If you’re feeling like “OMG WTF” when scrolling your comment thread, you may be dealing with a troll. Trolls aren’t just readers or customers who are complaining about your product or service; these are creatures, spawned of the Internet, with the sole purpose of being a nuisance or creating a destructive presence on your site. Trolls don’t have legitimate grievances and they don’t want to talk rationally about their concerns.

They want to cause a commotion and they want attention. But before you take the bait and start responding to comments like “You mad, bro?” consider these tips for dealing with trolls on your blog or social-networking sites:

Don’t Feed the Trolls

The most common advice given by fellow bloggers and Internet users in dealing with trolls is “Don’t feed the trolls.” In other words, don’t
give them want they want: Attention. Don’t respond to their comments, and don’t recognize their presence in any way.

The common wisdom is that no matter how you respond, trolls will find a way to keep flaming you or trying to get a reaction out of you. And even one small outburst or negative comment is enough to keep them going.

Take the High Road

Occasionally, simply ignoring your trolls is not enough to deal with them. If they are not getting the attention they want, trolls may try to up the ante by making even more inflammatory or offensive comments. This will create a negative presence that will either reflect poorly on you or it will draw in other readers or fans to respond, which could escalate the thread.

If you feel that ignoring the troll will not make him go away, respond with neutral or positive comments to try to discourage them. Simple comments like, “Thank you for your feedback,” or “We appreciate you taking the time to share your opinion” should be enough to let your troll know that you won’t be baited, but not enough to give him more material.

Have a Sense of Humor

If you can’t get rid of a troll, you can try beating him at his own game by responding with humor. Don’t sink to the level of the troll and insult him or use derogatory humor. Instead, use levity to show that the comments do not have their intended affect and to dismiss the childish antics.

This is a risky strategy, as you must be sure that you can best the troll. Sometimes, humor can backfire, and you will be the one looking more foolish. Be sure you can win before you try to play the troll’s game.

Ban or Delete

If all else fails, you can delete your troll’s comments or ban him completely. Most Internet users are against censorship of any kind when it comes to comments and posts, so think carefully before you resort to this tactic. If you do decide to delete comments or ban a troll, try to do so before the troll gains notice. It is easier to quietly dismiss a troll without an audience than it is to publicly censor and remove dissenters from your page.

Remember that not all negative commenters are trolls. Some are genuinely disgruntled customers or fans, and you should carefully assess comments before you decide to dismiss them as the work of a troll. If you are dealing with a genuinely aggrieved customer, take the opportunity to publicly resolve the complaint to show your dedication to your customers and win over more fans.

Facebook has recently improved its pages’ insights, supplying meticulous facts for administrators to improve a brand’s online success and overall marketing labors. Many page administrators overlook the insights on a Facebook page; yet, the data within the insights details your pages efforts and that of the people who have “liked” your page. This is vital information that can assist you in better quality engagement and understanding the core audience that your page attracts.

Therefore, comprehending the information that Facebook provides for you is crucial and remaining informed regarding any changes that occur to your pages insights further fuses the connection between your business and that of its current and potential customers.

Relationships are Elemental.

Many people will state that content is key within the Social Media Industry, and although it is true, a relationship with customers is fundamental to truly make an impact for your business. Posting great content to a page is the commencement of constructing a relationship with the people who have “liked” your page. Identifying what types of content you have shared entices the people who have “liked” your page to then “like” or “comment” on a post. This is what will keep them interested in your page, hence your business.

Here is a breakdown of the anatomy of Facebook Page insights.

(First, we will begin with the basics, if you already understand how to gain access to insights, skip ahead to “Facebook Insights Explained”.)

How Can I View My Facebook Page Insights?

In order for you to be able to review the insights of a Facebook page, you must be an administrator to that specific page. A person who already is an administrator can add you by doing the following steps below.

• Click “Edit Page”
• Located on the left-hand side menu, click “Manage Admins”
• Enter the e-mail address that is associated with the person’s Facebook Account.
• Enter your Facebook password
• Enter the Captcha
• Click “Save Changes”

You can add numerous “admins” to your page, keep in mind that you have the ability to remove “admins” at anytime as well.

