To mark, or not to mark: The nuisance of spam

Spam is annoying. Period.

There is always a random e-mail that we receive and don’t even bother to open but just send it right to the trash. We all know spam as something that is a nuisance when it comes to e-mails. But community managers have a difficult time with it as well when it comes to their social media platforms.

Many people don’t think before they type. If you consider the volume of poor texting that people do regularly on their iPhone you would know what I mean. Comments are said that shouldn’t be said and once they are posted, they are forgotten about by the user. However when it comes managing a page, we have the administrative rights to either remove or flag as spam. So the issue becomes do we remove the post completely or hide it from view?

If we remove the comment completely there is always the chance that the person didn’t forget, and then they post again something to the extent of, “THEY PULLED OFF MY POST…blah blah blah.” So is it really worth the grief and aggravation to now further deal with this irritant or even go to the extreme of banning them from the page?

Instead we click the “Hide” or “Mark as Spam” button. It’s easier, there isn’t any backlash, and you can confidently click the button and feel okay about it. But! What do we constitute as spam?

Of course any derogative comments, politically affiliated comments, and harsh opinions are marked as spam. What about those comments that are dissatisfied with the product comments? Many people might say, “Oh no! Hide! Hide! Hide! People are complaining!” That would be wrong, don’t hide them. That would only make matters worse and still leaves an unhappy customer.

The answer to that question: answer them! Reply to them and deal with the situation publically unless it is a personal matter. From there you go into a private e-mail chat and deal with whatever has happened accordingly. The whole point of social media marketing is to engage and speak with your customers. You want to make sure each person is satisfied with your business.

Do it right and mark the correct posts as spam!