It may seem like years since a productive conversation about politics has happened on social media, but it’s important that your campaign’s Facebook page doesn’t become a cesspool of negative feedback.
Social networks are subject to a phenomenon called participation inequality. A tiny group of people create most of the content, a small group of users engage with the content, and the vast majority of social media followers are lurkers. These lurkers still see the comments so it's worth making it a pleasant and productive space.
Outline Expectations In Your About Section
Add language to your Facebook Page’s About section setting out the rules of the road for your comments section. Some basic principles should be no profanity, no personal attacks against other commenters, and all comments must be on topic.
Explain that repeat offenders will be blocked from commenting.
Set Up Your Page Moderation Block List
In your Facebook Page’s settings, there’s an area for listing blocked words. This should include obvious profanity, but also words and phrases that typically indicate low quality comments, such as slurs, nicknames, and hashtags.
Comments with these phrases will automatically be hidden. Throughout your campaign, you should add to your profanity block list.
Hide Low Quality Comments
If a low quality comment still makes it past your blocked list, you can hide the comment, which means the commenter (and their friends) can still see their response, but nobody else can. This can often be an effective deterrent for bad behavior if they don’t get the kind of reaction they were hoping for.
Block Repeat Offenders
If you notice a user who regularly contributes low quality comments, it’s OK to block them from commenting on your page. Elected officials operating Pages where they communicate with constituents or use official resources to manage may be subject to different policies.
Respond To Good Faith Criticism
With your low quality comments taken care of, you’ll see comments that are legitimate questions or criticism. You should respond to them, but only once, since two replies is an argument.
Where possible, link back to your website when there’s more detail to a response. Over time, you may even want to create an FAQ page for repeat questions.
Acknowledge Good Commenters
The best way to encourage more positive comments from your supporters is to respond to those that leave positive comments. Most users will see the top two comments, so responding to the best two automatically puts them at the top.
Conclusion
As more of our interactions with voters move online to platforms like Facebook, it’s important that we make it a pleasant space to be involved in. These are a few tips to make that happen.
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