managing negativity on a brand facebook page

Managing Negativity on a Brand Facebook Page

Prepared by:

20 April 2012Date:

Emily KnoxSocial Media Strategist

Negativity & Facebook Pages

• Facebook Pages can be an excellent way for brands and organisations to communicate more directly with their customers.

• However, this two-way conversation inevitably leads to some negative conversations with consumers who have had a bad brand experience or take issue with company practices.

• Facebook Page managers will also inevitably encounter issues of content which may devalue their brand indirectly eg. obscene material or spam posts.

• Because these conversations are occurring in the public sphere, it’s important that Page managers know the mechanics of Facebook’s native content moderation tools and their limitations, as well as best practice in Facebook community management.

• This document is a top line guide to dealing with negativity on your Facebook Page.

Controlling Content On Your Facebook Page

• Pre-moderating posts on your Page

• Facebook Pages are all equipped with a Moderation Blocklisttool which allows you to enter multiple keywords to prevent them appearing on your Page.

• This content will never be seen by anyone other than admins of the Page.

• Admins can view this content via the Admin Panel and can choose to delete the content, or approve it for publication.choose to delete the content, or approve it for publication.


• Moderating content on your Page’s Wall

• If questionable content is posted by a user onto your Page’s Wall Facebook gives you three moderation options:

• Hide the Comment from the Page – this comment will now only be visible to Page admins.

• Delete the Comment – the content will be permanently deleted.

• Report the comment as abuse or mark it as spam – this has the same affect as hiding the post, but also informs Facebook that the user may have breached its Community Standards.

• Facebook Community Standards: https://www.facebook.com/communitystandards


• Removing users from your Page

• In extreme circumstances Page admins may require that a user be banned from interacting with their Page.

• Users can be banned both via the Admin Page panel and also during the post deletion process.

• Banned users will no longer have any access to your Page’s content and will not be able to post any content to your Page.


• Moderating content from another Facebook Page

• Pages as well as individual users have the ability to Like and Post to Facebook Pages.

• Page admins have the same options to report, hide or delete posts from Pages as posts from individual profiles.

• Page admins can also ban other Pages the same way they can ban users.

Facebook Page Management Best Practice

• What can I remove from my Facebook Page?

• Be familiar with Facebook Community Standards, which dictate what kind of content is not permitted on the platform eg. nudity & pornography, hate speech, threats of violence and the use of fake profiles and fake names. This is when you would use the ‘report’ moderation option to alert Facebook and remove the content from your Page.

• https://www.facebook.com/communitystandardshttps://www.facebook.com/communitystandards


• What can I remove from my Facebook Page?

• If you have concerns beyond what is covered in the Community Standards document you should also draft House Rules or Community Guidelines for your Page. This way if you need to remove content from your Page you can explain to Fans why this happened and point to which guideline was breached.

• House Rules can delineate the spirit of the brand and the intention of the Page, the expected standard of conversation, intention of the Page, the expected standard of conversation, and disclaimers eg. that your Page does not endorse user opinions.

• Brands may also like to include an explicit statement forbidding users from making false brand or product claims.

• Publish your House Rules in the ‘About’ section of your Page or create a custom Application Tab to house them.


• How should I respond to negative comments about my brand that don’t breach Facebook Community Standards or my House Rules?

• As quickly as possible – even if just to let the user know you are looking into the issue they raised. If an answer is going to take more than an hour or two to find, don’t leave them hanging until then.

• With a level head – never respond in anger, and try and keep a • With a level head – never respond in anger, and try and keep a distance between yourself and the claims being made.

• Truthfully – if an error has been made own up to it as soon as possible. Admitting the mistake and apologising can earn your brand respect and trust.


• How should I respond to negative comments about my brand that don’t breach Facebook Community Standards or my House Rules?

• Privately – if the issue the Fan is raising is particularly sensitive or involves other parties you can take the conversation off the Page Wall, either to Facebook Messages or email.

• NB only Fans can instigate Private Message communications with Pages, and not vice versa.with Pages, and not vice versa.

• Know when to end the conversation – if you’re dealing with a user (perhaps with an agenda greater than your brand) who you are unable to placate using the above steps, it’s ok to leave the conversation and move on.

managing negativity on a brand facebook page

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