The Ultimate Guide To Comment Management On Social Media

Mar 11, 2020 12 min read

If you're a marketer or a social media manager looking for the best ways to manage comments on social media, you've come to the right place. Here is an ultimate guide that will help you efficiently manage the comment section of your posts without spending too much time.

In this post, we'll be taking a look at:

You can directly jump to a section of your choice or keep scrolling.

Why Is It Important For Businesses To Manage Comments On Social?

With the increase in spam and trolling on social media, comment management is no longer an essential element of social media strategy for brands.

There's a fair argument that when you are dealing with hundreds and even thousands of comments each day on multiple social networks, it's practically impossible to manage each of them manually without having to spend the entire day on it.

But engaging with your audience via comments is an excellent way of making a connection with your target market. If you are able to provide customer service to comments from unsatisfied customers quickly, you can avoid losing such customers and end up gaining new ones as well.

Here are some tips to follow while dealing with comments from frustrated customers on social.

  • Apologize for the mistake and acknowledge the error politely and courteously.

  • Keep the responses short and to the point, since angry customers are not in the frame of mind to read stories.

  • Offering an incentive such as a coupon code can quickly turn an unhappy customer to a happy one in most cases.

  • After you've apologized, and given an explanation for the error, the next best thing is to reassure them about the action being taken on their issue.

How To Deal With Troll, Spam and Untasteful Comments On Social?

Now that you've dealt with comments from frustrated customers, the next step is to clean out your comment section by dealing with trolls, spam, and comments that serve no purpose but are aimed just to throw mud at your brand.

"Brands have seen up to 269% increase in positive user sentiment just by removing or hiding harmful comments"

It is always recommended to address such comments quickly. You can either delete or hide such comments, let's take a look at how you can do that on different social media platforms.

What's The Difference Between Hiding and Deleting A Comment?

Social media networks like Facebook give you the option to choose between hiding or deleting a comment. It's important that you know what happens when you hide comments vs. when you delete it before you go on a spree of deleting comments.

What Happens When You Hide A Comment

While hiding a comment might seem a bit extreme, but it is instead a tame and more efficient way of dealing with spam and troll comments.

Hiding a comment made on your post will keep it hidden from everyone except the person who made the comment and their friends. The user who commented won't be getting any notification, so there is no chance of risking an outrage. Also, you can unhide the comment and combat it with a well-prepared response later on.

What Happens When You Delete A Comment

Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and LinkedIn all give you the ability to delete your comments and the comments made on the content that you share with your followers.

Deleting a comment erases it, and no one will be able to see it anymore. The person who made the comment won't be notified of its deletion, but if they decide to revisit the post, they will know their comment has been deleted.

What Happens When You Disable Comments

Although we don't recommend this, if you have to deal with too much spam on your posts regularly, you can choose to turn off the commenting on your posts.

You can also go the route of banning/reporting a particular user as well. This is a good move if you're getting useless comments from a bunch of same accounts on all your posts. Banning a user will prevent that user from leaving comments on your posts.

How To Manage Comments On Facebook?

Facebook gives a lot of options to help you manage the comment section of your posts. Here's how you can hide, delete, and disable comments on Facebook posts.

Also, if you have trouble managing or hiding comments on Facebook ads, you can jump directly to our guide: Managing Facebook Ad Comments

How To Delete Comments On Facebook

To delete a comment on Facebook,

  • Locate the particular post with the comment you want to delete

  • Hover your mouse over the comment, click on download--2- and select Delete

Deleting a comment on Facebook will erase it permanently, and no one will be able to see it anymore.

How To Hide Comments On Facebook

To hide a comment on Facebook,

  • Locate the particular post with the comment you want to hide

  • Hover your mouse over the comment, click on download--2- and select Hide

Hiding a comment will keep it hidden from everyone except the person who made the comment and their friends. You can unhide the comment later on.

How To Manage Comments Via Facebook Manager

  • Go to the "Inbox" section of your Facebook Page and click on "Comments and More" from the left side panel

manage-facebook-comments-ad-manager

  • Select Facebook and click on the comment that you want to hide/delete to open the post with that comment

  • Hover your mouse over the comment and click on download--2-

  • Now you can choose to either delete or hide the comment

hide-Facebook-Comments

How To Disable Comments On Facebook

Unfortunately, Facebook doesn't allow you to disable comments on Facebook Page posts. You can, however, disable comments on Facebook group posts. To disable comments for Facebook group posts,

  • Select the group posts for which you want to disable comments

  • Click on the three-dotted icon at the upper right corner of the post

  • Click on "Turn Off Comments."

