Dealing with Social Media Keyboard Warriors

RE: Dealing with Social Media Keyboard Warriors

George Cooper — Sun, 19 Nov 2017 12:04:19 GMT

I've spoken before about how the enterprising branch of the Cooper Family has successfully built a business principally through the use of intensive FaceBook presence, starting off by holding Pop-Up "Shops" in a variety of public halls in Hereford, and followed up by gaining access and support from local primary schools, holding Pop-Ups there, too. As it gathered momentum and every square inch of their home was piled high with ever-increasing stock items, it became a necessity to take on a Unit to act as base, both as a stock holding facility and as a Showroom.

Grandpa Book (as I am now referred to in the community) gets press-ganged into (free) service especially at weekends and vetting-free days (when I have the privilege of winding up primary kids at their own pop-up in school) and am involved in staffing the showroom when the hordes descend in a frenzy of book-buying bonanzas.

Because I am interested, I ask each family if they've been to the Showroom before, and if not, how they had heard of us. A small proportion stems from the in-school contact where every small person who buys their own £2 book goes home with a small leaflet outlining the what and the where and the HOW MUCH? However, By far the greatest number inevitably say - "We saw it on FaceBook".

One example of how this has worked for him concerned the smallest, most remote school in Powys, with only 40 pupils on the role, only 3 of whom are in the top 3 classes, with 37 in the younger years. There was 100% take-up of the kids buying their own book (ie they'd come to school clutching their own £2) but the most telling thing was the astonishing turnout of parents and other family members after school was out, and they ended up buying over £600 worth of books - and all driven by the PTA FaceBook page. It was probably helped enormously that this little school has been in Special Measures and has resolutely fought for survival against closure for the past few years, and they have the mind-set to get behind such initiatives. The fact that, by achieving that level of sales they have "won" 30 free books for school use would have spurred them on.

RE: Dealing with Social Media Keyboard Warriors

J G Wray — Thu, 16 Nov 2017 11:34:45 GMT

[quote user="Arlo Guthrie"]I'm not sure whether you mean that the value is so small, it is immeasurable, or that you can't think of a way to measure it. villagevet seems to be doing it by asking new registrations.[/quote]

Yes

RE: Dealing with Social Media Keyboard Warriors

Arlo Guthrie — Thu, 16 Nov 2017 09:09:50 GMT

[quote user="J G Wray"]We have a Facebook account.

We cannot measure the value of this exercise.[/quote]

I'm not sure whether you mean that the value is so small, it is immeasurable, or that you can't think of a way to measure it. Lindsey Edwards seems to be doing it by asking new registrations. I suppose another way might be to do some sort of offer and announce via fb page and see what sort of response you get. Then a similar one via website and compare?

[quote user="J G Wray"]This is frustrating because all of our other marketing has measurables. We have stopped taking advertorials in the local paper and online version for instance as a consequence of evaluation.[/quote]

Yes, absolutely essential part of successful marketing, is measurement. You'd be surprised how many people don't.

[quote user="J G Wray"]Our surveys show that word of mouth remains the most potent recruiter, followed by the first interaction from telephone contact generated by the Google link to our website, which is being revamped, because money is better spent there.[/quote]

Yes, that is exactly how I would spend my money if I was running a practice. And not just revamping website, but critically on search engine marketing too. No good having the most beautiful website in the world if nobody finds it.

[quote user="ola jankowska"]We had very bad experience dealing with local Fb closed group with 6k members, long story,after few consultations with social media lawyers,police etc we decided to leave it and don't get involved.[/quote]

I can imagine that must have been soul destroying. Glad you're turning the corner.

Certainly mixed reports as to value of Facebook: it CAN be effective, but you can also get your fingers properly burned. Personally, I think one's own website should usually take priority when it comes to deciding where to apportion marketing budget.

RE: Dealing with Social Media Keyboard Warriors

ola jankowska — Thu, 16 Nov 2017 09:02:19 GMT

[quote user="Lazy Bee"]Console yourself that the majority of trolls are drawn from 'The Hard of Thinking' - probably unable to relate to anyone except via the medium of Internet, sitting in his grubby underwear typing mean little comments in a miasma of b.o. and stale take-aways.[/quote]

We had very bad experience dealing with local Fb closed group with 6k members, long story,after few consultations with social media lawyers,police etc we decided to leave it and don't get involved. After almost 2 years abuse on this particular site it looks like we are turning a corner, finally! On our Facebook page we decided not to have any reviews.

