YOUR Social Media Troll Communications?

How to handle trolls in social media..

Conventional wisdom says that companies should respond to everyone on social media. When people take the time to compliment a company, they want to be acknowledged; when they have a complaint, they want empathy and a resolution; and when they have a question, they just want the answer.

Related Article: YOUR Social Media Troll Repellent?

But some people who tag companies on Twitter or post on a company’s Facebook page aren’t looking for any of those things. Instead, they are just looking for attention. These odious beasts are often referred to as trolls.

Trolls are nasty creatures that cause sleepless nights for social media marketers and customer service agents alike. Trolls are typically in search of an audience through incessantly negative banter about a brand. This can often be confusing for social customer care agents because they are used to people having problems that they try to solve. But trolls don’t really want resolution; they want attention. Often their “complaint” is so amorphous that it isn’t solvable anyway, and sometimes it has nothing to do with the company (in which case it also qualifies as spam).

The best way to deal with a troll is to respectfully answer the first post by offering to help. It’s also a good idea to offer to take the discussion offline so the person can rant privately instead of publicly. But here’s the interesting part: Because trolls generally aren’t looking for resolution, they are often surprised that the brand has engaged them at all. Many times, this will cause them to leave and go pick on another company.

Related Article: The Costliest Social Media Mistakes?

If, however, the person remains persistent after a couple of back-and-forths, it’s okay to ignore and/or block the person from future communications.

According to marketing and customer service consultant Jay Baer, author of Hug Your Haters, companies should follow the “Rule of Reply Only Twice,” which implores customer service agents to “Never, ever, ever, ever, EVER respond to someone more than twice.”

In the case of trolls, this is a good rule to follow, as there is no benefit in continuing the dialogue.

Baer suggests that even with compliments, there is a quickly diminishing return in answering multiple back-and-forth messages. The tricky part comes when there is a real problem being addressed that may require more than two responses, and the customer seems willing to engage further. In that case, continuing the conversation until the customer is satisfied is appropriate.

Related Article: Feed The Social Media Trolls?

Trolls are also the exception to other social media etiquette questions, such as whether it is okay to delete customer posts on a company’s Facebook page and whether it’s okay to just ignore a post and not respond at all.

The answer in these cases is yes for trolls but generally no for any other post. This also goes for spam posts and any posts that are purely based on hate or filled with profanity.

Guest Authored By Dan Gingiss. Dan is a marketing and customer experience executive who has consistently focused on delighting customers. He is a keynote speaker, the author of “Winning at Social Customer Care: How Top Brands Create Engaging Experiences On Social Media” and the co-host of the Experience This! Podcast. His career has spanned multiple disciplines including marketing, customer experience, social media, and customer service. He is currently Vice President of Marketing at Persado, an AI-powered marketing language startup. Previously, he held leadership roles at several major brands: McDonald’s, Humana, and Discover. Follow Dan on Twitter.

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"Remember that people with legitimate complaints about your business are not trolls, and should always be treated respectfully with the goal of finding a resolution to the customer’s specific issue and identifying and correcting the root cause of the problem within the company. -DanGingess

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  Post Crafted By:

  Fred Hansen Pied Piper of Social Media Marketing at YourWorldBrand.com & CEO of Millennium 7 Publishing Co. in Salt Lake City, UT. where I work deep in the trenches of social media strategy, community management and trends.  My interests include; online business educator, social media marketing, new marketing technology, skiing, hunting, fishing and The Rolling Stones..-Not necessarily in that order ;)

How YOU Expose Yourself To Social Media Threats?

4 ways you are unknowingly exposing yourself to threats on social media..

Social media has majorly been a force for good, but there is a dark side.

Related Article: The Exponential Growth Of Social Media?

Facebook announced in its third-quarter-2017 financial results that it now has 2.072 billion monthly users.

That’s more than 2 billion people actively engaging with the platform every month.

Not just Facebook, but social media is too big to ignore at this stage. Social media has also majorly been a force for good, but there is a dark side: cyberbullying and threats from mostly anonymous trolls hiding behind their computer screens.

