How to Handle Negative Facebook Comments About Your Practice

Facebook remains one of the most important platforms to engage in for marketing. People from all demographics spend a lot of time on Facebook and it has managed to draw consistent engagement from people who are likely to have kids who are ready for braces.

While you’ll want to boost engagement with your orthodontic practice’s Facebook profile, there may be times when you get some unsavory comments on your posts. How you handle negative Facebook comments successfully will go a long way in keeping your online reputation strong.

Responding to Negative Facebook Comments

Leaving a negative comment is different from leaving a negative review, but a negative comment still has implications for your online reputation. Facebook posts draw more immediate attention than online reviews since they show up in people’s timelines. This makes it extra important to deal with negative comments quickly and correctly.

You definitely have more options at your disposal when dealing with Facebook comments. Since you have control over your posts, along with what stays on them, you have the option to delete the comment. But you may often find it’s worth it to respond to the negative comment and address their concerns, within the limits of HIPAA, of course.

If you choose this route, you should express concern over their grievances and immediately offer to discuss the problem offline. If they don’t delete their comment after this or continue to post more negative comments, you may want to hide the comment.

In general, these types of comments tend to be less appropriate than reviews, so don’t hesitate to ban these users from your page and to delete comments aimed at dragging your practice’s name through the mud.

Negative Account Mentions

In the same vein, you may run into users who decide to write nasty posts about your orthodontic practice and tag your page. This situation is a bit trickier to deal with since you can’t delete someone else’s post.

If someone decides to make this type of post, it’s typically more about venting than providing feedback, so the best course of action would be to ban them from your page right away and report their post to Facebook.

Ideally, your settings would be set up so you review any mentions or tags before they appear, but that isn’t an option for business profiles. This means you have to decide whether or not to allow mentions on your page. If you run a good practice, the vast majority of mentions should be positive, so not allowing them would do more harm than good.

Keep an Eye out for Negative Reviews

If someone has taken the steps to speak negatively about your practice on Facebook, you should keep an eye out for negative reviews from them in other places, such as Google or Yelp. As with Facebook comments, or anything publicly visible online, since you can’t discuss their treatment in your response, simply leave a professional reply asking to talk about their concerns privately.

While you won’t always be able to keep everyone happy, making your online reputation a priority will go a long way in allowing your orthodontic practice to grow.