Case 5: Paypal Deleted Comments (2011)

After reflecting on personal experiences and researching, negative comments come up because social media is a place for your voice to be heard. I think that negative comments can be a good thing because it creates accountability from the company. In the Paypal situation, I think that deleting negative comments was the worst decision they could have made. It's important to tell your story instead of trying to avoid bad feedback on what your company or brand is. Although it's difficult to manage negative comments, businesses still struggle knowing how to handle them. The number one tool is to never delete them and to address the customers’ problems. You need to thank the customer for sharing, apologize, explain and be clear and concise, and then explain how you’re going to act moving forward.

It's hard to identify which comments are okay to keep and which one’s aren’t so many social media platforms set up certain restrictions on comments. There’s options so people can comment, post pictures or videos or not, there’s profanity filters, etc. There’s pros and cons to the level in which you allow consumers to participate with your social media. The more control you have the less risk there is, but on the contrary, you don’t get as much free advertising from word of mouth. When you let other’s participate there is more risk, but there’s an increased peer to peer interaction.

Overall, negative comments can actually be really good for your company, so there’s no need to delete them. The negative reviews create dissonance and highlight the positive reviews. Furthermoe, they can lead to informed purchasing decisions. Leaving negative reviews or comments up can build trust between you and your customers because they know that you are being open, authentic, and genuine. Lastly, negative comments can help you learn from your mistakes.