Internet Trolls: Do they hurt your business?

In Marketing by Melissa Meschke

Internet trolls. You know, the ones that write senseless comments making unsupported agreements on every single story on the internet. The trolls that wreck your best post on Facebook. The trolls that write horrid reviews on Yelp. The trolls that find every way they can to make your business look bad.

Do people listen to them? Should you, as a business owner, be worried about them ruining your business? Will even one bad review ruin my business?

By now, most people know that much of what you read on the internet is exaggerated, sort of true, and and sometimes just plain wrong.

Will one troll ruin your business? Probably not. Most people can see through the bad eggs-either by the argument itself, spelling mistakes, name calling,  unsupported comments, ect.

Where you have to start worrying about the trolls is when you are seeing the same comment, the same complaint, or repeating topics from multiple different people. This is when internet trolls become upset customers with very real complaints. If you are seeing certain complaints appear multiple times about a certain employee, a menu item, a time of day, this is when you need to take action. That being said, every comment (good or bad) should be analyzed. I’m just saying that one comment should be taken with a grain of salt if it doesn’t need immediate attention. Repeated comments require action.

 

So the next time a troll squashes your day, take a step back, analyze what they’ve written and see if you need to take action.

Until next time!

~Melissa

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