Surviving the Comment Section: A Guide to Social Media Criticism

PODCAST TRANSCRIPT

Tiecen Payne: Hi, everyone. Welcome to Untamed Social Podcast. I'm Tie and I'm here with Jess. We're with Strella Social Media. Today we're going to talk about surviving the comment section, um, give you a little few tips about, um, handling social media criticism and, and what we can say to, to, uh, what we can say to clients or audience members who are, who have something interesting to say, on our social media posts, um, so negative feedback. It's kind of part of the job. It's going to happen. Sometimes it happens to everyone. Um, and and. And it's best to have a process in place for how you're going to handle it before it becomes a problem. So why don't you tell us about our process, Jess?

Jess Boozel: Absolutely I am on the monitoring team, and I do a lot of the monitoring. So I would be absolutely happy to explain how we deal with negative feedback because you're absolutely right. You need to have a process in place whenever things happen. And this is also something that you have to discuss with your client while you're onboarding them, because every client can be different for how they want you to handle negative feedback.

There are some clients who might want you to just-- don't have it at all, delete everything, and we will go into later in this episode more about deleting the comments and whether that's a good thing or a bad thing, but let's just say for now, there are some clients who do not want any negative feedback at all on their social channels, and just want them deleted right away. There are some that think that the negative feedback is good to be on there because it's getting more reach and engagement on their posts. So there are some people that say keep the negative feedback like completely 180 from the others is-- just keep it. And then there are some that have pretty pristine rules on how they want you to deal with the negative feedback, whether they want you to delete the ones that are entirely inappropriate, ones that, for example, one of our clients, they do not like comments, obviously, that have to do with threatening people's lives.

So we take out, we delete any of those that are really inappropriate, that are threatening, any that kind of like have very vulgar language get deleted, but the other ones, if they're just kind of like mild, like they're just a little upset with your content, but it's good to have that engagement, that little fight back, even if it is negative.

So there's a lot of different ways to go about what you do with the negative comments, but, as you're talking about, you have to have a process in place, you have to have an idea of how you want to handle the negative comments that are coming your way. There's also filtering your comments, and you can do that as well.

There's a lot of different stuff that you can do to deal with these comments.

Tiecen Payne: And we have a really wide range of clients, right? We have, we have some adult content that goes out for some of our clients. We have some motivational content that can get a little edgy or political. Um, and we have some, we have a client that has a really strong moral code, even religious, I would say, um, that guides their content.

And so there's a lot of different, so it's not the same for every client, right? Like the guidelines and what our process is going to be, um, and whether we keep it or don't keep it is not the same. And so it's best to have someone on the account who knows the client, who knows their voice, who knows their audience, um, to keep track of that like you.

So all of the, all of the, um, clients that you're monitoring for us. You're down with them and you know what they need and you, and you're up to speed with that. And so we treat them all differently. Um, and you're right. They do come to us kind of all wanting something different, a different plan. Um, and we have to tweak it and help them a little bit.

Um, so like, tell me how we deal, uh, with our more conservative, like give it to me most conservative, least conservative. So like with our most conservative client, what are our guidelines? And then like, know like for, like our client who's a motivational speaker, he likes it when we get a little bit edgy and he likes it when we leave, you know, he's like any, any press is good press, leave everything, which we don't do that for him either, but close, right?

So give it to me both ways.

Jess Boozel: Yes, absolutely. So our more conservative, conservative clients, if there is any vulgar language at all, even if it's hell, like one of those-- one of those words that isn't even really considered a swear word to some people, we do delete every single comment that has a swear word in it for our more conservative comments.

But whenever it comes to like our political guy, um, there can be some swearing. We don't usually do anything that's, like, too vulgar, like, the F word or anything. And, like I said, if it's threatening, we will take it down. But anything that's kind of just, like, I don't give a crap about your appear-- about your opinion or something like that, like, we would keep that up.

Another thing that we do with the comments is we fight back. Not fight back as in you're stupid, but fight back as in, I appreciate you telling your opinion, but I'm sorry we don't agree. Kind of like that, like you fight back in a positive way. You reprimand their negative comment with a positive comment to kind of turn the conversation and remind them, hey, I'm still human and I have an opinion even though it's different than yours.

So his is a lot different than the conservative as in, even though like he is a middle ground one, like, he is the best example for a middle ground client, how we handle those comments. And it's so wild how different they are because in his, you could have swearing, you could have like negativity, all of that, but then with the conservative one, we don't want that at all.

Tiecen Payne: And like, tell us about one that's a little bit more on the other end of the spectrum from conservative client. Like you said, our, our motivational kind of in the middle. Tell me about like our adult content. How are we monitoring that?