In fact, it seems nobody is immune. Just recently, two-time Grammy Award winner Ed Sheeran was forced to quit Twitter due to threats, attacks and hate from trolls. Major celebrities including Adele, Stephen Fry and Zayn Malik have also had to take Twitter breaks due to threats on social media.

Related Article: Social Media - To Share And NOT To Share?

When it comes to social media, some facts should be known:

--More than 600,000 Facebook accounts are compromised every day.

--22 percent of social media users have fallen victim to security-related threats.

--Victims of cyberbullying, which occurs mostly on social media, are twice as likely to commit suicide than non-victims.

Even in the real world, you can’t stop threats completely. Social media is much more difficult to police, and it is getting bigger by the day.

Here are four ways you are unknowingly exposing yourself to threats on social media, though:

Flaunting Your Wealth And Luxuries

We all want to be the life of the party, but sometimes it is worth asking if it is worth the risk. A common trend now, especially among youths, is to flaunt their wealth and luxuries on social media. This can have serious consequences.

Related Article: Social Media And YOUR Legal Proceeding?

A notable example of someone who had to realize the consequences of flaunting wealth on social media the hard way is Kim Kardashian, who was robbed at gunpoint in Paris in October 2016. The robbers targeted Kardashian, and they went away with more than £9 million ($11.9 million) worth of jewelry. One of the items stolen was a £3.5 million ($4.63 million) ring that her husband recently gave her. Not surprisingly, though, Kardashian had flaunted the ring on Instagram prior to the attack.

When you flaunt fast cars, expensive diamonds and stacks of cash, don’t be surprised when thieves and robbers decide they want a taste of your wealth.

Carelessly Using Location Services

While one of the selling points of using location tracking in social media or services is the fact that they make things more accessible to you, very few people consider the risks. Ignoring the fact that some unscrupulous service providers can sell the data, it is worth noting that having social media sites publicly display your location can threaten your security.

Related Article: Social Media Predator Guide For Parents?

Depending on the aim of the person making the threat, location information can be used to track where you are, to stalk and monitor you, to find out political or religious information about you or to steal your identity.

Obviously, security agencies have been taking steps to ensure that users’ privacy is protected when they use services that log and display their location, but you can take additional steps for your security.

This could mean disabling any form of location logging if you don’t really need it, or selectively using virtual private networks to mask your real location when you don’t want your location revealed.

There are many reliable VPNs, and HotSpot Shield and Private Internet Access remain some of the most popular options.

Related Article: YOUR Social Media Reputation Mistakes?

Your Usage Of Social Media Apps

Another very common way people unknowingly jeopardize their security on social media is by not paying attention to social media applications they use.

When you allow any and every app to have unnecessary access to your information, you are potentially jeopardizing your security.

There is no reason why a gaming app should be able to access your name, email address and mobile number and be able to message your friends.

If you want to install an app and you realize that it is asking for way more access than is necessary for it to function, be wary. Also avoid installing apps from sources not verified or from sources not directly from the social media site you want to use the app on.

Related Article: Social Media And The Real World For Parents?

Revealing Too Much Information

If you are not familiar with the term “social engineering,” it is worth doing some reading up on it. It basically involves people trying to manipulate you to reveal confidential information. They then use this information to access services and systems you would never have authorized them to access.

Social media makes it much easier to fall victim to social engineering attacks. This is because many social media users reveal so much information that the puzzle is almost connected before a hacker gets to work.

Research shows that as many as 75 percent of people expose their personal email addresses on social media, while 33 percent expose their personal mobile numbers. When you have your personal email address, your personal cell phone number, lots of personal photos and your friends list publicly viewable on social media, it becomes extremely easy to piece up information and gather data about you on social media.

Guest Authored By John Stevens. John is Founder and CEO of Hosting Facts.

Related Article: Protecting YOUR Social Media Reputation?

“More than 600,000 Facebook accounts are compromised every day.

22 percent of social media users have fallen victim to security-related threats.

Victims of cyberbullying, which occurs mostly on social media, are twice as likely to commit suicide than non-victims.."

