Blue Helm

There have always been Whiners. They whine about their jobs, politics, their lack of income, school, a product or service, and World of Warcraft (beware: this video has some swearing, but it’s hilarious). Before the internet, the only people who had to put up with Whiners were those who physically associated with them. Now Whiners can gripe all over the place. They can whine in online forums, on blog posts, on YouTube, or in the comments of a news article. They can even whine on your Facebook Page or on Twitter–there are just so many opportunities to complain!  Sometimes a Whiner gets to a point where he or she devolves into a Troll. A Troll is someone who comments or posts online solely to make people mad or to offend.

So what do you do? Some person or group has invaded your Facebook Page, your blog, or some other online community, and is causing a ruckus. Do you respond or just ignore them? It depends. Here are a few pointers:

1. Delete comments if they are offensive or use bad language – It’s important that people feel comfortable coming to your online community. Generally speaking, if people come to your site and see offensive language or comments that degrade individuals or groups, they most likely won’t feel comfortable coming back. If someone posts something regarded as ugly or offensive (particularly if it’s racist, sexist or bigoted), it’s best to delete the comment. As tempting as it may be, do not delete someone’s comment just because he or she said something negative about you or your product. You’ll never have a strong community if you restrict differing opinions. Just make it clear that you delete offensive comments but encourage debate.
2. Let it be – Sometimes you’ll get a Whiner or Troll who says something that is totally irrelevant, makes no sense, or is just plain dumb. In this case, ignore it. Keep an eye on the comment to see if other people begin voicing the same concern–then you may want to consider responding. In a lot of cases you won’t need to because most will just ignore stupid or irrelevant complaints.
3. Let your fans defend you – Often the Whiner’s complaint isn’t something that you have to respond to because your fans will for you. If you’ve done a good job of creating an interactive culture in your online community, people will be used to contributing and discussing. If someone starts ranting, the community is usually equipped to take care of the situation. Your defenders can also say things that your company can’t without getting in trouble.
4. Respond directly – Sometimes the whining is warranted. Your company messed up, your product is bad, or you just made a mistake. If someone complains or calls your company out on a mistake, respond appropriately. Sometimes your response can be a simple explanation, and sometimes you may have to change the way you do things. If you let a legitimate complaint slide it can come back to bite you. Just look at how Steve Jobs is getting all sorts of backlash on how he’s handled the new iPhone debacle.

Don’t let Whiners and Trolls get under your skin. Respond when you need to. Otherwise, just let the openness of the Internet take care of it.

What do you think? Have you had any experiences dealing with Whiners and Trolls?

Okay, this is a pretty generalized topic to be blogging about. But Blue Helm is in the middle of its first annual Social Media Library Series, and I know an all-purpose post like this will be helpful to some of our class members. So let’s jump right into this—the following are a few basic, general tips on how to grow your business using social media:

1. Educate yourself: Before jumping onto the social media bandwagon, search around online and find out how other professional leaders in your industries have used social media to enhance their business opportunities. You’ll find stories of shopkeepers using Twitter to advertise specials and driving customers to their stores, financial advisors using LinkedIn to network with prospective clients and construction firms sharing home improvement tips on blogs and Facebook pages. Take the time to learn more about social media and how it works, even if it’s just a few minutes each day. Like we tell our class participants, you don’t have to use all the social networks at once. Learn about the tools, start small, develop a simple marketing plan and go from there.

2. Use Twitter: Go here to learn more about the basics of how to set up and understand your first Twitter account. I think what I want to stress most to our readers is that Twitter can be a powerful listening tool for your business. You can easily search for what tweeters are saying about your business, product or industry in the site’s search box. Then you can respond and engage. For example, let’s pretend you manufacture juice makers. You get to work each morning and type “juice maker” into Twitter’s search box to see what people are saying that day. You happen to see a lot of complaints about complicated or expensive juice makers. You can respond personally to these people on Twitter, explaining to them that your company’s juice makers are neither complicated nor expensive, and that you’d love to send them a generous e-coupon for your product if they’d like. Maybe one or two will respond and purchase your product that day. And the whole ordeal took ten minutes.

3. Blog: Read that as a verb—BLOG! Your business must have a specialty or area of expertise and it doesn’t matter if it’s plumbing, accounting, rock climbing, electrical engineering or chimpanzee grooming. You should blog about it. You should share valuable, genuine, consistent content with readers about your area of expertise. You should communicate and enhance relationships with your readers and other bloggers. This will generate buzz and excitement about your product and augment your status as an opinion leader in your field. Find out how to start blogging here.

This should get you started. Remember: educate yourself, try Twitter and blogging, and don’t give up! Social media can be overwhelming at first but the more you use it, the more you’ll come to understand it and discover your special niche.