan page wall.

The fact of the matter is that in this day and age, people ARE going to use social media to talk about your company and/or products. They will sing your praises and they will scream from the mountaintops when they feel they have been wronged. This is one VERY good reason to have a social media presence. Hopefully they WILL vent to you so you can do something to fix the problem.  This is your chance to convert them from an angry, raging lunatic to a devoted, satisfied fan.

Your knee jerk reaction will be to delete the comment and go on with your day. That may be the worst thing you can do. Your fans may have already seen the comment and may be waiting to see how you handle it. This is your opportunity to publicly show that you do indeed care about your customers.

The best thing is to be honest and professional. If someone is complaining that you have not sent their order and, indeed, you have not, simply state something like, “Lori, I apologize for the delay in your package, it will be in the mail to you tomorrow. I will message you with the tracking number.” Or if there’s a complaint about a product: “My apologies for your unhappiness with the xyz product, I will message you to see what I can do to take care of this issue.” The second comment lets everyone know you are taking care of things, yet you are not having a heated debate publicly on your wall. The only time you would delete something is if it goes way beyond the boundaries of appropriate. You may even be pleasantly surprised to see your other fans step in to come to your defense!

Are YOU the negative Nelly?

Posting about a bad day, horrible party, bad experience at the post office, team issues, corporate backorders, etc… are absolutely a no no on your page. Your fans don’t want to hear about that. We’ve all seen pages that could use a burst of sunshine and know consultants who walk around with a black cloud over their head. If you are having a horrid day try posting a question to your fans to help you through it. How about, “What is your favorite motivational quote?”

I am in no way suggesting you fake sheer delight on your page, people see through that and end up disliking you for it. Just keep the blatant negative posts to yourself. If it’s a day you just can’t bear to put on a happy face perhaps skipping the post all together might be the right thing to do.

Have you ever had to deal with negativity on your page or know of anyone who has?  Share with us in the comments and give this post a star if you liked it.  =)

Kelly Paull is the Honey Badger of Niche Marketing at DirectlySuccessful.com  She’s a techie geek with 8 years of direct sales experience and a passion for helping women navigate the technology necessary to run a smooth operation.

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