How Do I Access My Page’s Insights?

If you are already an Admin to a Facebook Page and would like to view your insights, simply follow these instructions:

• Click “Edit Page”
• On the left-hand menu, click “Insights”

Yes, it is free and no, you do not need to download anything to access your page insights.  They are readily available to you, however, each page that you create or are an “admin” to will have its own insights and no, you cannot merge pages. To begin viewing the latest changes to your Facebook page insights you will need to allow it.

Ok, so now that the basics are covered, let us begin understanding the insights.

Facebook Insights Explained

The first part of the insights to your Facebook page continuously fluctuates, so keep that in mind prior to becoming discouraged if you see the “down red arrow”. However, these are the “Important Metrics”, monitoring them regularly as they oscillate will aid in assessing the size and impact of engagement from the content and discussions made on your page. You are able to choose the duration period in which you would like to view these metrics, usually based on a day or weekly time span.

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What is “Total Likes”?

The metrics of “Total Likes” depends on the amount of people who have “liked” your page. The number beside the percentage is formulated from the date period you have chosen or will automatically show the past weeks percentage of the “likes” or non-growth of “likes” on your page; you can view the date period by hovering over the percentage number.

What Does “Friends of Fans” Mean?

The “Friends of Fans” shows your potential reach of the friends of people who have “liked” your page. This again, will fluctuate, as your page “likes” increase or decrease.

What is “People Talking About This” Metric Mean?

This form of metrics indicates the number of unique people who have created a “story” regarding your page, which means any type of interaction amongst or about your page within a defaulted or chosen period. (Examples: comments, likes, tagging etc.)

What is the “Weekly Total Reach” Metric?

This metric displays the week’s total amount of people who have seen associated content regarding your page, including any ads or sponsored stories pointing to your page.

Insights Overview

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The Overview of your insights highlights the retrieved data within a graph. This graph displays your influence amongst your page, allowing you to measure your overall impact and reach. This information is gathered from the content on your page, engage more and receive more feedback.

Page Posts

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Understanding the impact of your posts on your page will help in providing the best content for your audience, knowing which posts have generated a vibe, will help you create a better connection with your audience by posting similar content.

This display highlights the date it was posted, the title of the post, how many people engaged on that post by clicking or commenting, “liking” etc. The Virality is a new feature that indicates the percentage of people who have created a “story” from your content by sharing it with others. The Virality is also an indicator that measures the types of posts your audience would respond and share. (Do not be alarmed if the percentage at first seems low, it is a new feature.) You can also choose to sort the tabs. In addition, the default shows a 28-day cycle.

Demographics and Locations

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Located under the details of the “Who’s Talking About This” tab, you are able to discover your demographics and locations about the people who have “liked” your page. This tab is a vital resource in targeting your market audience; this data can be used for a variety of your marketing needs, including campaigns and dependent on how in-depth and active you are within your local market.

If the numbers are not showing you what you hoped, take the necessary steps to gain popularity where you need or want it most by sharing directed content towards the type of people or location you want.  Also suggested is to socialize as your page on Facebook, “liking” and engaging with pages that are of businesses within your local community. The demographic data will only be collected if thirty or more people are “talking about” your page within the last 7-days proceeding the last day of your selected date range.

How People Talk About You

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You are able to view the amount of people that “talk about” your page by hovering over the “dots” within the graph. To see further stories click on the “All Stories” defaulted drop-down, the dates are displayed at the bottom of the graph. The “viral reach” graph highlights the amount of unique people that saw a story that the people who have “liked” your page then shares with their profile, therefore having their friends and friends of friends see it depending on their activities.

Exporting Data

As an admin to the page, you are still able to export the insights data by choosing the type of data, the format and the date range of exported information. Please note, that there is a time frame, so if you need to export data for any reason, do so on a regular basis.

This is the anatomy of the recent changes to Facebook Pages insights, this gathered information is from an actual Facebook page and will display differently according to the data Facebook acquires from your page, but the basics are the same.

If you want to see better numbers, demographics and locations, you will need to modify the way you interact on and with your page, including the choices made to consolidate with your business’s overall marketing strategies. Combining the insights from your Facebook page with that of your overall marketing data will help you capture the appropriate audience for your business.