RE: Dealing with Social Media Keyboard Warriors

J G Wray — Thu, 16 Nov 2017 08:06:38 GMT

[quote user="Arlo Guthrie"]Let's weigh up the pros and cons of having a facebook page:[/quote]

We have a Facebook account.

We cannot measure the value of this exercise.

This is frustrating because all of our other marketing has measurables. We have stopped taking advertorials in the local paper and online version for instance as a consequence of evaluation.

Our surveys show that word of mouth remains the most potent recruiter, followed by the first interaction from telephone contact generated by the Google link to our website, which is being revamped, because money is better spent there.

RE: Dealing with Social Media Keyboard Warriors

Lazy Bee — Wed, 15 Nov 2017 23:45:30 GMT

Console yourself that the majority of trolls are drawn from 'The Hard of Thinking' - probably unable to relate to anyone except via the medium of Internet, sitting in his grubby underwear typing mean little comments in a miasma of b.o. and stale take-aways.

RE: Dealing with Social Media Keyboard Warriors

Lazy Bee — Wed, 15 Nov 2017 23:37:32 GMT

I would have payed good money to have listened in to that conversation.

RE: Dealing with Social Media Keyboard Warriors

Lindsey Edwards — Wed, 15 Nov 2017 17:41:01 GMT

We use FB a lot as a new practice and have a 'where did you hear about us' box n new client registrations, more than 80% tick 'website/FB' and most of them would have recently liked the page when we look back. We have had our taste of '1*' trolls but completely ignore if spurious or post a non-commital 'come in and talk to us' type reply if about a specific case. Most genuine complaints and comments have come back by phone and not on FB at all.

I would not consider ending our FB page and focus mostly on lost/found notices and launch the occasional competition/offer to keep it fresh in people memories

RE: Dealing with Social Media Keyboard Warriors

James Dunne — Mon, 13 Nov 2017 13:59:53 GMT

Thanks Arlo and everyone else who contributed. Again, I appreciate your insights. To answer Arlo's questions - how much does it add to our business? - I don't know!! I guess to some extent it keeps us in the mind's eye of our good clients and followers. As for research - we do this sporadically and new people tend to hear about us a) from google searches and b) word of mouth. Not that many years ago it was the other way around. i cannot remember meeting someone who was impressed with our Facebook page and, recently, a client posted a very positive Facebook review indicating that she was initially nervous having read some of the adverse reviews, but delighted that she decided to use our services in the end. This is what makes me jittery about Facebook - I wonder have some clients decided not to come in based on what some grudge-harbouring individual writes...you can't win them all I suppose. I'll have a think about whether we keep our page as interactive as we do following the comments here.

RE: Dealing with Social Media Keyboard Warriors

Iain Richards — Mon, 13 Nov 2017 10:40:10 GMT

Adverse and unjustified comments by a client on your facebook page, should be dealth with in the same manner you deal with clients who are unpleasant. Bin them.

Can you tweak a facebook page to not accept comments? I'd add to Arlo's comments - any REAL evidecne that facebook actually increases profitability?

RE: Dealing with Social Media Keyboard Warriors

Bob Russell — Mon, 13 Nov 2017 10:32:32 GMT

We had this issue with a person that bad mouthed us everywhere we looked. We had simply visited to PTS their dog because their so called good value practice refused to do it.

As we left the house there was a discussion with the nursing assistant about putting their account on stop because we really did not want them as clients. Actually really quite nasty people to deal with in person.

We had just launched our revamped website and FB page and the staff member involved was pretty devastated to find a 1* review (at that stage the only review!).

These people found so many places to bad-mouth us! Google, FB, Yell plus plenty of others.

There was a lot of sympathy and help from here and a gentle and non-combative response was posted. It stopped responses in their tracks and clients have been supportive.

We chose to post a few bits of news but everyone is aware now that I dislike FB because of the nastiness a minority show. Pretty much everyone has seen or experienced it so are understanding.

