Facebook, when leveraged properly, can be a solid online marketing platform, as the way it’s set up is conducive to interactions. You post something and users interact with it by commenting, liking, or even sharing. When this happens, the user’s actions are shared on their walls for other users to see, potentially driving more views to your profile and ultimately increasing the chance of a sale. This open platform can be a double-edged sword where spiteful postings could cause harm. It’s these comments you need to keep an eye out for and know how to control and delete.
Here’s how to delete posts and comments on your Facebook Page.
Delete a post or comment
To delete a post:
- Go to your company’s Facebook Page and scroll to the post you would like to delete.
- Hover your mouse over the top right-hand corner of the box containing the post.
- Press the Pencil and select Delete…
- Select Delete from the pop-up window that appears. You can also select Delete and Ban user which will delete the post and ban the user from posting on your wall.
To delete a comment:
- Go to your company’s Facebook Page and scroll to the post that contains the comment you’d like to delete.
- Hover your mouse over the right-hand side of the comment until an X appears.
- Click on the X and the post will be removed and marked as spam.
When you click Remove, a message will be shown telling you the post has been deleted and provide you with some extra options. You can either ban the user, undo the action or delete the post, as well as ban or report the user.
When should I delete?
In an ideal world, you wouldn’t have to delete or remove any posts, simply because the idea of Facebook for businesses is to show the human face of companies and that they are worth interacting with. Some negative comments, when addressed correctly, can help illustrate that you care, and will go the extra mile to ensure people with issues have a way to communicate, and that your company values its relationships.
Sadly, this isn’t an ideal world, there will be times when people post things that should be deleted. These include posts that:
- Are overly hurtful.
- Are hateful.
- Contain information or words deemed to be unacceptable by the local and professional community.
- Are so off topic they are useless.
- Sell other products, usually spam messages like: ‘Buy Gucci Bags only USD$11’.
It’s important to remember that some posts, while they may irk you or even make you angry, are actually feedback. If you delete these comments other users could notice and this could harm your reputation more than the initial post itself. Think of these comments as a chance to interact with your customers and as a warning that you may need to work on some aspects of your company or service.
What about mistakes and typos? Ideally, there shouldn’t be any, but we’re all human and we make mistakes. Facebook allows you to edit comments, which can be done by clicking on the pencil and selecting Edit. Beware that users will be able to see that edits have been made, as Edited is added below the comment. Currently, the only way to actually edit a post is to copy the content, delete the old post, repost it and then change the date back to the original post. This is hardly ideal, so it’s better to be 100% sure about what you want to post and do a quick spell check before you do.
If you’d like to learn more about using Facebook to leverage your company’s marketing potential, give us a shout.
Published on 13th November 2012 by Jeanne DeWitt.
