Reflection on Social Media Case 5: Paypal Deleted Comments

Who knew that deleting comments on social media could cause such a frenzy? Paypal brought this to fruition when they were recognized by Forbes for being such a great company. Paypal took this recognition and posted about it on the internet, and it was interpreted as gloating about their success. People then started posting negative comments about the company and Paypal deleted them because they thought it was the right thing to do in the moment. This was a huge mistake that they made because it ended up making people even more mad about the situation and created more and more negativity for the company as a whole. Here some outsider feedback about how Paypal handled this situation. 
Something that Paypal could have done was respond more positively to the comments and take it as a learning experience instead of deleting comments. Here are 8 tips to deal with negative social media. From personal experience of running numerous social media channels for numerous companies, I have found that responding to negative social media with positivity and graciousness is what will get you through the day. I have seen that a little bit of positivity can go a long way when it comes to negative social media, and deleting comments is not the way to go about it. When I worked at a large multi-billion dollar company, we would only delete comments if it was immediate and it completely tarnished our reputation as a company. When we did, we would most likely offer customers a coupon or something free to help "fix" the situation. 
Personally, I think that Paypal should have responded with an apology and not necessarily placed blame on anyone but themselves. Paypal could have taken a great approach to the negative comments and simply said, "we are proud to be recognized by such great company, all of our hard work has paid off" and it could have saved them so much pain and a tarnished reputation in the end. It just comes down to strategy and being smart about social media, and not reacting with first response feelings, beucase in the end, they will end up biting you in the bum. 

Comments

  1. UnknownFebruary 21, 2018 at 4:19 PM

    Good job Erin! I completely agree. I like how you mentioned that positivity and graciousness goes a long way when it comes to social media comments. There is so much negativity and hate on social media so it is amazing to me when I see someone comment something positive on a thread of negativity.

    ReplyDelete
  2. UnknownFebruary 22, 2018 at 5:25 PM

    Loved your post Erin! I especially liked that you included your own personal experience with this issue and how you would have handled it. I also think that PayPal would have done much better if they had just apologized and offered a solution.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Emily HeatonFebruary 22, 2018 at 7:00 PM

    I think you are right about being gracious. Fighting doesn't ever work, and as we learned from PayPal's fiasco, deleting comments isn't the way to go about it either. Thanks for bringing your experience with social media to the table. Very insightful!

    ReplyDelete

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