  • Any comments for this particular posts will be restricted

disable comments in Facebook group

Note: You can only turn off comments if it is your post or you are the group admin.

*Read more about how to turn off comments on Facebook post

How To Choose Who Can Comment On Your Facebook Posts?

Those who can see your Facebook Page can also comment on the post. But if you want only certain people to comment on your post, Facebook allows you to choose who can comment.

Here's how to change who can comment on your Facebook page's post:

Step 1: Go to the post whose comment settings you wish to change
Step 2: Click on the three dot in the top right corner of the post
Step 3: Click Who can comment on your post?

How To Choose Who Can Comment On Your Facebook Posts Step 3

Step 4: Select anyone among Public, Pages you follow, or Profiles and Pages you mention and click Done

How To Choose Who Can Comment On Your Facebook Posts Step 4

Those who are restricted from commenting on your post will not be able to see the comment option below your post. They will see that you have limited who can comment on your post.

Note: This feature is not available for an ad or boosted post. This setting won't apply to custom privacy on the post on your Page.

How To Manage Comments On Instagram?

The comment section on Instagram is always filled with all types of comments, and odds are you are getting more troll and spam comments instead of genuine feedback from your fans/customers. So how do you manage the comment section of your Instagram posts quickly?

Instagram allows you to delete comments on your posts; you can set specific filters to auto-hide comments, and even disable comments for your page posts. We'll talk about how you can perform these actions down below.

Also, if you're having trouble hiding comments on Instagram, you can jump directly to our guide: How To Hide Comments On Instagram?

How To Delete Comments On Instagram

To delete a comment on Instagram,

  • Go to Instagram and find the comment you want to delete

  • Now hover over the comment and click on the three-dot menu

how-can-i-delete-comments-on-instagram

  • You can now delete the comment or report the user

delete-comments-on-instagram

On Android/iOS

  • Open the Instagram app and locate the comment you want to delete

  • iPhone users need to swipe left over the comment while Android users have to tap & hold the comment to select it

  • Now tap the trash icon to delete any unwanted comments

Delete Instagram Comments Via Facebook

If you've connected your Instagram page to your Facebook Pages Manager, you can delete Instagram comments via Facebook as well. To delete Instagram comments via Facebook,

  • Go to the "Inbox" section of your Facebook Page and click on "Comments and More" from the left side panel

  • Select Instagram and click on the comment that you want to hide to open the post with that comment

  • Now hover your mouse over the comments and click on the delete icon

delete-comments-on-instagram-2

How To Hide Comments on Instagram

Instagram doesn't allow you to hide a comment on your page post manually. However, you can set up a filter that will automatically hide comments with certain words or phrases. To hide offensive comments on Instagram,

  • Open the Instagram app (Android/iOS) and go to your profile

  • Tap on the Hamburger menu in the top right corner and then tap on settings

  • Tap Privacy > Comments and then tap next to Hide Offensive Comments to enable it

To set up a filter to hide comments on Instagram,

  • Go to Instagram, and click on the Edit Profile button

edit-instagram-profile

  • Now select "Privacy & Security" from the left side panel and click on "Edit Comment Settings."

  • You can now add phrases or words that you would like to avoid seeing in your comment section

comment-filtering

Note: You can select "Use Default Keywords" to auto-hide commonly reported keywords from your posts

You can also go the route of disabling comments on your posts. When you turn off commenting, any comments that are currently on that post will be automatically hidden.

To turn off comments on your Instagram posts,

  • Tap download (iPhone) or download--1- (Android) above your post and select Turn Off Commenting

What Happens When You Report An Instagram Comment

If someone leaves an inappropriate comment on your post, you get the option to report that comment. To report a comment,

  • Hover your mouse over the comment and click on the three-dot menu

  • Click on Report and choose a reason as to why you are reporting the comment

report-a-comment

  • Once you select a reason, the comment vanishes from your comment section, and a report is submitted to Instagram for review

report-submitted

Note: Instagram will check if the comment is against the community guidelines and send a notification to the user who commented; your identity is completely anonymous throughout the process.