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There have been many changes on Facebook, especially with the users Newsfeed as of late. As with any change, it is not welcomed initially, but as time goes on so do new status updates. The newsfeed has automatically updated with what has been happening with the users’ friends, as well as almost “pausing” once you leave Facebook. Upon returning, it displays a number of how many stories have occurred since your last sign-in. Facebook  also adding the “ticker” at the right- side of your newsfeed so you can see eve a variety of faster updates of what your friends are chatting about or what activities they are part-taking in.

However, with this change it has almost felt like the user had lost their control over their own newsfeed, as to what they are and are not able to view. Facebook has now enabled a new feature located at the top of the users’ newsfeed. This allows Facebook users to have the ability to “sort” between “highlighted stories” or “most recent” actions on Facebook.

The differences between “Recent Stories” and “Highlighted Stories” are:

Recent Stories First: Stories will appear in the order they were posted. Highlighted stories will be marked with a blue corner.

Highlighted Stories First: Highlighted stories you have not seen yet will appear at the top of your News Feed. (If you do not see highlighted stories, it is because there are not any new highlighted stories since your last visit.)

What Determines a “Highlighted Story”?

Highlighted stories are determined on a variety of factors, which include; your relationship to the person (who posted the story), how many comments and likes it got, what type of story it is, etc.

You can also control your “highlights” by clicking the top right corner of each story. You can add or remove the highlights from a story, helping Facebook improve what you see. If you see something that is not interesting and is marked as a highlighted story, hover over the right side of the update and click the arrow that reads “Remove Highlight” from the menu.

If you want to see the latest content from friends on your newsfeed it is best to choose “most recent”. However, you can switch back and forth as many times as you please.

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Read More Social Media News on The Soshable Blog.

QUICK! How much time should you spend building your Google+ Business Page? That’s right – 5 minutes.

Now, how much time should you spend working on your Google+Business Page once it’s built?

Yep, 5 minutes again. Not much. Not yet.

In the next year, Google will be plugging in business pages with Google Places and other services that will truly make the service valuable for business users. For now, it’s relatively meaningless. Anyone can build them and attach them to any Google Places listing (not the account, just the listing thankfully). There are tens of millions of users, but there’s still very little happening.

For now.

Get it going now, though. Be prepared. Be an early adopter. Bet on Google. They’ll get this one right and in the near future Google+ will be valuable for businesses. Today is not that day, but it can in the future.

Here’s a quick tutorial (thanks Columbus Indiana Ram!):

What’s that old saying? Live by the sword, die by the sword. If anyone is experiencing that right now, it is Ashton Kutcher. Amidst the insanity that has been the Penn State University scandal, Kutcher sent out this Tweet that he regrets greatly.

This wasn’t Kutcher’s first blunder on Twitter either.

Despite his slip-ups, the one-time Twitter “King” usually recovers well by owning up to his mistakes, which he did last night following 30 minutes of ridicule from the Twitter universe. Ashton responded to much of the criticism with great humility and remorse. I applauded him greatly for the way he handled the situation; until today that is.

I was very upset when I heard that Ashton (whom I greatly admire for his business prowess and activism) had officially given the reigns of his Twitter account to his PR team at Katalyst Media. Given the nature of social media, I completely disagree with that decision.

Going away from Kutcher, we all make mistakes in business, on social media, wherever. The beautiful thing about making mistakes is that you always have a chance to learn and adjust as long as you approach the situations with humility.

Even Rick Perry understands that!

In social media, silence is never the answer. Not addressing issues or shying away from the medium all together in fear of another slip up takes the conversation out of your hands. Social media has given individuals, celebrities, and brands to listen and create conversation – the silent treatment in the face of a mistake or crisis, gives the outside voices an opportunity to mold the conversation to their liking. If anyone understood this, I thought it was Ashton Kutcher.

Now, Kutcher’s Tweets will be calculated and message driven, rather than the authenticity that made him the first user to reach one million followers. Something makes me think that approach won’t be too successful.

