If you run a Facebook business page, it is very likely that at some point you will experience negative feedback, comments, posts or reviews. But when does this change from being part of doing business to something more? If people start trolling or spamming your page should you block someone from your Facebook business page?
Facebook themselves do recommend banning people who continually spam your Facebook page.
Banning someone from your Facebook page means they will no longer be able to:
- Publish to your page
- Like or comment on your posts
- Message you
- Like your page
How do you ban someone from your Facebook business page?
Facebook list three ways to ban or block someone from your Facebook page. You can do this from
- Your page settings – from your settings navigate to ‘people and other pages’ and then find the person who you want to ban and select ‘Ban from page’
- From a post – either on your page or a post that your page has been mentioned in. Navigate to posts, then visitor posts and then select the person or page you want to ban and select ‘Ban from page’ from the three dots (…) next to their name.
- From your page’s inbox – Find the message from the person you want to ban and select ‘Ban from page’ from the three dots (…) next to their name.
You can also view the people who have been banned from your page by navigating to your settings. Selecting the ‘People and other Pages’ link and then ‘People who like this Page’. From here you should be able to select the ‘Banned people and pages’ option to easily view who has been banned from your page.
How do you unblock someone from your Facebook business page?
It is possible to unban someone from your Facebook page. Again, this can be done in a couple of different ways:
- From your page settings – from your settings navigate to ‘people and other pages’ and then find the person who you want to unban and select ‘Unban from page’
- From your page’s inbox – Find the message from the person you want to unban and select ‘Remove Ban from page’ from the three dots (…) next to their name.Â
Should you block someone from your Facebook page?
Blocking someone from your Facebook page isn’t a tool which should be used frequently in our opinion. For example, you shouldn’t block people simply because they leave one negative review or comment on your page.
However, if someone shows sustained trolling of your page – posting spam, negative comments, being abusive to other users and your team members, then it may well be appropriate to block them from your page.
It may be useful to provide the user with a warning before blocking them. If they ignore the warning and continue to engage in behaviours like those listed above, then you should go ahead and block them.
How to handle negative feedback on your Facebook page
Inevitably, you will receive some negative feedback on your business Facebook page. So, here we look at tips for how to handle it
Define what is and isn’t acceptable on your page – this can be in the form of a social media policy which you post to your page for example. It will detail what is and isn’t acceptable on your Facebook page. E.g. your right to remove posts which are abusive or misleading. You can then direct users here if they do engage in behaviours which go against your policy.
Take control of the conversation – if a customer has a complaint with your business then certainly acknowledge it on your Facebook page and reply to a user’s post. But it may be best to try and take the conversation away from Facebook – ask users to direct message you or email your customer services. This also helps with privacy requirements under the GDPR.
Respond in a professional manner – don’t take the negative comments personally or reply in an unprofessional manner. Try to keep the interest of your brand and business in mind. But also take a personal approach – use first names in your replies – both yours and customers and don’t replicate your replies. This can look robotic and as if you haven’t taken the time to understand the user’s perspective. If you have made a mistake, admitting this and apologising can also be a good way to gain trust from your users.
You can hide negative posts – if they break your Facebook business page policies or may offend other users of your page, then you can feel within your rights to hide or even delete posts. And potentially look into whether you should block the user from interacting with your page at all (see our thoughts on this above!).
Still not sure what course of action to take? Take a look at this post from Facebook on tips for moderating your Facebook business page.
You may also be interested in 10 Steps to Starting your own Business blog.
ACES Marketing are a Surrey based full-service marketing agency who can help work as an extension of your team. We specialise in social media management, amongst other digital marketing strategies. Chat to us today to see how we can help you build the social media presence for your business.