Jess Boozel: Our adult content creator woman, she um, I write her content as well, so I can actually use the F word and stuff in her content, and I can say some pretty vulgar things on her captions. I do not monitor her comments or anything. She does that, and honestly, I'm very glad that I don't do that because I don't think I'd want to see the comments that are replied back, but I will say sometimes I have got curious and I will look at the post.

It's just usually pretty gross. Not, not like gross. They're just very sexual. It's just very, it's a very sexual world. So obviously very different than the other clients, but we do just kind of leave her content go with the comments back, but it, with the captions, I can basically, all free range, everything is like game, like it does not matter what I say there, which, it helps because after a year of creating captions for a content creator like that, it does kind of get difficult to come up with new things that are different. So helpful to have that wide variety to be able to do whatever I want.

Tiecen Payne: Yeah, and I have to say, I keep an eye on her account too. You know, I kind of keep an eye on all of them.

Jess Boozel: So you see my work.

Tiecen Payne: Yeah, I love it. I love your work. Um, I love your dirty work. And I that, I think that the voice, uh, and the tone, and, uh, and the words that we're using, they match the audience, which is the point, right?

The point isn't to, to make it match Strella. The point is to make, is to make it match the audience for our client. And, and you do a great job with that. So good job going out on that limb.

Jess Boozel: Thank you. Yeah. It is really cool having clients like all these different perspectives and everything because you get to be kind of all these different people and experience all these different sides of things. It's really cool.

Tiecen Payne: I think it's cool too. I did want to touch on like, we had one client who we got a lot of inflammatory comments, on their stuff, and they're not anymore. But you know who I'm talking about, they were, they were a client who covered health and wellness stuff, um, and they had some, like, controversial methods of helping people lose weight, um, and that garnered a lot of comments.

Do you remember them?

Jess Boozel: Yeah, absolutely.

Tiecen Payne: And we had to monitor that, like, we would post, and literally, like, within an hour, we'd be like, whoop! Like, we gotta start responding to stuff. Tell me about keeping track of those guys.

Jess Boozel: So that was really difficult because it wasn't just them specifically that was receiving controversy. It was also like everyone else in their industry that was doing the same thing the same weight loss drugs that they were giving. So whenever I looked at like other people that were like them it kind of made me feel better whenever I saw like they're getting the same negative feedback that we are and that it's not really me or like Strella that's doing something wrong.

It's just the unfortunate business that these guys are in. But how we handled it was kind of the same way how we handled our political guy, where we just left the negative comments if they were kind of like, I don't agree with this drug or weight loss. I, I don't know if they consider it a drug. I don't think they do.

I think they consider it like a medicine. But, um, basically anything that was like, we don't agree with this, blah, blah, blah, we would leave. But then if it was kind of like threatening to the business or threatening harm or life, then it would have to be deleted. And, of course, the vulgar language, again, if there was any, like, really hardcore swearing, it would be deleted as well.

And, again, that was something-- Mm hmm?

Tiecen Payne: Did we get life threat? Tell me what a life threatening comment sounds like. I didn't see those.

Jess Boozel: Okay.

Tiecen Payne: What did they say that was threatening?

Jess Boozel: Yeah.

Tiecen Payne: We can come back to it if you can't remember.

Jess Boozel: Mm hmm. Yeah, I, we haven't worked on this client in about two months and as well, it was so bad. I will admit that I was monitoring it in the beginning, but then I had to pass the torch, the unfortunate torch, to somebody else because it actually affected my mental health and that's something that is actually really good to talk about on this podcast with having to deal with the negative feedback because although the negative feedback was never directed to me or to Strella, reading the negative comments every single day for this health and wellness page, it was very upsetting for my mental health.

Like, every single time it was time to do it during the day, I would get upset. So I think that's really good to talk about, about how these negative comments can affect people, even if you are just a social media manager. Like, seeing negative comments, especially in the influx that was coming in with this client, it's a lot and it's really hard to handle sometimes.

Like, even though it's not about you, it can be hurtful.

Tiecen Payne: It is a lot, and that's why we have a team. Like we can't always be the one who handles all the negativity, right? And that, that was a tough one. I know. Um.

Jess Boozel: Yeah, I couldn't come up with an example. I just, I, it's been so many months now, I can't remember anything specific.

Tiecen Payne: I think you blocked it. And I think that's for the best. Just let it go I'm sorry I asked. Do not dig it up. Let it go.

Jess Boozel: It's, it's trauma.

