Facebook Page Management 101 - moderating, responding and managing negative comments on a brand's Facebook Page. How-to and best practice.

1. Managing Negativity on a Brand Facebook Page
Date: 20 April 2012
Prepared by: Emily Knox
Social Media Strategist

3. Negativity & Facebook Pages
• Facebook Pages can be an excellent way for brands and organisations to
communicate more directly with their customers.
• However, this two-way conversation inevitably leads to some negative
conversations with consumers who have had a bad brand experience or
take issue with company practices.
• Facebook Page managers will also inevitably encounter issues of content
which may devalue their brand indirectly eg. obscene material or spam
posts.
• Because these conversations are occurring in the public sphere, it’s
important that Page managers know the mechanics of Facebook’s native
content moderation tools and their limitations, as well as best practice in
Facebook community management.
• This document is a top line guide to dealing with negativity on your
Facebook Page.

4. Controlling Content On Your Facebook Page
• Pre-moderating posts on your Page
• Facebook Pages are all equipped with a Moderation Blocklist
tool which allows you to enter multiple keywords to prevent
them appearing on your Page.
• This content will never be seen by anyone other than admins of
the Page.
• Admins can view this content via the Admin Panel and can
choose to delete the content, or approve it for publication.

5. Controlling Content On Your Facebook Page
• Moderating content on your Page’s Wall
• If questionable content is posted by a user onto your Page’s Wall
Facebook gives you three moderation options:
• Hide the Comment from the Page – this comment will
now only be visible to Page admins.
• Delete the Comment – the content will be permanently
deleted.
• Report the comment as abuse or mark it as spam – this
has the same affect as hiding the post, but also informs
Facebook that the user may have breached its
Community Standards.
• Facebook Community Standards:
https://www.facebook.com/communitystandards

6. Controlling Content On Your Facebook Page
• Removing users from your Page
• In extreme circumstances Page admins may require that a user
be banned from interacting with their Page.
• Users can be banned both via the Admin Page panel and also
during the post deletion process.
• Banned users will no longer have any access to your Page’s
content and will not be able to post any content to your Page.

7. Controlling Content On Your Facebook Page
• Moderating content from another Facebook Page
• Pages as well as individual users have the ability to Like and Post
to Facebook Pages.
• Page admins have the same options to report, hide or delete
posts from Pages as posts from individual profiles.
• Page admins can also ban other Pages the same way they can
ban users.

8. Facebook Page Management Best Practice
• What can I remove from my Facebook Page?
• Be familiar with Facebook Community Standards, which dictate
what kind of content is not permitted on the platform eg. nudity
& pornography, hate speech, threats of violence and the use of
fake profiles and fake names. This is when you would use the
‘report’ moderation option to alert Facebook and remove the
content from your Page.
• https://www.facebook.com/communitystandards

9. Facebook Page Management Best Practice
• What can I remove from my Facebook Page?
• If you have concerns beyond what is covered in the Community
Standards document you should also draft House Rules or
Community Guidelines for your Page. This way if you need to
remove content from your Page you can explain to Fans why this
happened and point to which guideline was breached.
• House Rules can delineate the spirit of the brand and the
intention of the Page, the expected standard of conversation,
and disclaimers eg. that your Page does not endorse user
opinions.
• Brands may also like to include an explicit statement forbidding
users from making false brand or product claims.
• Publish your House Rules in the ‘About’ section of your Page or
create a custom Application Tab to house them.

10. Facebook Page Management Best Practice
• How should I respond to negative comments about my
brand that don’t breach Facebook Community Standards or
my House Rules?
• As quickly as possible – even if just to let the user know you are
looking into the issue they raised. If an answer is going to take
more than an hour or two to find, don’t leave them hanging
until then.
• With a level head – never respond in anger, and try and keep a
distance between yourself and the claims being made.
• Truthfully – if an error has been made own up to it as soon as
possible. Admitting the mistake and apologising can earn your
brand respect and trust.

11. Facebook Page Management Best Practice
• How should I respond to negative comments about my
brand that don’t breach Facebook Community Standards or
my House Rules?
• Privately – if the issue the Fan is raising is particularly sensitive or
involves other parties you can take the conversation off the
Page Wall, either to Facebook Messages or email.
• NB only Fans can instigate Private Message communications
with Pages, and not vice versa.
• Know when to end the conversation – if you’re dealing with a
user (perhaps with an agenda greater than your brand) who you
are unable to placate using the above steps, it’s ok to leave the
conversation and move on.