5 Ways To Handle A Negative Blogger
It’s a brave new world we live in…where anyone with an Internet connection can create a blog. Everyone has an opinion and there may come a day, in fact most likely will come a day, when that opinion is directed at your company and your product. What do you do when a high traffic volume blogger hammers your business? Here are our tips:
1) Address her issue: Act as quickly as possible. Does the blogger have a point? Are there steps that can be taken? Make them a participant in the resolution. If the issue is handled satisfactorily, most likely she will blog about that. You certainly can blog about your efforts to take care of things, and the obvious attempt to react positively to criticism will play well with any audience.
2) Talk to him: Will he accept a call; and, if so, will he be open to an honest dialogue about the issue? Will he be open to a demonstration or presentation? Often, just the attempt to establish communication impresses your critic and leads to a good outcome. Use your active listening skills here. Ask questions to make sure you understand both the criticism and any other motivations that might exist behind the complaint. Restate the critics point to make sure they know you understand. And, again, see if you can include your critic in the resolution. However, if these two steps fail…
3) Blog yourself: Depending on the issue, it may be wise to address the situation head on. You are not required to name your critic and, in many if not most circumstances, that’s not a good idea anyway. However, you can take on the challenge offered in the criticism. In all circumstances, it’s best to keep your blog positive and professional. Meet their objection and do it with EVIDENCE. Remember a picture is worth a thousand words. If you can answer the criticism with photographic evidence, so much the better.
4) Isolate them: Bloggers interact with one another, by commenting on their peer’s blogs, or linking to them. Identify your critic’s niche and approach other bloggers influential in that niche to determine the possibility of a briefing or demonstration. DO NOT SOLICIT POSITIVE MENTIONS, but, instead, allow them to draw their own conclusions. Your product or service should speak for itself. If it doesn’t, get a new line of work.
5) Communicate internally: Monitor staff. You need to control the interaction with your critic. Remember, in the social media age, every single employee is potentially a part of your PR department, for good or ill. Watch them. If you don’t already have an official social media “policy” for your associates, write one. Recently, in a basketball game between USC and Oregon, USC was assessed a technical foul when a student manager…a student manager…was heard to be screaming epithets at the officials. The resulting free throws were a four point swing at a critical moment in the game. Monitor what your staff is doing. Screaming at the refs won’t help.
Social media, from Twitter to the most elaborate blog, is the interactive space of the modern era. It’s the new town square, the new water-cooler, and the new back-yard fence. It’s where people congregate to exchange photo’s, recipe’s, sports talk, and, yes, advice about products and services. It’s where they talk about their good experiences and their bad ones. Be ready when your product gets bad press from a blogger. It’s an environment you must influence.