Tiecen Payne: I yeah, I don't want to know don't tell me. But we're kind of talking about how we set up guidelines for each client. So we've talked about how how our different clients require a different kind of intervention What are some of the guidelines like how do we decide, um, what their voice is going to be like, do you have like a checklist that you follow when you talk to them or how, how do you decide what the voice should be like and how we should follow that in terms of moderating comments?

Jess Boozel: It's actually really simple. Whenever we first have our onboarding meetings with our clients, well, I should say potential clients at that point. Um, we usually just straight out ask them. Yes. Yeah. Hopefully. I just straight up ask them like, what is your voice? What is the type of tone that you are looking for whenever we make captions and write back to people in comments?

And some people are very different with how they want their comments written back. I think, overall, all of the clients are saying they want human, they want the comments to be human like. They don't want it to seem like a robot that's just copying and pasting these comment sections back to people, like, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, to every single comment.

It actually, like, wants to have depth and thought given in the comments. It's usually what we find with most people.

Tiecen Payne: Yeah I think that's interesting because on my end when we kinda hear back from the clients about how that's going, I would say that's the most common comment back from them is either they want us to change it up more, what our answers are, um, or thanks for changing it up more. So, uh, in terms of what our response is going to be, you're right, it's not that hard, like once you understand the voice of the client, you kind of just go along and do it. So we're talking, like, in the same vein as like, having that human touch when you respond, um, in the comments and maintaining that authenticity of voice. That's going to come through, our personalities are going to come through, right? Like, the way that we each individually, the way that we each individually handle conflict, right? Like for me, I, I'm not, I'm not the best at comment moderation because I only have like two ways to handle conflict, which is total avoidance and like make sure everybody is okay and happy and nurtured or a hundred percent mama bear, I will kill you. And so for me to be in the middle.

Where you reside so nicely, it, it takes brain power, right? So I can do it, it's just not my favorite thing, because my natural instinct is to like, stay out of it, or take care of it. Like, how do you handle conflict in your normal life outside of the job?

Jess Boozel: In my normal life, I feel like I am pretty, like, good at standing up for myself. I try to always do it in a way that is polite, but sometimes you have to be a little aggressive to get your point across. So I think for the most part, that's just how I would sum it up, is that I will always stand up for myself and I will always defend my own beliefs, but I also I can respect that other people have other opinions.

Like, of course, I'm not like that, but if someone says something that I'm not agreeing with, I probably would speak my mind. I'm pretty outgoing like that. So.

Tiecen Payne: You sound kind of pretty comfortable with defending your viewpoint.

Jess Boozel: Yeah, it also always depends, like, the place that I'm in, like, where I'm at and where it's happening at.

Tiecen Payne: Sure that makes you a good fit for moderating comments. Um, so I, I hear there's like a right way and a wrong way to respond to negative feedback. Give me like, do this. Don't do that. I want some like actionable tips for our listeners to be able to take back to their comment moderation. So like what to do, what not to do help me out.

Jess Boozel: Yeah, absolutely. So, I think one of the things that you need to do is remember-- this is like, not like a specific like this is how you should respond type way but this is like a tip for you to remember whenever you are moderating these comments is just remember that this is just one single person that has this thought it doesn't mean that every single person that has seen this video feels the exact same way or didn't like the video like this person did.

So just remember that they are a very small piece in your very big gameplay on social media. Um, I'm trying to think of others. That's it. That's it. We'll just do one. To do and then one to not do because it would be hard to think of multiple right now. Um, so let me think of what not to do. Okay. Well what not to do is honestly as a brand I do not think you should get mean in the comments I do not think that you should fight with other people in the comments.

I don't think that it's a good look for your brand. I think it makes you look mean. It looks you, makes you look messy. And it doesn't make a professional look. Although, social media people today will argue that professionalism is kind of gone out the window for brands just because TikTok and Instagram are getting so more lenient. But still I think that you need to have that professionalism whenever actually communicating full on like one on one communicating you need to have that professionalism still as a brand.

Tiecen Payne: Yeah. And I think even though professionalism has been relaxed a little bit, that doesn't mean that you can depart from your brand voice, right? And particularly us, where we're managing the brand for someone else, we don't want to depart from that voice. Um, and if it's casual, great. And if it's high professional, great.

But whatever it is, we want to stick within it. And I agree, like arguing with the audience. It's never a great idea. They'd love you to, I'm sure, but we don't want to. Um, a few other little tips that we like to include, um, one thing is that you have to respond as quickly as possible when negative feedback comes out because the longer it sits, by itself, the more exciting things get as other people comment and stuff.

So it's best as the brand to weigh in and say, hey, um, this is what we think it also, if we're weighing in, um, with that non argumentative tone helps keep things to a dull roar too. So we kind of want to be the, uh, what's it called? The, the recess, the playground supervisor on that. Um.

