“Someone wrote something on my Facebook page and I don’t know if I should delete it or not. Could you take a look?” This is not the type of phone call you want to receive as you’re trying to shut it down at the end of the day.
I’ve always been — and will continue to be – an advocate for keeping wall boards and comments open, especially on the social web. One of the first changes I make to any Facebook page I create is to open the wall to show all posts. The wall should a conglomeration of comments from the page administrator and the people who like it.
It’s easy to delete comments that are hateful, racist or threaten the safety of another person. Those are the no-brainers. But what do you do when the comments fall into the category of oh-I-wish-he-wouldn’t-have-said-that? Here’s the initial posting on an admission counselor’s page that caused my phone to ring:
It’s not a particularly negative comment and at least he was nice about it. He even apologized! But it’s also not exactly the type of message you want attached to a post that’s trying to get kids excited about the upcoming school year.
My advice was this: Let it go. Respond in a positive manner if you’d like, but it’s only going to grow bigger if you delete it. Who wants another Nestle?
In the end, the admissions counselor didn’t have to do anything but sit back and let the students doing the talking for her. One student posted within 15 minutes refuting the call to live off campus. Another student chimed in two after her, with a third student piling on the following morning. The result was a string of student endorsements you couldn’t pay them to write:
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Patrick – nice topic and blog. Always an odd situation on social networks. I agree with you and would leave the comment. Unfortunately, he may be stating a fact, just not in the best manner possible. Also like you said, there are several students/followers defending and setting him straight. Better the peers do it, than any university official. Just keep a watch out so the conversation doesn’t get out of control or become mean. The people after this person’s comment seem to offer some good insight that could help the person asking the question.
After awhile, the comment should eventually get rolled into the accumulative “See the other XX comments” link. So the comment will no longer be immediately viewable.
Great topic, Patrick, and one that I was just speaking with a colleague at Princeton about yesterday.
Funny, because I think a lot of student affairs folks use social as a means of interacting with students. But, some of the most “successful” things we’ve done involve providing a platform for students to interact with each other!
Great point, Gary. Sometimes it seems the best thing we can do is just get out of the way.
Leaving the post is usually the right call. In our office, we follow the social media triage approach originally developed by the U.S. Air Force to respond to blog comments and later modified by Jeremiah Owyang and Charlene Li. (And, oh yeah, cited on your second-favorite blog!)
The triage approach breaks it down nicely. Posters of negative comments tend to fall into one of three categories:
1. Unhappy customer
2. Dedicated complainer
3. Comedian wannabe
There are appropriate responses for each. And for the last category, doing nothing is the best approach.
As your experience shows, the community itself is often the best police force for dealing with commenters.