My advice would be to post something nice and leave it be!

RE: Dealing with Social Media Keyboard Warriors

Arlo Guthrie — Mon, 13 Nov 2017 09:45:16 GMT

In the past, I've tended to think a Facebook page is a useful marketing tool for a business/practice. I think I have changed my mind.

One of the reasons I have changed my mind is seeing the level of debate on Facebook triggered by the RCVS position on homeopathy. Both the way it really brings out the worst people, or the very worst in people, however you want to look at it.

And reading your remark James Dunne (and others), and I really do start to wonder whether it is really worth it.

Let's weigh up the pros and cons of having a facebook page:

Pros:

It can help you engage better with clients who 'like' your page, and drive visits to your website / practice.
Theoretically it can help word of mouth spread about your practice. But in reality, I wonder how often someone looks to see whether a friend 'likes' a particular practice (or anything else for that matter).

Cons

I don't have any evidence for this statement, but I can't help feeling that there is something about human nature which makes us more likely to complain than compliment or thank.
If that is true, then you could say that if you take no action to try and generate compliments/thanks, then any platform which allows people to express their opinions will, by default, be likely to generate more complaints than praise.
As I keep banging on about, the written word - devoid of inflection or facial expression - tends to read FAR more critically / hostile than it should (especially to the subject of the criticism).
There's no accountability. People are free to (and do) write any old rubbish on Facebook.
As you say, James, it really is time-consuming formulating even a short reply. All the thought that goes into whatever the person is complaining about. Then how best to respond to it. Then how to put that into words, in a way that will reflect well to the other readers.
Then there's the knock on effect (presumably) of unfair criticism on staff morale.

Seems to me that the cons of such an uncontrolled environment perhaps outweigh the benefits.

And what is the consequence of NOT having a facebook page? I'm not sure there is any real loss. I mean, if I look for a product or service, I certainly don't view it any less positively because the company doesn't have a Facebook page. Most important thing is that your own website (which I think looks really good, BTW James) ranks highly in Google.

Furthermore, there are plenty of ways of adding facebook types of functionality to your own website. In other words the ability for clients to review, post comments etc., but in a way that allows you to control things rather better.

That all said, James, you've got an impressive number of likes and your ratio of positive reviews to negative ones is excellent. So I guess the question is how much you think it adds to your business. Do you do any research with new clients: "How did you hear about us?".

RE: Dealing with Social Media Keyboard Warriors

Gillian Mostyn — Sun, 12 Nov 2017 10:05:54 GMT

I've just had a quick look at your Facebook page and I have a couple of comments:

- your rating is good and the vast majority of your reviews are 5*. You have nothing to worry about!

- one of your glowing reviews in 2015 actually (I presume accidentally) gave you 1*. Is it possible to get them to change it?

- the two recent 1* reviews, one from the owner and the second simply supporting them, sound spurious and I wouldn't worry about them at all. ( She obviously left the cat 2 days before representing it elsewhere. A lot can change in 2 days...any sensible person knows that.) However, in donating to charity, be very careful about giving the impression of guilt. If you did feel that you acted incorrectly, then that's fine. But if you didn't, which I suspect, then it can give the wrong impression.

I still think the benefits of the online presence, and your excellent reviews, outweigh the bad.

RE: Dealing with Social Media Keyboard Warriors

James Dunne — Sun, 12 Nov 2017 09:35:36 GMT

Thank you all very much for your replies - I really appreciate them. I have been dealing with these problems by phoning the clients involved, explaining what has been written and then dealing with any concerns arising. While I have been successful in having grossly inaccurate posts removed, it is incredibly time-consuming. I have never had a problem leaving posts up that have a grain of truth in them because we certainly don't get it right all the time. I do find though, on social media, complaints are far more common than they would be without it. I cannot decide whether it brings out the worst in people [it feels that way when the worst offenders are not even the pet owner!] or whether it is a truer reflection of satisfaction levels with our service. Most of our 'thank-you' messages still arrive by card or spoken word and in comparison, written complaints, even by e-mail, are very rare. It does make me wonder whether social media promotes a different set of behavioural traits with regard to expression of dissatisfaction. And whether we should have a Facebook page or blog at all....? What are your thoughts on pros/cons of it??

