Making Facebook a Positive Experience
Let's talk about dealing with negativity on Facebook. You don't have to have anything in your feed but puppies and beaches if you like. I know I probably should have done this before the elections, but there's always midterms! Here we go...Business wise it's going to be a little bit different than it is personally, but I'm going to show you some personal stuff you can do and then we'll go to what you can do on your business page.
Let's say you're on your personal profile which I am right now and you come across a post that you just don't want to see any more. As an example, I'm using Laura Coyle who is with 342 Mad so it makes it easier. It's a perfectly wonderful post. It's just about her wedding anniversary. Well, let's say she was posting about cakes and all the cakes she likes to make. Well, if I'm trying to stay on a diet, I don't want to see it. I can go up to those three dots and then I click "hide post." Now you'll notice it says "see fewer posts like this." What will happen then is not only will Laura's post (let's say it's about cakes) go away but Facebook would understand and start getting rid of other cake post. But in this case, because it is about their anniversary, Facebook would probably start showing fewer anniversary posts to me. The other option, when I feel like "enough already," is I can snooze her for 30 days. After 30 days, we can go back to chatting back and forth and posting different things and seeing each other's post.
But now Facebook will probably read this into my algorithm athat I don't like seeing as much of that person and they might show me fewer of their posts. I can also "unfollow" right now. It may be time to stop seeing their posts but since you're still friends with them and you don't care if they still see your posts, then "unfollow" is your option. Other things you can do while see yours, "unfollow" is your option.
Other things you can do while we're here. Let's say Laura was a baker and there's a recipe I want to save. I can just click "save post" under the three dot menu and it will be one I can find later. Now if Laura was doing something horrible I would "report post" and get rid of that way. You can totally block them too. Once again, click on those three dots and select block. This means she won't see anything I post and I won't see anything she posts even when it comes to third-party mutual friends. If I post a comment on there, she's going to be the only one that's not going to be able to see it. That's a pretty strong move, but sometimes it's necessary.
Let's talk about your business page. Here we are on our business page and we have a post about how we're offering a great deal on branded holiday cards. It's actually pretty cool and there's a comment from Lorraine. Let's say that instead of the wonderful words she posted, she wrote something like, "That doesn't look like Siesta Key Beach!" Okay. That's not necessarily the worst thing to say so I could respond you're right, but we do have other cards that are of Siesta Key Beach. You know, I could calmly communicate with her. Sometimes a negative comment is a great opportunity for a teaching moment about your product or pitch.
If the comment was completely out of bounds, abusive, or maybe she happen to say, "Well, I'm not ordering holiday cards from anybody with bangs." (True story.) Now I can completely block it. Simply go to the three dots, and select either delete, hide or report. I can hide it so that way she can still see her comment and anybody who's friends with her can see that comment. But everybody else can't see that she made fun of my bangs. I can also delete it. But then again, when you delete it, they'll know it's deleted from the page, and they could get worse. Sometimes if it's a negative person that's a troll, you just want to go ahead and hide their comment because then they'll think it's still there. Then they won't up the ante.
That's how you can get rid of some of the negative things you might be seeing or experiencing on Facebook. I hope that helps you decide the best way to avoid toxic people and opinions online.