Cool-Headed Strategies for Responding to Negative Comments Online

Small-business owners spend good money on advertising, media relations and other promotional materials to increase brand awareness and control the conversation surrounding the business. social media marketing jobs Although these tactics can be effective, one of the biggest factors that sway consumers’ opinions is feedback from others. So what do you do when you get a scathing Yelp! review about the terrible service and cold soup at your family restaurant or a horrible post on Ripoff Report about your gym’s cancellation policy? The tips below will help answer these questions and outline some of the best practices for handling bad reviews. Years ago, word of mouth was a very literal expression that meant one person shared their experience with their friends and colleagues and then those people shared with their network and so forth. These days, when a customer is upset with their experience, the first thing they do is announce their opinion on social media and web forums.
Rich markup allows Pinterest to find the most essential information on your page and show it on the pin page. social media and marketing Rich pins are effective for better conversions. If I see a price underneath the pinned image, I'll know it's for sale. If I click, I am considering buying the item. Rich pins work well for better traffic, too. According to published data, Target saw a 70 percent increase in visits to its site from Pinterest after creating rich pins for its products. If you are not using Schema.org for Google rich snippets yet, you may want to start now: It will work for both Google and Pinterest. Here's an easy product Schema.org generator for you to better understand how to implement rich markup on your product pages.Home Depot is a great example of Schema.org product schema well-executed. Each pin from the domain contains item name and price information.

Know that time is of the essence

To gain back trust after a scathing review, make sure you say something as soon as possible. social media marketing agency A quick response shows that the business has nothing to hide. It’s important to note, however, that the messaging needs to be thoughtful and accurate, since the audience may already be aggressive and you don’t want to fuel an already existing fire. Sometimes, the best response is something simple, such as “We are very sorry for the inconvenience and frustration that you’ve been experiencing. Please contact me directly at [email address] and we’ll get this figured out. Images are not just for fun, any more. Unless you get creative and flexible with your visual strategy, you are losing out in social media big times.Create more visually-appealing product pages (to ensure more visitors will want to pin them).Brainstorm more ways to add visual content around your brand. Coffee Makers USA and their coffee-related visual quotes are a great example of brand taking memes and images seriously.Create original images and get productive with that (here are some free tools for that).
In most cases, no matter how one pins your product images (a bookmark or an on-page button), social media marketing company by default image alt text is what is going to be used as the pin description. By controlling what that Pin description contains, you can in some way control what message (and thus intent) is accompanying your product image throughout Pinterest (in all pins and re-pins). Deal Pursue is one of the best examples of how to handle a Pinterest description properly: Each pin contains the product details, detailed deal description and why it's an excellent offer. Think about all of those people who use Pinterest to bookmark products and deals to create a holiday shopping list: Having a descriptive alt text like that may dramatically increase your referrals and especially conversions.

Admit wrongdoing and apologize

If the complaint is legitimate and truthful, it’s important to step up and take the blame. social media marketing plan template People often respond negatively online to businesses that are trying to evade the blame or pass it off on someone else. Conversely, customers are more likely to forgive and forget if the owner apologizes sincerely and then tries to make amends.If the angry customer who received poor service and cold soup wrote on the local restaurant’s Facebook page, then the restaurant could respond back by saying that they truly apologize for the negative service, and would like to make it up to them by offering a meal for them on the house. A business owner should then go to their employees and pinpoint the problem, so the issue does not continue. Often times, online comments can be crude or vulgar because people are more courageous when hiding behind a computer screen. If the comment is a personal attack or vague, don’t engage. Only respond to specific complaints about your service or the customer’s experience.
Acting defensively or engaging in the foul play can make you and your business look petty and childish. social media marketing world Your objective is to have a successful business. Don’t sabotage yourself by turning current and prospective customers off with an emotional or defensive response to an online comment. Keep the big picture in mind and ask yourself if your response is going to help or hurt your business. Never respond out of emotion or argue over details, and always keep in mind that the best way to go about responding to negativity is to take the conversation offline.Product image hover-over "Pin it" button is the most subtle social media call-to-action you'll see on an ecommerce product page: It's not distracting and will only be visible to those who are interested in your image. That's a very good way to encourage active pinners to bookmark your product to a public Pinterest stream. The easiest way to to do that is to use "Shareable images" feature by Shareaholic. It's very easy to implement and it's cross-platform-friendly.