Ever since user reviews and feedbacks appeared on the Internet, customers have begun to attach great importance to them. Often it is based on comments that users build their trust in specific products and services, relying on the experiences of others. That is why it is so important to be able to properly manage comments on Facebook and other social media profiles.
It’s only human to trust those we can relate to. In turn, another naturally human trait is to focus on the negative aspects rather than the positive. How does this relate to social media comment management? All of our customers have something in common and no matter how different they may be, they form a common audience for our products or services. Therefore, it will certainly be easier for them to trust each other than to blindly believe in assurances of our professionalism and highest quality. Let’s assume that a certain user intends to buy our product, but just before the purchase he scrolls down our ad and finds angry, disappointed and negative comments from the audience, and finds no response from our brand. What feelings might arise in him? He will probably conclude that the service is not good enough and that we do not care about our customers. To avoid this type of situation, it is necessary to learn how to properly control the comments section, leading to building trust and a positive attitude towards the brand.
1. Premoderation
The most stringent way to control the content appearing in the comments section is to disable the auto-publish option. When a customer creates a comment, it will not appear in public view, but will fall into the waiting room. Only the person authorized to post the content – a moderator or administrator – can post it after reviewing it. However, such a robust screening method has one major drawback – it is very time-consuming and requires the approval of all comments, even neutral and positive ones, so it is recommended mainly in crisis situations, when our profile has become the object of attack from trolls or haters.
2. Postmoderation
This is the most common way of managing comments in social media, which involves reacting to and moderating content only after it has officially appeared on the site. The popularity of this model is mainly due to the fact that, unlike its predecessor, it is fast and does not require spending hours on personal verification of all published content. A perfect method nevertheless does not exist, so with this one there is a danger of overlooking content that has been published that violates the law or tarnishes the brand image. Vigilance and accuracy recommended.
3. Automatic moderation
A convenient method of managing comments which consists in delegating this unpleasant duty to an algorithm that, based on selected keywords, decides whether to publish or withhold content. This way we avoid any vulgarity, sexual terms or references to competing companies. When choosing automatic moderation, however, you need to do your due diligence on keywords and remember that no algorithm – as of yet – will do exactly the same job as a human.
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