In order to use humor successfully when disarming trolls, you should know your audience very well, and your audience should know you very well as well. You’ll best succeed with humor if you have a clear brand personality that is fun and humoristic. If you are known to be boring and conservative, people will have a hard time resonating with your humor because they don’t expect it from you. Moreover, they might misinterpret it because they’re not used to humor from you, thus making them even angrier. Because one misunderstanding could cause many negative reactions which could spread through internet very quickly.

The most well-known example of a brand that uses humor on social media is Wendy’s. They are notoriously known to have a sassy and fun personality, and as a result, people expect jokes from them. That’s also part f the reason why it works so well for them. What’s important to remember is that Wendy’s personality on social media would definitely not work for everyone.

Wendy's social media strategyWENDYS SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETINGHow to use humour in social media marketing

Lastly, if you are notoriously known to be a “boring company”, there’s also a risk that you simply won’t come up with great jokes and humoristic ways to respond to the trolls. There’s a fine line between being funny and being a negative troll, and it is crucial that you don’t pass the line.

If you use humor correctly though, your answers can go viral and bring in more fans and followers, while also disarming your opponent and embarrassing them in front of your whole audience.
If you should use humor when dealing with trolls on social media ultimately depends on your audience and what risks are you
willing to take. If you know that humor will work well, then I encourage you to go out and win over the trolls with the help of it!

However, when using it, you need to use it carefully and avoid coming off as sarcastic or mean at all cost, but when you use it correctly, it can help you make the most out of a bad situation.

3. Ignore online and address privately

You don’t always have to deal with trolls out in the open for everyone to see.

Another way to deal with the trolls on social media is to address their message privately. This may or may not work considering the fact that trolls often want the most attention they can get, and dealing with them in private removes that.

Addressing in private allows you to talk to the troll on a personal level and to see where they’re coming from, and to let them know where you’re coming from too. Sometimes, doing this can convert an angry and negative into a loyal supporter, but there’s no guarantee.

Once you’ve handled the issue privately, it is appropriate that you reply to the message and thank them for chatting with you in private. This will show your audience that you’ve addressed the issue and dealt with it. It will also show your audience that you are mature and professional in handling negative feedback such as trolling.

4. Prove them wrong with facts

What speaks louder than just words?

Numbers!

If trolls want to hurt you, there’s a risk that they are going around and spreading false information and inaccuracies about your brand.

The best way to deal with this is to prove them wrong with facts. This way, you pull the rug under their feet and shatter their credibility.

If there really is an issue, you’ll be best off by addressing it and showing that you are doing everything you can to solve it, but again, if someone is just pointing out flaws about your brand, they might not be trolls who want to damage your reputation. They might just be disgruntled, disappointed customers.

When you address a problem early on, you can stop any controversy from spreading.

5. Don’t fall to their level

When you have people trolling your brand, there’s a risk that you’ll end up as a troll yourself.

I touched upon this briefly in the beginning of this article, but let’s get into it more thoroughly.

As I mentioned earlier, when you are trying to deal with trolls with humor, there’s a risk that you might just end up portraying yourself as a troll yourself.

The bottom line is that if you use humor in the wrong way, you’ll only end up as the troll yourself and this can backfire immensely. Like 7-Eleven:

Social media fail

6. Learn to listen

I mentioned this earlier, but I cannot emphasize this enough. It’s important that you learn to separate disgruntled customers from trolls.

Just because someone says something negative about your brand doesn’t mean they are trolls. If you learn to listen to what they are actually saying, you might actually be able to extract some valuable information on how you can improve as a company.

Sometimes people just want to be heard and if you hear them out, you might just realize that they have no intention in harming your brand, but instead want the best for your brand and want to help you improve.

Customer complaint social media

7. Block if appropriate

This is something you should stay away from most of the time, but sometimes, it might be necessary. If the troll doesn’t stop even if you’ve used several of the listed methods, and they’re seriously harming your brand and spreading negativity, a block might be a good idea.

A time when you should definitely block a troll is when their negativity starts turning into threats or hate speech. If this takes place on your page, you should block them immediately, but also remember that they can easily create new accounts, so, therefore, it’s important that you stay on guard.

How to minimize the number of trolls on your page

Build a kind personality

When you establish a brand personality that is kind and genuine, you show the people around you that that is the way you want your community to look like. In other words, you influence your audience by simply establishing your own personality and make it clear what personality you have. No matter what type of personality you have, you should always treat your audience kindly. Trolls are normally hoping for you to react, but if you show that you aren’t really affected by them, they’ll eventually get tired and move on.

Take active part in your community

When you take an active part in your community, you build strong relationships with the people in your audience. When you do, some people will actually come to rescue and protect you when trolls are trying to pick a fight.

Moreover, when taking an active part in your community, you can follow the discussions that are taking place on your social media channels closely. If a troll comes in, you can quickly identify the problem and address the issue quickly with the methods listed above.

Set rules and limits

Set rules and limits to what you allow on your social media pages. If you see that trolls are definitely crossing your line, you can hop into the discussion and let them know that you don’t accept that kind of behavior on your page. If they continue, choose one of the methods above accordingly.

Where will you draw the line? Will you accept threats? Will you accept abusive language? When you’ve set rules, let your community know what your rules are and what happens when they cross them.

Conclusion

Trolls are and can be, extremely harmful to social media. With one main goal of harming and creating chaos, there’s no good reason to let them stick around.

Trolls can harm your brand and image, and that’s also why it is crucial that you have a plan in place on how you’re going to deal with them when they come to you.

Deal with them the wrong way and you’ll end up creating even more threatening trolls. Succeed in interacting with them, and you might just be able to convert them into loyal followers. It all depends on your power of speech.