If you're looking to manage Instagram comments at scale, jump directly to our guide to: How To Hide comments on Instagram

How To Manage Comments On Linkedin?

LinkedIn is one such platform which is pretty restrictive when it comes to comment moderation. There are only a handful of options that you can choose from, and sadly you cannot automate your process.

If you want to manage LinkedIn comments at scale and are looking for a way to automate the process, jump directly to our guide: How To Moderate LinkedIn Comments

How To Delete Comments On LinkedIn

To delete comments on LinkedIn,

  • Locate the comment you want to delete

  • Click the three dot icon in the top right corner of the comment

    manage-linkedin-comments

  • Click Delete from the dropdown

On Android/iOS

  • Locate the comment you want to delete

  • Tap the three-dot icon in the top right corner of the comment

  • Tap Delete comment

Sadly, LinkedIn does not offer a way to hide comments on posts. The feature is neither available on profiles nor pages.

How To Manage Comments On YouTube?

YouTube has been experimenting a lot in recent years to counter an increasing amount of spam and trolling on the platform. YouTube Studio now offers some improved comment moderation options.

You can now add users as Comment Moderators, Set Filters, Configure Default Moderation Options, and quickly delete individual comments.

How To Delete YouTube Comments

To delete comments on YouTube,

  • Go to YouTube Studio and from the left side panel, click on comments

  • You'll now see comments from all your videos (by default the comments that you haven't responded to are located on top)

  • Click on the three dots next to the comment you want to remove to open the pop-up menu

    Remove Comments On YouTube

  • Click on remove to delete the comment

How To Disable Comments On A YouTube Video

To disable comments on a YouTube video,

  • While you're in YouTube Studio, click on videos from the left side panel
    YouTube Studie Videos
  • Click on the name or thumbnail of the video you want to disable the comments for

  • Click on the "More Options" tab and scroll down to the comments & rating section

youtube-studio-videos-option

  • Now click on "Comments & Visibility" menu to open the pop-up

  • From herein you can disable comments for your YouTube Video

How To Disable Comments On A YouTube Channel

If you want to disable the comment section for all your future videos, you can do so by following these steps. To disable comments on your YouTube channel,

  • While you're in YouTube Studio, click on settings from the left side panel

  • Click on Community and toggle over to the defaults tab

    [YouTube-Community-Managment-1

  • Click on the dropdown under the "Comments on your new videos" markup and click on disable comments

youtube-comments

How To Set Moderation For YouTube Videos

If you want to reduce the hassle of managing each and every comment on your video, YouTube offers features to help moderate your comment section in a better way.

To moderate your YouTube comment section,

  • Add Comment Moderators
  • Set Moderation Rules
  • Set Default Moderation Options

If you're like to know in-depth about moderation options on YouTube, you can jump directly to our guide: How To Moderate Comments On YouTube

What Is The Easiest Way To Manage Comments on Social?

Since the life of social media managers is already pretty occupied, you need a platform that allows you to manage everything in the best way possible in the least time.

Statusbrew makes your life easier by allowing you to manage the comments on your social in the easiest way.

  • All your Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTube comments are synced up effortlessly in real-time, and you get browser, app, and even Slack notifications as per your preference.

  • You can quickly navigate between the comments and easily filter the important ones using inbuilt filters in Statusbrew Engage.

  • You can save a lot of time while replying to comments by using features such as saved replies, Tags, Notes, and more.

  • You can manage the comment section across your social as a team with the help of features such as assigning a particular conversation to another team member, multi-level user permissions, and more.

  • You also get the options to hide and delete comments on your posts manually

Now for the best part, Statusbrew offers moderation rules that you let you create workflows that automatically manage your comment section based on the conditions you set.

youTube-Comments

Using Moderation rules,

  • Never deal with spam again by creating a rule to automatically hide and delete spam comments

  • Manage social as a team by creating a rule that automatically assigns comments with specific keywords to different team members

  • Never miss out an important comment by creating a rule with Slack notifications

Did we tell you that you can claim your free 7 day trial for Statusbrew when you sign up for comment management?

Explore Comment Management!

Statusbrew is an all in one social media management tool that supports Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Linkedin, YouTube, and even Google My Business.

Shivam Devgan

Marketing Manager @ Statusbrew

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