Transparency is everything in social media and that is nothing new. As social media managers, users, or however you may use these mediums, we should take a lesson from Kutcher’s recent slip ups.

When recovering from a mistake, the best and sometimes only thing you can do is understand what you did wrong and apologize. Most of the time, if you address the issue with authenticity, your critics will move on since there’s no more story to feast on. Going silent or making an unwarranted change rarely works out. Right, Reed Hastings?

Ashton Kutcher has lived by the sword for a long time, as many of us have as well – unfortunately for @aplusk, he just turned the sword on himself.

There are so many articles that speak of the man behind Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg and yes, while he did create the site, he is not the only person who owns it. As users, we may not think of Facebook in a business sense, or wonder who claims ownership of Facebook. In fact, it may be a surprise to know that Facebook staff owns more of Facebook than Zuckerberg himself.

The infographic created by reface.me indicates who exactly owns Facebook.

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(via: reface.me)

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Social networks have brought about a revolution in the lives of everyone connected to them and they also have a big hand in the success of internet TV. It has brought people over the internet and connected them to the online TV world. Social networks have proved to be a medium from where people get to know more about internet TV and the vide variety of options that it offers.

The connection of people through these networking sites has shaped their minds and choices. Its like they don’t have to make an effort to pass time anymore, half of the videos and television people watch is through these sites. Videos suggested by people or the programs liked by them are at the top view list of their friends. Not just friends, but other pages and groups online keep people updated. Through various options such as share, like and add to favorite, the administration of these sites comes to know of peoples choices.

Social networks more effective than news channels

Since the advent of social networks, people have had the habit of staying updated through them. It is not the news channels anymore that provide all the information regarding everyday events to people, it’s their networking site. News updates reach networking sites even before people can hear it from the news channels.

People make videos from their cameras and upload it on their profiles; at times even news channels are not able to produce such clips. We usually hear on news channels that they found a video on a site, which indicates the trend of internet television. It seems like no medium can work without the other. These videos circulate around, get thousands of hits and also get uploaded on sites where many people watch them daily. Hence, the concept of internet TV becomes more concrete through these sites.

During the recent earthquake in Tokyo, many people tweeted online stating that they were in the midst of an earthquake. People with their experience are better able to update others.

Social networks and videos

YouTube is one of the most popular sites that is visited daily by millions or maybe even billions. The site shows a number of most viewed videos and songs or those that are very popular among visitors. YouTube videos are shared and viewed world wide, and it’s not just one site that promotes internet TV, but many others.

Social networks and TV shows

One can never catch up with everything that is going on, but through networking sites people come to know of what is going around, which shows are new and where one can find them. Social networking sites have groups and pages of TV shows which provide content to their viewers.

Social networks and advertising

People might not watch commercial ads during their favorite soap, but they will watch an ad which their friends suggested is funny or entertaining. Social networking sites have proved to be one of the best mediums for advertising. Big companies spend huge budgets on advertising, but now through social networks a video advertisement can roam around within minutes.

By now, most businesses realize the tremendous marketing potential that lies within social media. We are often pointed in the direction of popular platforms like Facebook and Twitter, but the social realm has so much more to offer us marketers. While there are numerous options out there, many of which do the same thing more or less,

Yammer is one that takes a unique approach to social networking. Let’s take an in depth look at Yammer and what makes it such a good communication tool businesses of all sizes.

What is Yammer?

Originally launched in 2008, Yammer is a social network geared for enterprise use. It is similar to mainstream social networking options, yet different in how it focuses solely on helping marketers meet their business objectives. Just like with other sites, Yammer allows users to create profiles complete with relevant content such as a photo or logo, contact information, experience, and more. What makes it different, however, is a centralized aspect that keeps your communications private and secure. The platform also offers a variety of features and options that businesses do not have access to on other social networks.

Business users can take advantage of Yammer in two ways: by singing up for a free membership or investing a premium membership for $5 per month. With a free membership, you get basic features such as access to privacy and security settings, status updates, the ability to share files, and unlimited space for storing your files on the platform. A premium membership gets you advanced management and security capabilities, the ability to send broadcast messages, and keyword monitoring among other features. Premium members also receive integration with popular Microsoft products ActiveDirectory and SharePoint. As you can see Yammer’s subscription model suits businesses with basic requirements, as well as those with more demanding needs.