RE: Dealing with Social Media Keyboard Warriors

Glenn Hodgson — Sun, 12 Nov 2017 08:39:04 GMT

You can do something about it sometimes...

We had a review that was overt slander from a non client (bonefide troll)

Spent 30 minutes 'troll hunting' enough information about him to find his address (cost a couple of quid and was not easy) Sent a recorded delivery letter.

He called at 8:31 the next morning REALLY REALLY sad I had found his address as his profession made it very important for his address to remain confidential.

I did tell him how I found it... After he removed the review.

RE: Dealing with Social Media Keyboard Warriors

grumpyoldman — Sun, 12 Nov 2017 00:10:49 GMT

I spoke to a friend who had to deal with something similar recently, if its a troll just trashing your business not much you can do about it, however if its someone grinding an axe with specifics they have waived their right to confidentially and you can post an edited highlights of their notes . e.g. took buster collar off , discharged patient against practice advice , failed to administer medication, failed to keep appointment complained about the bill ,refused to pay on discharge etc these people are out there and they are accustomed to whinging and getting away with it.

RE: Dealing with Social Media Keyboard Warriors

Rachel Brown — Sat, 11 Nov 2017 22:51:43 GMT

Hi James

Have dealt with this in the past and is unpleasant and time consuming

Get a list of banned words so posts cannot be made that contain them -follow Snout School on FB- great closed vet/vet nurse social media discussion group

In you FB page settings make sure all posts have to be approved before they appear on the timeline.

If it isn't a review, which you cannot remove, as the replies above answer them and ask them to contact the office, if not the client you can mention that you do not recoginise them and can they contact the office. As good as you will feel from replying to them and justifying yourself there is absolutely no point. We have had our own clients shooting down anyone who made a bad comment which is great.

We have banned people from the page when they were being abusive.

Money is usually the root of all FB/social media evil!

Rachel

RE: Dealing with Social Media Keyboard Warriors

Sarah McGurk — Sat, 11 Nov 2017 14:34:33 GMT

[quote user="Gillian Mostyn"]In my experience, your loyal clients will make up their own minds based on their own experience. Sensible people can read between the lines of nasty reviews. Bottom feeders love to get involved...but they don't matter.

[/quote]

I love reading bad reviews by obviously irrational people. Especially when the owner obviously is quite confident that their performance is generally well received and very popular with the majority of their customers.

Park Restaurant is a lovely restaurant in Bruges, which is reflected in its TripAdvisor position as the No.1 restaurant there. I must confess that I love to see a good restaurant owner defending the performance of his eatery. Especially if the response demonstrates just how attentive to detail that owner is with regard to each individual diner. It would never put me off eating there. It would put me off going there and being an asshole to the staff.

https://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurant_Review-g188671-d694742-Reviews-Park_Restaurant-Bruges_West_Flanders_Province.html

Not particularly recommending Axel's technique, but I do agree with Gillian.

RE: Dealing with Social Media Keyboard Warriors

Gillian Mostyn — Sat, 11 Nov 2017 13:41:04 GMT

In my experience, your loyal clients will make up their own minds based on their own experience. Sensible people can read between the lines of nasty reviews. Bottom feeders love to get involved...but they don't matter.

I simply reply something bland but pointing. If the post is about money, say something like 'if you have any concerns about the financial aspect of your pet's care, please do contact us.'. if they are lying about something you've said, how about 'there has obviously been a communication breakdown between yourself and the practice, but we would be happy to discuss this with you offline.'

On the whole, I do think the benefits of an online presence outweigh the bad bits!

RE: Dealing with Social Media Keyboard Warriors

Dinu Catilina — Sat, 11 Nov 2017 13:40:36 GMT

There is nothing you can do about it and I would say that other than trying to remove the initial post there is nothing you should do about it. The keyboard warriors will show an interest in your case for 2-3 days maximum and then move on to another one.

Been through a similar thing with a vindictive ex, the facebook posts and allegations would have probably put me in jail if they were true. I ignored them and it's all gone, people have short memory and the best thing about facebook warriors is that they actually not not care at all about the case.

The long term effect over the business is zero.