Clever Ways to Respond to Negative Blog Comments
Having a comments section is a very powerful tool for content writers, as it aids them in connecting, engaging and establishing a relationship with their readers. However, although personally interacting with your readers is a great way to establish loyalty and trust, it also can leave you vulnerable to receive negative comments on your page. When this happens you must know the correct way of addressing it. Here are several different ways of interacting with readers by responding to their comments. It is up to your discretion on how to appropriately respond to them.
Do Not Ignore Comments
This is the head in the sand approach to dealing with negative comments. It is deciding that if you don’t respond to comments, they’ll just fade away. However, keep in mind that often times unhappy readers are just like unhappy customers, and if a customer were at your business with a certain complaint you wouldn’t just ignore them, and so ignoring comments may not be the answer to your problems.
Do Not Fight Fire With Fire
If your readers leave a negative comment then you may feel that responding back in kind is the appropriate response, however this is far from the case. Even if the comment makes you feel angry or is unjustifiable then keep in mind that any response you give will impact your reputation as a content writer and so you must proceed with caution. Ensure that you avoid defensive or angry comments when responding, as your comment will only exacerbate the situation and make it worse.
Apologize When Necessary
When apologizing to your readers make sure that it is sincere in order to avoid a hollow response. Make sure that when responding in an apologetic manner, you have a solution to the problem in order to ensure that your reader gives you a second chance.
Talk With Them Privately
You may want to consider engaging the negative commenter privately in order to make less of a scene on your page. Ask them if they wouldn’t mind taking the conversation to direct or private message. For instance, simply by saying, “I’d like to understand more about what occurred, would you mind directly messaging me?” This will make you look not only like you care about your readers, but will also help resolve any issue that they have. Having engagement with your readers is important, however not when it is causing a needless banter.
Look For Any Patterns
If you’re starting to see a string of negative comments on a specific blog post or on many of your posts then chances are something wrong is occurring on your end. If this is the case then you need to stop and reflect on the way that you’re writing, as keep in mind that your goal is not to perturb the most people possible when writing, it’s to get people thinking. Although it may not seem like something you want to do, by reflecting you can find any issues with your writing so that less people take offense to it.
Find Out the Identity of the Commenter
It’s all too easy for people to be ballsy when their identity isn’t disclosed. However, if you do a little digging then it’s quite likely that you can figure out who the commenter is. Keep in mind that this does not mean waging a war on the commenter, however it does mean that you can take the anonymity away, which can result in the commenter being more hesitant to continue to leave negative comments on your blog.
Respond With Humor
This strategy should only be used with caution, however if you have someone who posts a negative comment then you can always respond with humor. Instead of getting angry with the person for posting a negative comment, you can craft a comical response that will end the commenter’s presence on your blog.
Cameron Mackey
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