I Got Deleted, But It’s Probably not Me Who Will Suffer The Consequences
Why you need to think carefully before deleting comments on your social media posts.
I recently had a comment deleted here on Medium, and I was a bit surprised.
It wasn’t offensive in any way, I am sure of that. But, in it I did question whether the author could consider a different, or wider perspective that the one she was discussing.
I guess she didn’t like it. And that’s okay — I respect people reserving the right to control the conversation that ensues from their blogs.
But, whether or not it helped her or hindered her in getting her work read is another matter. And this is something that we all need to be aware of as we drive a concerted effort into getting seen, read and recognised in this wild online space.
Are you going to let the algorithms control you? Or do you want to stay one step ahead?
We all know about computer algorithms, right? Well, on different social media platforms there are different algorithms that either push our posts up in visibility or lower them.
The truth is that I don’t know a great deal about Medium’s algorithm, but I suspect that, if someone is a chronic deleter of comments, the algorithm may pick that up and hinder that person’s reach. I do, however, know a lot more about Facebook’s algorithms, having taught Facebook marketing to business owners for several years. And I know that there’s a very fine line between the value of deleting comments, and the value in keeping them.
Now, I am talking here about negative or challenging comments. Of course, there are also the many truly offensive comments that do the rounds on Facebook (much more so than on Medium), especially on sponsored posts, also known as Facebook Ads, since there will be many people viewing the posts who are complete strangers to the ad creator, which I will come to in a minute.
Facebook’s algorithm will pick up on the post-owner deleting comments and this will start to slow down the traction of the post. We also need to take into account the algorithm of humans themselves. This includes the subtle messages that we subconsciously absorb from what we see, as well as the conscious understanding of how we see comments and responses, and how we draw conclusions about people from the way we see them behave.
Gaining haters means that you are doing things right.
Many social media experts stress that we should celebrate the negative comments, for two reasons. One, we are always going to find Negative Nellies online, so it means that we are getting seen. And two, because they allow us to showcase our best selves in how we respond, and I back this opinion all the way. If someone says something challenging or derogatory, we have an opportunity to open a healthy and respectful conversation with this person. For instance, if we express an opinion and they comment something along the lines of “that’s total BS”, we can respond with “I am sorry that you feel I have said something that doesn’t resonate with you. Would you mind letting me know what exactly you have felt is wrong in what I say?”
Of course, they may respond with something else designed to put us down, in which case, we don’t have to engage any further. My point being: our goal is not to enter into an argument and prove that we are right, it is to be willing to show up and have a discussion while maintaining integrity and self-respect. The fact is that if people then respond in a crass manner, they are already showing themselves up in a negative way, while you are maintaining your composure and not stooping to their level, while also refraining from engaging further when the conversation is anything less than intelligent.
And people will love you for that.
However, downright rude, trolling comments are another matter altogether.
This is when the DELETE button becomes our friend.
Although derogatory and offensive comments are horrid to read, whatever the circumstances, again, they can teach us something valuable. Whether they have triggered something in others that highlights that we, ourselves have infused our posts with ego and unfair assumptions, or whether they are just attracting the wrong crowd, it’s a chance to examine what we are doing, course-correct and go again.
Here I need to stress that deleting comments on sponsored posts, unless blatantly offensive, is never going to help your posts. It will compromise your reach and every view, engagement or click will result in costing you more money.
A better practice with offensive comments is to “hide” the comments, rather than delete them. This means that the post still shows the original number of comments posted, without actually showing the shitty ones.
However, if you are getting a lot of these kinds of comments, and hiding a large number, it will become obvious to the viewers that comments are being hidden, they will automatically become suspicious of why that would be, and start to mistrust you. It may cause them to write comments questioning this, which will also negatively affect the algorithm.
It may be that this is simply showing you that something is off with your ad itself. A wiser thing to do, at this point, is stop the circulation of the ad and examine whether you are targeting correctly, whether your content is relevant for the audience, and whether all of the elements — copy, image, video and targeting — are congruent with each other.
I used to run regular ads from my Business Page on Facebook and, most of the time, I would have far more pleasant, or genuinely inquiring, comments than negative ones. However, there was a time when put a bit of money behind some live videos that I had made, when I kept getting really horrible put-downs from semi-successful women in the US and Canada. Once or twice would not have bothered me, but it became more than that. The final straw that eventually made me take the ads down, was when one woman called me a crack-head and insulted me for wearing a hat and scarf (I was filming it outside on a very cold winter’s day). Of course, I shouldn’t have taken it to heart, but these comments were wearing on me, and I couldn’t take any more.
Had the ads been bringing in more rewards than they were, I would, of course, have kept them running. However, they weren’t bringing the desired results anyway, so it was time to pull them.
But this lack of desired results may have been due to poor reach, which, in itself could have been heavily influenced by the negative responses. Facebook ads will gain traction from receiving a high number of “loves”, engagement, and actual conversations in the comments, but will slow right down if they receive negative feedback. I suspected, also, that my targeting had become too wide and that I needed to niche back down to a smaller, more targeted audience.
The truth is that I think that squabbling on social media is one of the biggest wastes of our time, and energy, that currently exist in our modern world. We are righteous beings, and our opinions, to us, are the right opinions to have. Arguing on social media is never going to have an effect of changing the mind of the opposer, so the only outcome to aim for is to make your opposer look stupid. And, fun as it might seem when someone has rubbed you up the wrong way or expressed a sentiment that you believe is downright stupid, it’s just not very nice. I am not afraid to oppose an opinion, but I will choose to do it in a considered, respectful way. I take time to put my ego aside, and write something fair to the other person.
If someone has written an article or post that I find offensive or belittling to others, I can choose to move on and not to follow them. If the author is someone that I am friends with (and it has happened on occasions that someone for whom I had respect has gone down the offensive and downright rude route), I will usually let them know that I don’t agree, and leave it at that. I may then choose not to follow them.
But, getting involved in arguments that are typically about showing the other person up publicly is a pointless waste of our energy when there are so many good things to put our time and effort into. Like doing something to help someone else, or just complimenting others, for example. Something that makes both yourself and the subject of your compliment feel good.
Every single action that you take in the public domain of social media will have an effect on your success. There is nothing wrong with expressing strong opinions — people will respect you for it and it will weed out those who don’t want to hear your opinion. But use wisdom and consideration in how you express it, and you will even win the love of many who don’t share your opinion.
If success isn’t what you care about, then it really won’t matter what you do, but if, like me, you are here to make a positive impact on people’s lives, and grow a following of people who care about what you do, then you have one important job here; to be intentional and wise each and every moment.
