Cyberbullying is hard to deal with. The bullies can be cruel, relentless and very personal. But you should never stoop to their level. Nothing makes you look worse than turning around and attacking in return.
A great example of what not to do comes from Amy’s Baking Company. The restaurant was featured on the TV show Kitchen Nightmares. Following their media exposure, Amy’s Baking Company was attacked by nasty comments from users on sites such as Yelp and Reddit. However awful the restaurant was, they didn’t deserve to be personally attacked. Unfortunately, their response to the cyberbullying was also wildly inappropriate:
This is a fantastic example of what not to do when someone attacks you online. This angry response didn’t do anything about the cyberbullies and it also made the restaurant look bad.
Now that we’ve established the wrong way to deal with bullies, let’s lay down some concrete strategies for actually surviving a cyberbully attack.
General Guidelines:
Pay Attention
In case you’re not checking your web-based media accounts, you will not know about a situation unfolding or a crowd with pitchforks close to home. Ensure you’re checking online media routinely or have notices set on your telephone so that you’ll know about what’s going on whenever there’s any difficult situation. To really sweeten the deal, watching your online media accounts implies you’ll likewise have the chance to react when you get great commitment from your authentic fans.
Create a Response Plan
This is a strategy that professional social media managers employ for the accounts they manage. Your practice may not have someone professionally managing your practice accounts, but you should still create a plan of action for potential problems.Include information in your response plan like:
- who in your practice is responsible for responding in the event of a crisis
- when to respond and when to stay silent
- when to remove comments
- whether or not to remove future scheduled posts
Being prepared not only tells you what to do in the event of a crisis, it also prevents you from making rash decisions or saying things you might regret later.
Respond Selectively
In case of a cyberbully assault, you may see that you have as such a large number of messages to at any point sensibly react to, regardless of whether you need to. For being straightforward, it’s a smart thought to continue to impart, yet additionally, perceive that you don’t need to react to everybody. Truth be told, you would presumably go off the deep end on the off chance that you attempted.
Be Transparent
You can’t imagine that cyberbullying isn’t going on, particularly if it’s happening more than once or determinedly. Rather than attempting to hide it away from plain view, be open about it, compose posts recognizing that it’s occurring, and be set up to protect your position. Ensure you understand what your training’s perspective is on whatever issue you’re being irritated about, and be prepared to go to bat for yourselves. This will help explain to your fans and genuine customers why you accept what you do, and keep you looking levelheaded and perceptive despite provocation.
Also, in the event that you need to screen or erase remarks on your page, ensure you let your fans realize that you are doing as such and why. They’ll see, particularly in the event that you make the explanation and reason understood. Straightforwardness is frequently the best arrangement for managing unreasonable scornful maltreatment. How about we turn our concentration to your number one web-based media stages. On the off chance that you need to know the distinction between a cover-up, a boycott, and revealing, at that point, these tips are for you.
For Facebook:
Hide, Delete, Report, and Ban Features
At the point when somebody has a real protest about your administration or has had a terrible encounter and is attempting to enlighten you concerning it, it’s never a smart thought to erase their grievances. Be that as it may, when individuals are hassling your work on, expressing bogus things, or being discourteous to you and your staff, there is no motivation to keep going along with them.
In the event that the domineering jerks are just contradicting you, it’s OK to leave their remarks up and sometimes, even react to them to clarify your position. Yet, on the off chance that the remarks grow into improper language, individual assaults, or a similar remark spammed, again and again, don’t be reluctant to eliminate them. You have a few choices with regards to managing undesirable remarks on Facebook.
Hide
Hide is your first option for any negative comment that you would like to get rid of. You access it by clicking the little x in the top right-hand corner of the comment (you have to hover your mouse over the area to be able to see it).
The hide feature allows you to hide comments from your Page so that no one but the commenter and their friends can see it. This can be a very effective way of removing a commenter’s impact without them realizing it. The commenter isn’t aware that the comment has been hidden, but your Facebook fans will no longer have to look at it.
Delete
When a comment has been covered up, you are given the chance to erase or report the remark or boycott the client who composed the remark. Erasing a remark will eliminate it forever, and the client who composed the remark will realize that it’s been erased. This can be an unsafe choice to make since it could incite the client to compose more incendiary remarks in counter. On the off chance that you choose to erase remarks, we suggest including a reaction clarifying why the remark was erased, like awful language, harmful conduct, or a break of terms and conditions. This tells your different adherents that you’re not simply disregarding disturbed clients or erasing remarks aimlessly.
Report
You can likewise report remarks to Facebook on the off chance that they neglect to follow the terms and states of the site (counting harassing, nakedness, spam, and so forth) Simply know that Facebook isn’t particularly instant with their reaction times, so this probably won’t yield convenient outcomes.
Ban
In the event that a client is consistently an issue, you may have to think about taking more uncommon measures. Prohibiting a client eliminates their capacity to distribute to your Page or like or remark on your posts. They actually like your Page and can share your substance somewhere else, however on your own Page, they can’t distribute by any stretch of the imagination. This eliminates their capacity to express dreadful things where every one of your fans can see it.
Ban Bad Words
It’s possible to ban certain bad words from your practice Page through your Facebook Page settings. This will prevent those words from ever appearing on your Page. If you’re interested in setting a bad words to ban up, check out this tutorial from Snout School.
The reporting process can be frustrating and slow. Additionally, review sites like Angie’s List and VetRatingZ don’t allow the removal of reviews at all. That’s why we so strongly recommend getting started on online reviews early.
The good news is that online shoppers are pretty intelligent, and many can tell if a review is obviously fake. In addition, negative reviews can be good for your business, because they make your reviews look more legitimate. And if you start putting in the legwork and generating good reviews from your customers now, when the negative reviews come rolling in, they’ll be drowned out in the sea of good ones. We’re not in school anymore, but unfortunately, the bullies are still around. Luckily, with the right attitude, a plan in place, and knowledge about your options on social media, you can successfully handle a cyberbully attack and come out the other end looking better than ever, thanks to your ability to keep your cool.
