The smart way how to deal with negative bloggers about your business.

Question:

What's the best way to deal with a blogger who consistently writes negative posts about your company/brand?

I have personally experienced this as one of my clients had these so called “attackers” consistently posting negative comments.

There are 2 types of “hate attacks”. 1) Spammer 2) Genuine concerns.

Here is how I approached it with number 2. (Dealing with number 1 is basically block his IP addresses)

1. Listen to all his comments/post
2. Write them down and categorize them in order of importance vs. value to your organization
3. Once you know what he is commenting about and how important it is, get your team together from multiple departments. Don’t ask your PR person only, ask the right people. It doesn’t have to be managers either.
4. You as the moderator (in a meeting room eg.) go thru the comments and if the comment is legit, write down an answer and learn from it. Even though it’s negative and sometimes the commenter is misinformed, some truth is there.
5. Fix your problems (learn from this)
6. Time to address this Negative Commenter
7. Post a post asking for a private conversation or even a phone call. Be genuine about you wanting to solve his concerns and listen to him/her.
8. During the conversation (chat or call) Best to get him/her on the phone.
   a. Tell him that you are truly concerned and wanting to fix the problem (if it’s reasonable)
   b. Also tell them (after you have made him warm and fuzzy) that it is not cool to post all these negative comments.
   c. After your call or conversation. Send him/her a thank you note signed by the CEO. Maybe include a gift or some promotional material.

Lessons learned.
Address negative comments early on to stop potential disasters. Remember that everything is transparent in today’s Web 2.0. Don’t reply to negative posts without putting some real thought into it. Most of the time it disappears in the clutter or evangelists will appear to save and fight for you.

Use this above when it gets really bad and you need to put out a fire. It has helped me with my clients so hopefully it can help you.

Cheers
Chris
www.ReallyHotIdeas.com