For the college's main official social media channels, the Office of Communications and Marketing—including members of our student social media team—regularly posts on, monitors and responds to any queries. If you have social media channels, you should check them a minimum of once per day, preferably more. Basic customer service rules apply: honest questions should be responded to promptly, courteously and with additional details such as links or contact information, if needed. Like anything on the web, not all comments may be friendly or on topic.
Our Facebook page comment guidelines read: “The discussion board is available for questions, often from those entering or considering Oswego... we hope to get you answers in a timely manner as you ponder joining our community. However, spam, blatantly commercial, obscene and/or denigrating messages are not welcome in this space and may be removed, as this page exists to serve a broader community.”
Remember that freedom of speech is valuable, although things like hate speech that can negatively impact a community are governed by your comment guidelines. So how does one handle posts or comments that fall outside basic question categories? As mentioned above, you want to post some kind of guidelines saying what you deem acceptable posts and what is unacceptable, including personal attacks, profanity, spam, etc. Below are some examples of what you may have to decide to address.
Complaints
Simply deleting complaints can cause more harm than good. There may have a very valid reason for the complaint and you should show an interest in resolving the situation. You may not be in a position to know all the details or help the person who posted it, but you can apologize for any inconvenience and offer to put them in contact with someone who can help. Very often, someone with a valid complaint who has their problem solved can become one of your strongest supporters.
Spam
Some spam posts are clear. An example might be the Facebook post from an unfamiliar person offering an opportunity to quickly become rich working from home. Sometimes, however, it might not be as obvious. Posts from commercial companies geared towards college students may seem real. Before responding, ask yourself:
- Is this a member of your college community?
- Is the same message posted on other colleges’ social media outlets?
Do some research and don’t trust anything that sounds too good to be true. If you determine the answers to the above questions are “no” and “yes,” respectively, that message qualifies as spam. Spam messages can be hidden, deleted, or marked as such if you have a stated policy, which we highly recommend.
Ragers
Many online communities have people who post just to rant about a variety of topics. As long as the language is not offensive, inflammatory or insulting to specific entities, common advice is to let it stand. However, these types of posts should be monitored and removed if they cross any established lines or violate any policies.
Trolls
On the web, a troll is an entity that regularly posts negative comments, insults or bait to start arguments. Trolls tend to respond to other posters with attacks, picking fights for the sake of conflict and otherwise negatively impacting a community. Their actions, especially if they cross into harassment, may violate community standards like Facebook's terms of service. If you have trolls who violate stated policies repeatedly, you do have the option of banning them from your community if you state this is a possibility in your posting guidelines.