What’s more important:What you say or what others say about you? When it comes to your brand what matters most to you? Are you self promoting and only allowing good comments to be posted? Where do you draw the line?
Social media is a tool the should be used to help others speak about you. When there’s a negative comment do you delete it? My suggestion is to leave it. Although, it may not be a good or accurate reflection of you it lets others see that you’re real. If all you ever read is good content (about something) then usually you jump to the conclusion that something is not right with that individual. We’re not perfect and we can’t make everyone happy. The bad comment won’t ruin you. It’ll give you credibility. It shows that you can take criticism. You can deal with it and you can move on from it. However, do not mistake dealing with it as ignoring it. You want to respond to all negative publicity no matter how severe.
You can draw the line at slanderous material.
Self promotion is good when done in moderation. I would rather not go to your Twitter account and only see you patting yourself on the back. Yes, it’s good to read about your accomplishments and your other latest successes… However, there has got to be more to you than that. If not, consider yourself un-followed. Thank you very much. Spend time complimenting the successes of other people. Get to know your followers and give back by retweeting or engaging in conversations. Engaging with others fosters relationships, which will ultimately create community that you are apart of. This bodes well for you especially when a dreaded negative comment appears.
In times of trouble you’ll have all the friends you need to back you up because of the community you’ve invested in. It’s similar to the old saying “treat others as you’d like to be treated”. We may have grown up but childhood principles can always be applied.
Allowing a negative comment to appear on your site and then clearly being able to point out why you are correct is a better way to go about things as well. It shows that you can publicly debate a disagreeing point without completely shutting them out.
You can also openly admit your mistakes – even if a client is not openly vocal about it. I recently posted a blog post about negative feedback i rcvd and what I planned to do about it. I choose to talk about it openly to (1) grow and (2) we live in a tight community and I would rather address things I have heard rather than allow comments to potentially multiply in the dark.
http://bellamarketing.wordpress.com/2010/06/07/ne...