How to Respond to Positive Feedback through Social Media

For an entrepreneur, there is nothing sweeter than the feeling of positive feedback, especially through social media. But don’t get caught in the moment. Positive feedback is an opportunity to advance your brand even further, in the eyes of both the reviewer and the general public. This is your chance to turn fans into fanatics and transform brand loyalty into the coveted “loyalty beyond reason”.

Thank the Reviewer

After all, they probably just augmented your profits by one or two percent.

Engage Him or Her Even More

Start an entire conversation with them by prompting them to talk more about themselves and their idiosyncrasies. Ask questions that they would be proud to answer. Here is a link to a great example of an exchange between a positive reviewer and a fine Italian restaurant. I highly recommend that you take a look at it.

This sort of conversation can go on for several days back and forth. Also, in addition to engaging this particular customer, through this conversation you gain valuable insights into how to improve your own restaurant experience. And as you begin to see commonalities in the people who praise your brand, you can better target your marketing toward a particular niche.

One day, maybe you’ll come across a million-dollar conversation where somebody gives you the suggestion that can immediately drive your brand to the top. That’s the ultimate reward for the fifteen minutes per day that you spent responding to feedback.

Give Out Tokens of Appreciation to Reviewers

First of all, this should only be done occasionally so your costs are not too high and your fans do not come to expect rewards. To add, these can just be coupons or small gift certificates; there is little correlation between the extravagance of these gifts and how loyal they will be. However, do not expect them to tell their friends about your brand, in exchange. Do not ask for anything in return. Period.

Do Not “Feature” the Feedback on your Facebook Page

This is not only pointless (the post is already public), but comes off as desperate. If you are using Twitter, occasional re-tweets of positive feedback is OK. On the other hand, there is nothing wrong with motivating and praising employees by sharing the feedback with them during meetings or presentations.

As soon as you apply these principles, your brand loyalty will skyrocket.

Legitimate Complaints vs. "Hater" Comments: Responding to Negative Feedback on Social Media

This post is meant to be read with the post about improving customer relations by responding to negative feedback.

No matter what your organization produces or works toward, there will always be a few envious attention-seekers who want to get famous, by bringing you down. These people are what my generation calls “haters”; they do not have a valid reason to complain about your company, but they do it anyway. Basically, their comments will go along the lines of:

“[Your company name] SUCKS!!! I HATE THEM!! LET’S GO BREAK [your name]’S LEGS!!!”

Or the slightly more conniving:

“[Your company name] has terrible practices. They beat their workers. They’re worse than [insert a dictator’s name].”

At the end of the day, some of the most financially successful and ethically sound companies in the world, fall victim to millions of “hater” remarks. However, rarely is there any benefit in responding to these sorts of comments, with more than a canned apology. Even if their facts are wrong, telling them this can only spark more anger; the last thing you want is to start a social media war that polarizes your customers. And unfortunately, despite your best intentions, the public almost always sides with the “underdog” consumer.

Most people will not go any further after you respond with an apology. If they decide to continue to barrage your page with hate, simply remove their comments- why keep such negativity on your page?

Occasionally though, it is difficult to discern between hater comments and legitimate complaints; there can often be something genuine masked in the curse words of spur-of-the-moment rage. Here are a few guidelines on the differences between hater comments and legitimate complaints:

• Hater comments question the operations of your company in an angry and irrational way.
• Legitimate complaints are about the product or experience that your company provides. This may include questioning the operations of your company, but only if it is directly related to their experience (e.g. “you need to train your customer service representatives more effectively”)

• Both can sound angry at first.
• Haters will continue to be angry, even after you sympathize and apologize.

• Legitimate complaints can either be public or private (e.g. email or phone)
• Haters like attention and will always try to humiliate you publically

• Legitimate complaints talk about your flaws in a candid, no-nonsense sort of way. Even if their complaints are long, every sentence is related to their own experience. 
• Haters go out of their way to insult you or your company, often on a personal level. They like to insert underhanded jabs at your company, for no good reason

• Legitimate complaints talk about themselves and how their own experience was bad.
• Haters talk about you and how you are bad.

All in all, just remember: haters gonna hate.