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Social Media for Business: Can You Stand It?
Series, Part 10: Social media is enjoyable – but not always. Expert Gergely Teglasy writes about the dark side of social media.
Social Media for Business: Can You Stand It?
If you use social media, you are guaranteed to have a problem. Sooner or later someone will say negative things about your company. That's part of it. The only question is how you deal with it.
We differentiate between three levels of negativity: criticism, trolls and shitstorms. Criticism is good: you can learn from it. You will be made aware of the weaknesses in your service or product. This way you can see where you can improve. The most helpful thing is concrete, constructive criticism that stays on point. But not all people are able to give criticism constructively; it too often becomes personal. We can all still learn from that. If someone criticizes, stay on a factual level and use the opportunity for a dialogue from which you can take something away.
A special species is the troll (although it can also be female, but according to all studies it is more likely to be male). This is a user who just wants to cause trouble. He's not interested in the potential for improvement, just in letting out anger. These are usually narcissists who want to place themselves above others or bring others down. The troll's motto is: "I feel bad, so others should feel bad too." You will never be able to convince a troll, you will notice that by the time you write the third comment. The troll doesn't respond to your arguments, but still has something (else) to complain about. Every minute is wasted energy and time, so there is one simple rule when trolling: Don't do it. In other words: “Don’t feed the troll!”
The worst thing that can happen to you is a shitstorm. Only four factors together result in a shitstorm: mass, negative, emotional reactions in a very short space of time. The three known triggers for shitstorms are quality problems, service or communication problems or unethical behavior. These may actually exist or may just be perceived as such by people.
In order to deal with it, it is important that you even notice the shitstorm (more on that here soon). Because then you can react before the storm even builds up.
The author:
Mag. Gergely Teglasy / TG teaches at the University of Vienna, the FH Vienna and the FH Burgenland. He is the winner of the Innovation Award, advises international organizations and companies on their digital communication strategy and wrote “Zwirbler,” the world's first Facebook novel.