Jess Boozel: The monitor. The monitor!

Tiecen Payne: They're like, teacher! And I'm like, I'm coming. So, that's. That's what we want to do there. Um, also we want to make sure that we, like you were saying before, we don't want to just say, thanks, thanks for your comment. Like we want to humanize, this is our opportunity to humanize the brand and to generate some authenticity. So we want to acknowledge the person's feelings, maybe empathize with them.

Like I hear what you're saying, you know, or like. Uh, I felt that way in the past or something like that. Do you have any like go to what are your like empathizing phrases? Like, how do you tell people that you, you understand them and you're listening to them without necessarily agreeing with them?

Jess Boozel: So we actually have a client that does crowd funding and they are like a non profit for animals. So basically they help get animals money for fundraising so that they can get medical help and a lot of people will comment like really sad things in the comment section.

So instead of doing something generic like thank you for caring or something like that. Like something silly. I will always put, um, we know that this is heartbreaking, but by donations and sharing, you can help give this pet a second chance. And I'll use the pet's like name that's on the content to make, make it even more personable.

So that's just one example of how I would have, uh, I guess, um, that's like my backhand pocket response. Like that's the one that I keep in my backhand. And it's really cool because a lot of our posts are ads for them so I can kind of just say the same thing over and over because they're ads. So it's like, it's probably not gonna pop up when someone else is.

Tiecen Payne: Sure. Yeah. Um, And we talked about like staying professional. I think we covered that pretty well. We don't want to go low. Um, and what about when you have to take a conversation offline? So that's one strategy I know that we employ is if things are just not going to calm down within one or two responses, we need to take it offline.

Do you have, how does that usually go for you?

Jess Boozel: Usually I am not the one that's actually handling that. If something is getting extremely heated, then it will get escalated to the client at that point, where it's kind of their decision what happens, whether that is to block the person. If they have been continually, like, coming at the account and it has just been a menace, but they're not really giving substance or, like, having a real issue, like, say they don't actually have an issue with the account.

Like there's no payment issues. There's no nothing like that. It's just fun fact, they hate the account. Then they’re probably gonna get blocked.

But there are some people where they like with the health and wellness one, for example there were some people that actually had money money issues so they were coming to social media saying that they had these money issues and they would actually go to the lengths of block-- or of commenting on every single post that we had.

That's how they did it. So, we would have to then go to the client and tell them, this person has continually commented, what would you like us to do about it? And then that's whenever we would usually ask them for their email, or they would reach out directly to that person. So it can be handled a bunch of different ways.

And I think as a client and as a brand, you need to own up whenever you make mistakes on social media because you're human. And at the end of the day, we are not robots. Like, what is posted on social media is posted by a human. And so you just have to remember that there are going to be mistakes and everything.

And usually they aren't mistakes that are life threatening. They aren't mistakes that are going to destroy your brand by a typo or something. But if there ever is a mistake where our client is in the wrong, then we have to rectify it in some type of way. And whether that be in the comments, talking to people directly and saying that a mistake was made or whether that be through DMs or something, it has to be rectified in some way.

Tiecen Payne: Yeah I think like a simple hey, we recognize our mistake on the public front goes so far to establish brand trust to show that we're humanized to show that we're listening to show that we're there for the, the consumers or the customers, just a really simple, like, oof, big mistake. I'll get with you in a DM helps a ton. Um, and we talked also about how you combat with something positive too. So you could be like, hey, our mistake, we'll get you in a DM and send you a little promo code or something, so that, so that things are smoothed over, um, and the audience who wasn't part of the argument, they're, they're sort of pulled in to the...

To the, uh, to the trustworthiness of the brand. Um, let's see. So I'll just like give us a little recap, which is in terms of like our top tips for, for handling comments online, particularly negative comments is make a plan with the, with the client upfront, find out what their tone and voices and what their bandwidth for negativity is and what they want us to leave and what they don't want us to leave.

Um, monitor the con-- the comments continually, I would say at least every 24 hours. Check in and make sure things are going well so that you can respond immediately and appropriately. Um, humanize the brand. Um, give it that, that touch of human and unique responses to each person. Um, and show some sympathy and some, and some humility when you make a mistake.

Would you say that's a pretty good plan?

Jess Boozel: Yeah, absolutely.

Tiecen Payne: Did I leave anything out?

Jess Boozel: No, I think you're good. I mean, they should have watched the episode by now.

Tiecen Payne: All right. Well, thanks so much for hanging out with me today. Thank you to all of our listeners for joining us on Untamed Social and we will see you next time. Jess Boozel: Bye.

Tiecen Payne: Bye!