By now, you have probably heard that the Nestle company has been having some problems with their social media. Their company fan page has been bombarded with complaints from people who support Greenpeace. It all started when Indonesia’s largest palm oil producer, Sinar Mass, began harvesting palm oil in a way which directly impacts the rainforests as well as the orangutan populations in that country. Greepeace reported on this matter, and in March of this year, put up a disturbing video of a man biting an orangutan’s finger on YouTube. The Nestle company had the video removed, but Greenpeace then placed in on Vimeo, after which the video went viral.

This was bad PR for Nestle, but things have begun to settle down a bit. Online entrepreneurs can learn a lot from Nestle’s mistake. Marketing Pilgrim’s Frank Reed feels that if Nestle had come forward and told their story after identifying the issue and ceasing business with the palm oil supplier. He also said that whenever a company has been “found out” by the offline and the online world, there is always a price to pay.

Mr. Reed feels that there are several ways that online marketers who make use of social media should court beneficial habits in order to properly respond to negative comments from those on “friend” lists. You should stay on the subject on the message without reacting to negative comments, as the people who make them could be looking for an argument. Simply tell people that the problem at hand is being taken care of, and don’t allow negative comments to cause you to get into an argument.

Never delete negative comments unless they are obscene or quite defamatory, either to you or to someone else who is posting. Online business owners should have a policy in place so that those in their social network know what types of comments are allowed, and what type of comments will be removed. It can look rather suspicious to remove a comment just because you don’t like what it says. Be professional!

Negative comments are best handled by asking the person who posted it if they would like to discuss it offline. Also, you should never get involved in a flame war. As the site owner, you make the rules, and others will appreciate your tact. In fact, they may began to see the argument in a different light when they see how reasonable you are handling negative comments.

Mr. Reed feels that business site owners should have several different outlets for information about their business so that the search engines have sufficient information. This will keep negativity concerning the business from reaching the first page of the search engine. YouTube, blogs, and other alternate sites are all good choices.