This is an article “Turning Trolls Into Top Followers” by Marc Primo Warren
Most personal ventures are rooted in passion. Whether coming up with bright ideas for a business, showcasing your talents via blogs, or offering online services in the digital marketplace, you’ll need to feed that passion fuel to survive. The same goes with handling your detractors, better known today as “trolls”.
Turning these so-called trolls into your loyal followers is quite a challenge, but it’s never an impossible feat. In fact, you can turn negative feedback into favorable advantages to your online presence if you know how to handle them properly. By simply focusing on how you can cause an intervention and influence a troll’s mindset into a win-win situation, you can turn your detractors into loyal followers who could help push your brand further online.
Take note of feedback
Good or bad, any form of feedback from your followers is always worth taking a look at. Some may even offer constructive criticism which could help you adjust and improve the way you do things and boot your online traffic.
Turning trolls into your ambassadors begins when you give them a chance to say how they really feel about your brand. Earn their trust by exchanging ideas with them in a civilized manner and ask how you can prevent them from having negative experiences on how you do things.
One effective way to do this is by adding a live chat feature that allows them to contact you or your representatives quickly and get their concerns fixed in no time. As the great Micheal Corleone once said in The Godfather II, “keep your friends close and your enemies closer”. That way, you can keep a tab on what needs improvement and open the lines of communication for your followers’ better understanding of your brand.
Check out online reviews
Aside from real-time feedback, monitoring news of your followers’ reviews online and on social media is also an effective way to turn trolls into followers. Try your best to see all comments about your brand by finding out where your followers go to speak their minds. Of course, most prefer social media but that’s not the only place you should look at. Look at review sites for net promoter scores (NPS) or other platforms where you are doing some e-commerce or promotion.
Some companies gather reviews from more common review sites like Yelp, Google, or Facebook, but it would be best if you integrate tools like online reputation management software such brandwatch.com or brand24.com into your marketing campaigns so you can get a feel of what the public currently thinks about your brand.
Apologies are necessary
Many have already debunked the myth that ‘the customer is always right’, but the truth is that most of them aren’t wrong either. If you feel like you have committed a mistake among your followers or customers, the first commandment in keeping your online presence afloat is to apologize.
However, try to consider both your own perspective and theirs first and find out why they had experienced a negative perception towards your brand. If what they feel is vaild, then acknowledge your wrongdoing and offer alternatives on how you can correct them, such as giving out discounts or simply improving customer service. People are forgiving by nature and admitting to yourself and to them that you are not perfect just like everyone else is always the first step towards resolving unwanted issues. If you want to find out more about Marc Primo Warren our services or just say hi, please reach out here.