Our friends over at Mashable posted a great reminder article about how brands should be managing negative sentiment posted about them online. The more brands engage online, the more susceptible they are to harsh words (true or not) from the general public. And their gripes are now public for the rest of the world to see. Here are some highlights from the article, written by Maria Ogneva from Yammer.

• Why did this person have a bad experience? Did their experience not meet their expectations? Perhaps there was a less than stellar interaction with someone who represents your company. No matter what the cause, its critical to determine why they had a bad experience so you can work to remedy the experience that already happened, and prevent similar experiences from happening again.
• Offer personalized solutions when possible. Some folks just want to have their complaints heard and understood. Usually a small peace offering can go a long way in restoring a favorable view of your brand, especially if something truly unusual or unfortunate happened to this customer.
• If you have done a great job of building a strong brand and engaging your advocates online, they’ll often come to bat for you. Those advocates are created by providing an excellent experience. If you seek to make each of your customer’s experiences as great as possible, you advocates will far outweigh the naysayers.

I highly recommend reading the full article found here. Any company engaging heavily in social media should be prepared to receive some negative feedback as well as the positive engagement that all brands hope for online.