I used to do social media in higher education, until the college I worked at became the epicenter of political controversy. Hoo boy did I learn about a particular kind of customer care.

The tl;dr: think backwards when in the middle of controversy.

Accusations, scandal, conspiracies - all things outside our control as Social Media Managers, but, of course, we see all the comments and have to take the heat to some degree. A lot of companies turn off comments on posts gathering negative comments or hide/delete posts. 

Thing is, that can often make things worse. For me, I didn’t have “customers,” I had college students, parents, and community members who were concerned about a sudden publicized leadership change that would affect the college’s standard of education. Turning off comments doesn’t help any of them, doesn’t fix the fact that a physical space (the college) was no longer home to a community, and the digital space our team had spent time cultivating was the only one left that allowed unfiltered voices. 

Think about what you’re crafting. Do you have customers interested in buying a product? An audience interested in a service? Are you representing a physical space or digital only? And then think about what comes next. If a controversial decision gets made and you have to handle the first line of (digital) defense, what is the problem and what would be helpful? Maybe the controversy is user-created. Someone makes a comment or quotes your post with a complaint and it gains traction. Could you hide comments then? Sure. You consider your audience, hide comments, and maybe post a brief FAQ to help clear up some confusion. 

But if you’re in a situation where people have further questions and want reassurance, you might have a different obligation. If you get rid of people’s ability to comment on a post, they’ll find another way to comment. They’ll still have those questions. They’re still your community. 

We don’t post just to post, and the same applies to crisis/controversy, too.