Most Facebook profile comments are coming from people within your friend group. You had to have accepted their “friendship” or connection at some point.
The only time this wouldn’t happen is if a friend of yours shared your post to their friend list (which is how things go viral so you hope this happens) or if you are using a hashtag in a public post and someone found it.
Now remember what I’ve said before about how to handle negative comments first – 1. Evaluate the Messenger 2. Use your listening skills 3. Ask more clarifying questions 4. Be respectful and polite 5. Use your experiences as examples 6. Be on offense, not defense 7. Don’t use jargon 8. Provide links to experts 9. Craft a thoughtful response 10. If you don’t know, tell them 11. Find some common ground 12. Thank them for speaking with you.
Personally, this needs to be handled delicately and I always treat these people as friends first. Lots of listening, apathy and polite conversation.
But I also keep in the back of my mind that Facebook is most likely going to be the digital diary of my life that I leave behind for multiple generations of my family. It’s not that it needs to be perfect – in fact it makes it a whole lot more authentic than say a written autobiography but I try and keep it positive and happy. Because I am positive and happy in my life. No need to air the dirty laundry we all have here in a public place.
Now if the conversations gets a little too much or a little too heated, I prefer to direct message the person via Facebook Messenger and continue the conversation.
Sometimes we agree and sometimes we agree to disagree.
Remember that every digital conversation has a record and never say anything here that you wouldn’t want them to copy and paste and put into a public feed.
If they choose to continue the debate in public on your profile and it’s upsetting you and your family, it is just a Facebook friend after all and I’ve got no problems “unfriending” them.
But I would only choose this as a last resort and I can tell you that I’ve never ever had to use it.
Now “blocking” people for trying to get me to play Farmville too many times is another story.
How do you deal with negative comments on your Facebook profile?
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