Keeping Social Media Trolls Under The Bridge: A Six-Step Approach

Everyone has an opinion. One of the unflattering aspects of social media is that those opinions, no matter how crude or baseless, can be amplified to the masses. Sometimes they’re valid, other times… not so much. Social managers should consider this six step process to avoid troll encounters and to handle uncomfortable situations when navigating the darkness under the bridge.

1. Monitor Your Social

Regularly monitoring the conversations occurring around your brand gives you the opportunity to stay in control of the dialogue. Take a look at your mentions on a daily basis to identify and respond to negative feedback that requires attention. The longer a brand ignores threatening posts or unsatisfied customers, the more their anger festers into something larger. Remember, the internet doesn’t take weekends off.

2. Stay On Task

Your time is precious. Don’t get trapped into arguing with every troll who wants your attention. Focus on responding to customers who voice real concerns and do so without using foul or hateful language. Block, delete and report anyone who jeopardizes the safety and inclusiveness of your online community.

3. Ask For Clarity

Sometimes the line between a sarcastic aside and a valid grievance gets blurred, especially within the confines of character limits. Give your audience the benefit of the doubt and kindly ask them to clarity their comments if you’re not sure of their intent.

4. Consider The Timing

During a crisis, you can never be too careful in your approach to formulating a response. After a national disaster or tragedy, delay any scheduled social posts or e-blasts and wait to respond to online messages. It’s impossible to know everyone in the audience you’re reaching and how they might be impacted by imminent news stories. Carrying on with business as usual can be tone-deaf and might subject your brand to further negativity.

5. Respond With Care

Trolls love emotional reactions. Use reason instead. If the intent of a comment was to bait you into an uncomfortable situation, de-escalating the conversation in a non-hostel tone will usually curb additional responses. If the comment was from a true customer, they’ll appreciate the professional nature of your reply. A cool, level head will always prevail.

6. Fix Your Mistakes

Everyone slips up occasionally. When a mistake is brought to your attention own up to it, provide a transparent explanation, and make a genuine apology. People are usually quick to forgive when a brand is honest about their blunders – especially if there’s a discount or other perk attached to that apology.

If you’re looking to establish a set of policies for handling social feedback, let Deph Digital guide you in the right direction.

Is Influencer Marketing Right For Your Campaign?

 Influencer marketing is one of the fasting growing social marketing tactics. While unwitting brands pay top dollar for celebrities to promote their message through product placement posts that feel as inauthentic as they look, knowing marketers realize that you don’t need Beyoncé’s Instagram following to get bootylicious results with a solid influencer marketing strategy. 

At the core of the success of influencer campaigns lies one of the oldest marketing devices in the world: word of mouth. According to Forbes, 81% of consumers’ purchasing decisions are influenced by their friends’ social posts. That means the most important part of creating an influencer strategy is figuring out which of their peers your customer base looks up to. That person will play a fundamental role in crafting a genuine connection with your brand.

Like all marketing tactics, partnering with the right influencer largely depends on the goal of your campaign.

If you’re looking for revenue-driven conversions, niche influencers with a smaller yet highly engaged following will be your best bet.

If you’re looking to raise general awareness of a particular product or create buzz about your brand, a large influencer may be the way to go, but be warned: popular influencers may charge six-figures for a one-off promotion.

Zeroing in on the right connection takes time and research. You can start searching through Instagram hashtags and sending messages of interest via DM, or you can let Deph Digital do the dirty work for you.

Once you’ve found the perfect match, it’s important to clarify your deliverable expectations in order to negotiate a fair rate. Influencer contracts encompass a variety of details (the duration of the agreement, content usage rights, FTC guidelines, affiliate links or codes, non-compete clauses, payment terms, etc.), arguably, one of the most important being content expectations.

While revenue-driven campaigns may consist of cross-platform promotions that share links for several months, an entire awareness campaign could be fulfilled with one Instagram live. The work is scalable, the possibilities are endless.

Still need help identifying an influencer that fits with your brand? We can help with that.

A Detailed First-Look at Twitter’s New Desktop Layout

This week, select Twitter users were given an opportunity to preview the platform’s new desktop layout. The clean, fresh display replaces the current three-column view in favor of a simple two-column design, with an emphasis on sharing original content. A static Compose Tweet button rests at the bottom of the screen, regardless of how long users scroll through their timeline.

In addition to a fresh appearance, the layout also comes with a host of new features. Night Mode, a popular dark-toned interface on the mobile app, is now easily accessible via a profile dropdown menu. Bookmarked content and Data Saver mode (which prevents videos from auto-playing and loads images in a lower resolution) are also now available via that same dropdown.

Account settings have also undergone a renovation. Twitter’s 15 individual setting tabs have been condensed to seven. Many, such as Email Notifications, Web Notifications, Muted Accounts and Muted Words, have been combined into more broad categories like Notifications. 

Having trouble locating a specific option? Users can revert to the classic layout, now known as Legacy Twitter, via their account settings.

Is There Really A Facebook Apocalypse?

The cheapest and easiest way to reach your audience online is through social media. But algorithms are changing and post reach is deteriorating. Is the end of social publishing nigh? Are your most engaged followers falling prey to newsfeed devastation?

Watch this recording of our September 6, 2018 webinar to find out what your brand can do to survive.

Question? Contact us.

Keeping Mobile in Mind

Your company’s webmaster has probably ensured that your website is optimized for viewing on mobile devices, but is mobile-friendliness the focus of your social media strategy? It should be.

95% of Facebook users access the platform from a mobile device. A large portion of Instagram’s functionality can only be utilized via mobile. For these reasons, device-appropriate content is critical to your social success. Here are four tips to ensure you’re approaching content with mobile in mind:

1. Design for mobile first

Making sure that your social content displays well on mobile devices means ensuring text is easily legible, within content-safe areas, and limited to only the most important details. With social restrictions like Facebook’s 20% text rule in place, it’s much easier to begin crafting content for social publishing and adding details for print or web publications later.

A great social experience begins with clear, clutter-free content. If your posts contain busy images, small, pixelated fonts, or unintentionally cropped photos, your mobile visitors won’t stick around to read what you have to say.

2. Keep things brief

In today’s scroll-addicted world, marketers have only a brief moment to capture their audience’s interest. If you’ve designed well enough to do so, the next step is to quickly convey your message before that attention span dissipates.

Keeping descriptions to a minimum not only ups the likelihood of your posts being read to completion, but ensures that they’re being seen at all. On many mobile apps, long text blocks are shortened with a ‘read more’ anchor that could hide important aspects of your messaging. On Instagram, for example, that cut off occurs around the 125-character mark. We recommend stopping at 90 and incorporating an emoji to be safe.

3. Consider accessibility

In a research study, Facebook found that people with visual impairments used the platform just as much as those who do not. Applying alternative text to your visual content, and captions for those who are hearing impaired, ensures you aren’t alienating a portion of your mobile audience.

4. Test everything

Any time you branch out to try a new graphic layout, video style, or inactive piece of content, you need to test it. Using a personal or experimental account, post to your timeline, story, or grid and then view the content from a variety of devices to determine compatibility. We’re here to help if you need recommendations on which dimensions to use.