We lost 50% of our positive Facebook comments by focussing on negative conversations
From the weekly Success Insights series: Lessons from our Client Success Programs
This week, we have an important lesson on the value of positive community engagement!
We heavily monitor a retail sector client’s Facebook page, but recently our two social media guides needed a holiday*. So while our guides were away, we had to minimise the responsive work we could do in order to handle the out of hours monitoring. This meant we significantly reduced our engagement with the community and focussed on “fighting fires” rather than taking the time to encourage and get involved in positive conversations.
Now the results are in
The month prior to their holiday, we saw a positive:negative sentiment ratio of 198:1. That’s 198 positive comments to every negative one. Wow!
The month of the holiday? 92:1. Yep, 92 positive comments to every negative one: down over 100!
How to improve community engagement
This experience really drove home how important it is to focus on the results you want, not the ones you don’t. The key rules for community engagement are:
- Take negative comments “offline” as soon as possible. (Ask them to private message you their contact details.)
- Reward positive comments liberally and publicly.
- Get involved in neutral and positive conversations to keep them going and drive more positive sentiment.
Lesson: Only engage with negative comments and negative comments is what you’ll get!
So go on, start engaging with the members of your community who are already itching to rave about you!
*Oh, and they went to Thailand.