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  Post Crafted By:

  Fred Hansen Pied Piper of Social Media Marketing at YourWorldBrand.com & CEO of Millennium 7 Publishing Co. in Loveland, Colorado. I work deep in the trenches of social media strategy, community management and trends.  My interests include; online business educator, social media marketing, new marketing technology, skiing, hunting, fishing and The Rolling Stones..-Not necessarily in that order ;)

Feed The Social Media Trolls?

Sometimes a troll just wants a little attention. Conventional wisdom says to ignore bad behavior, and it's natural for brands to want to ignore angry or mischievous social media followers for fear of triggering a full-blown public blowout..

But organizations that truly want to deal with online trolls should consider confronting them head on, according to a group of social media reps that have successfully handled some of the most vitriolic online feedback.

Related Article: Your Social Media Follower Engagement?

San Francisco mass transit customers complain constantly about the service, and the Bay Area Rapid Transit Twitter account responds to each one, no matter how snarky, mean, or lewd.

"Why are we so afraid to give real answers?" said Alicia Trost, communications manager and chief spokesperson for BART, speaking at the Trolls: To Feed Or Not To Feed panel at the SXSW Conference on Saturday. "If I'm going to give information to the media in a sound bite or interview, why can't I tell it to a BART customer or the public?" she said. "Have a direct and honest conversation with them."

A year ago, BART began implementing a new social media policy. Before, they had used the traditional "don't feed the trolls" philosophy. The 2016 update redefined social media as a tool for conversation. It encouraged employees to engage with complaints, as long as they were able to back up their statements and defused the situation.

Related Article: Your Social Media Policy Development?

The refreshingly frank results raked in earned media, but it also earned accolades from riders, even those who had previously been complaining..

Related Article: Negative Post Social Media Marketing?

Social media managers confronted with trolls have four options, said Sunni Thompson, executive director of content and social at J. Walter Thompson: "Respond, ignore, hide, or ban." Social media accounts are operated seven days a week, so they typically employ multiple people in shifts. That makes it important to agree ahead of time what kind of message gets what kind of response.

It's better to respond "if the brand can provide value or resolution," said Caitlin McDaniel, associate director of social media at GSD&M. But consistency is crucial. "Don't cherry pick which complaints get responses," she said. Followers will see through that and just respond with more force.

Related Article: Lawyers and The Age of Social Media?

Sometimes, however, there are trolls who can't be reasoned with or de-escalated, no matter how many facts or how much empathy they're met with.

"There will be people who must be blocked," said Jeffrey Marty, a trial lawyer and the creator of the @RepStevenSmith parody account. Purporting to be the mouthpiece of a Republican representative from Georgia, the account uses over-the-top, right-wing commentary to lampoon politicians and the political process on both sides of the aisle.

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Marty often deals with people who are angry at being fooled by his account. While other fans often defend him, one troll began making rape threats toward female followers.

Rather than confront him in a public forum, Marty used his legal training to find the man's personal information, then sent it to him privately.

"I doxxed him, but only to him," Marty said, using the term for outing someone's personal identity online. "At that point, he knew that I knew, and he stopped.

Guest Authored By H-Isien Sherwood. I-Hsien Sherwood is a journalist and writer living in Brooklyn. He is an unsparing editor, a punctuation fundamentalist and a great judge of character. Previously, he was a reporter with MediaPlanet and the senior editor of the news start-up Latin Post. Follow I-Hsien Sherwood on Twitter.

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“There will be people who must be blocked," said Jeffrey Marty, a trial lawyer and the creator of the @RepStevenSmith parody account.

Purporting to be the mouthpiece of a Republican representative from Georgia, the account uses over-the-top, right-wing commentary to lampoon politicians and the political process on both sides of the aisle..”

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  Authored by:

  Fred Hansen Pied Piper of Social Media Marketing at GetMoreHere.com & CEO of Millennium 7 Publishing Co. in Loveland, Colorado. I work deep in the trenches of social media strategy, community management and trends.  My interests include; online business educator, social media marketing, new marketing technology, skiing, hunting, fishing and The Rolling Stones..-Not necessarily in that order ;)

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