Facebook Comments: Don’t Delete Them, Respond to Them
A salon in our hometown of Charlottesville is doing a great job with promoting its business on Facebook. They have tremendous fan interaction and loyalty, and you can really see the personality of the salon, without even stepping foot in the door. In fact, I was so impressed with their company after being a fan on Facebook for the past few months I even considered scheduling my next hair cut there…until today.
I am a fan of their page on Facebook. A week ago, they posted on their wall that if they got to 1,000 fans (now “likes”) by the end of May, one of their fans would receive a giveaway. This is clearly against the Facebook Terms of Service agreement which now prohibits contests being held on a Facebook business page unless offered through a third party vendor or approved by Facebook directly.
I felt a bit like a little kid saying “my mom says that you’re not supposed to do that”, but I wanted to make sure that this salon did not get in trouble and have their hard work on Facebook be for naught. I commented on the giveaway post by the salon and diplomatically told them to be careful about offering contests on their page. I also said that I was not sure how actively Facebook was enforcing these guidelines, but I wanted to be sure that they knew.
What did the salon do??? They deleted my comment. They have then proceeded to post more on their wall about this giveaway, even weekly contests to their “likes” group. Furthermore, they responded to the people that commented on their post- “Wow! Thanks for all of the feedback! May is going to be contest filled so keep an eye on this page!”
What did I do??? I wrote this blog post. For a moment, I thought about alerting Facebook. Hell hath no furry like a social media girl scorned!
What is the appropriate way to deal with comments on your Facebook page or blog? Unless it is vulgar or slanderous, NEVER delete a comment by someone who has taken the time to write it. This is a great opportunity to respond and to make things better. It may be an opportunity to turn a poor customer service experience around or, in this case, it may be a chance to thank someone for giving your business a head’s up, whether you choose to follow it or not.
What did deleting this comment do for my fondness and future evangelism for this company? It ruined it. Poor form.
Author: Alexandra Gibson
Alexandra is the CEO of Gibson Design Management and Managing Partner of interior design firm, Gibson Design Group. When she's not busy trying to build an empire, you can find Alexandra riding a horse, giving back to the community, playing with her Scottie, McCord, or drinking a martini (preferably not all four at once).
Follow Alexandra on TwitterTags: Alexandra Gibson, client service, comments, Customer Service, Facebook, Gibson Design Management, promotion guidelines, wall posts, Word of Mouth Marketing
This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 4th, 2010 at 11:03 am and is filed under Customer Relations, Facebook, Public Relations, Social Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
May 4th, 2010 at 11:27 am
Twitter Comment
RT @gibsondm: Charlottesville salon is now on my Facebook “un-like” list. See new blog post. Don’t delete FB comments! [link to post]
– Posted using Chat Catcher
May 4th, 2010 at 12:02 pm
Twitter Comment
One Charlottesville salon is now on my Facebook “un-like” list. See new blog post. Don’t delete FB comments! [link to post]
– Posted using Chat Catcher
May 4th, 2010 at 12:03 pm
Twitter Comment
RT @gibsondm One Charlottesville salon is now on my Facebook “un-like” list. See blog post. Don’t delete FB comments! [link to post]
– Posted using Chat Catcher
May 4th, 2010 at 12:11 pm
Right on Alex. Hopefully this will serve as a lesson for others.
May 4th, 2010 at 1:33 pm
Thanks so much Steinar. I often get the question about what to do if someone says something that you don’t like on your Facebook page or on your blog during presentations. Too many of the people in the audience yell out “Delete!” I immediately tell them that this is not the way to handle it; you might as well slam the door in a customer’s face.
May 4th, 2010 at 4:52 pm
Clearly, deleting social media comments is not a smart strategy. Obviously hell hath no fury like a woman scorned…
But, for what it’s worth, I think it is bad form to criticize, make suggestions to, or ask for help from an organization through a public forum like a Facebook wall or Twitter without first attempting to contact the organization directly (i.e. email). Its like standing up in a restaurant and announcing to all the tables “the coke is flat!” without first informing the waiter and giving them a chance to fix it.
Full disclosure: Jonathan Nuckles is a friend (and great guy!) and I coded his website (but don’t have anything to do with his Facebook or content – a friend manages his FB for him).
May 4th, 2010 at 5:28 pm
Daniel, I agree that it would be impolite to criticize a company without trying a less public means first. However, I don’t think that it’s wrong to offer a friendly suggestion on something public like a Facebook wall. This is an opportunity for interaction.
My comment to them on a contest was to simply be careful, although I was unsure with how harsh Facebook was on pages that violate the T.O.S.
Posting on a salon’s wall something about social media, is not like yelling that “the coke is flat!” in a restaurant. What would be inappropriate is posting that “their perm solution made all of my hair fall out” without first alerting them.
As someone who first was really digging what they were doing in the social media world, I thought it would be a shame to see that work go to waste because they did not know about the promotional guidelines.
May 4th, 2010 at 5:37 pm
True, my coke-is-flat comparison may have been a little shady, but I still think suggestions like that are better off emailed rather than publicly posted.
Most companies set up Facebook pages (and I think the Page design is partially to blame for this) not as a place to interact with customers, but as a public way for “fans” to express nice things about them. I’d wager that most companies check their FB page once or twice a week (if even) and only to see how many fans they have and to see what nice things people said about them. Does Facebook provide automatic notification of new comments on a page?
Ideally, we’d all be checking our social media areas all the time, but most small businesses are still catching up.
May 4th, 2010 at 5:53 pm
Unfortunately, Facebook does not provide those notifications to my knowledge. As a result, we check all of our businesses’ pages, plus our clients’ pages daily, if not twice daily. I really hope that is something that they add because I agree that many pages are untended for too much of the time.