Three tips for managing negative posts about your scheme on social media

There are two types of social media user – those who use it for good, and those who use it for evil.

It’s almost impossible to have a scheme-related social media account and not have annoyed locals sharing their negative comments about the scheme – maybe the building is too tall, or the construction site is too noisy.

Whether you’re behind a new-build project or your building is already up, running and occupied, we’re going to give you some of our top tips for managing negative posts about your scheme on social media.

Assess the need to respond

Depending on the complaint, you should assess whether it’s necessary to respond to the person or simply hide their comment.

For example, if your development is causing some noise-complaints, issue a release on social media in which you explain you’re working within the permitted hours and that you apologise for any inconvenience caused.

On the other hand, if you’re managing the social media for a commercial building and you’re receiving complaints from tenants, it’s important to respond to these immediately. Reputation is important, and you don’t want to be annoying those who pay for tenancy in your building.

It’s important that you respond to appropriate comments and not add any fuel to fires you cannot extinguish. To help you decide what comments to respond to, and which to ignore, you can follow the steps in this handy chart. 

Have a crisis communications strategy

This is a must for any development. Construction sites, office schemes and residential flats are all at risk of accidents which could bring your brand under scrutiny or attack.

In the unfortunate event of a serious incident occurring, have a crisis communications plan ready to deal with social media noise and press questioning.

The last thing you want is to be left in a very serious situation with no plan of attack. We have our own list of the 10 best and worst crisis comms examples – make sure you’re in the former half.

Take the negative opinions into account

The best way to deal with negative comments, is to take these comments and improve your scheme. People are complaining for a reason, and if you have the ability to make things better or easier for these people, then you should do it.

People will see that you’ve taken steps to improve the situation and your worst enemy could soon become your number one fan.

And that’s it!

Although we can’t live without the online world, sometimes it’s difficult to live with it. We hope our top tips for managing negative posts about your scheme on social media gives it the best chance of success.

If you want to explore this a little bit further, get in touch with us at Roland Dransfield to find out how we can support your social media efforts.

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