Yammer Integration

Another thing that makes Yammer a worthwhile venture is its API. The Yammer API enables easy and seamless integration with your existing applications, essentially providing a direct line to the platform from your infrastructure. The API also allows you to create your own applications, apps other business professionals can use on their desktops and mobile devices. The main perk here is strengthening your brand by getting people on the network to use your apps.

Whether it’s plugging in your CRM or engaging contacts with your very own apps, API integration with Yammer extends on the platform’s core functionality and makes what was already good even better.

Conclusion

According to Yammer, its social networking service is utilized by more than a 100,000 companies around the world. Although this number pales in comparison to that of Facebook, Twitter, or even LinkedIn, it is still pretty impressive. And while Yammer may not be a suitable replacement for your existing social marketing options, it is a fine tool for businesses that need a dependable way to communicate and network with their target market online.

It might seem a tad bit overwhelming with all the recent changes that have occurred on Facebook and there is still more to come. Most recently, Facebook has enabled friends to see other “friend’s activities” on Facebook Pages. This means that people on Facebook can have a clearer view of what is said about pages they have both “liked”, filtering out the noise from other people.

What does this mean for Facebook Page Owners/Admins?

As you know, peer recommendation is at an ultimate high and many people search for reviews from other people, even having businesses setting up shop on other sites to retrieve reviews regarding their business. Now with Facebook’s latest change to Facebook pages, friends can see anything and everything said by other friends that share the commonality that is your page, simply by going to your page and on the left hand side, clicking on “Friend’s Activity”.

Although access to each “friend’s activity” regarding a page is located on pages, it will differ from page to page. It is dependent on shared “likes” among friends. Pages cannot view these interactions; the feature disappears as soon as you use Facebook as your page.

What does this mean for Facebook Users?

This means that you will now be able to see what your friends think of a page i.e. business, interests etc. without having to see it come through your newsfeed, asking them or by viewing their profile. Any friend’s that have “liked” the same page(s) as you and have interacted on that page via “likes”, comments etc. are now viewable to you by visiting that page(s) “friend’s activity” located on the left hand side of the page.

This can help pages with peer recommendation and for users to see peer recommendation. All owners and admins must be watchful of what interactions are happening and as always responsive to any negative sentiment. This may even encourage you to become more vigilant regarding your Facebook page. In return, this feature makes a page more valuable to its users, for now they can see what their friends think, many which who most likely target your local area.

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Read more Social Media news on the Soshable Blog

Things are changing at Soshable. For nearly 4 years, we’ve tried to bring the latest news, deep analysis, tips, and features about what’s happening in the world of social media. It’s been a labor of love – we only maintain enough advertising to keep the lights on and the bills paid – but we’ve had some wonderful success considering that it’s a (very) part-time gig for all of us.

Today, we’re heading in a different direction. We’ll still be hounding social media freshness like no other, but we want this blog to focus particularly on the people of social media. We’re not talking about Mark Zuckerberg and Gary Vaynerchuk (even though I have the deepest respects for both and will speaking at a conference with Gary next month; Mark still won’t return my phone calls or lift the restraining order). We’re talking about you.

Soshable wants to focus on people doing amazing things with social media, whether it’s for them personally, for their business, or for an organization. We want to highlight the best in social media and rant about the worst. We will still be posting tips, analysis, infographics, and commentary, but there are plenty of blogs out there who hang on every move that Facebook or Twitter make. We don’t want to be one of them.

If you have a passion for social media (or for people using social media in amazing ways) and some talent at writing, we want to hear from you. There’s no pay. It’s all about glory and a link to your site. That’s it. Someday we may turn this into a primary portion of our business but today, we do it out of desire, passion, and the knowledge that there are (some) people out there who appreciate the perspectives of the little guy sometimes.

Simply fill out this form and we’ll get started. We only want unique content – it can be republished after it appears here but we can’t anything that’s already been out there. Infographics are fine, but they must be accompanied by commentary that is unique to Soshable.

If you have the desire and a little skill, contact us. Welcome aboard!