Should You Hide Comments on Your Facebook Page?

Negative comments can be expected on the Facebook pages of even the most loved brands. What should you do when those comments land on your page? We’ve all had it happen: A negative comment on a Facebook Page post glares at you from the screen.

Our first instinct (or at least mine) is to hide the negative comment or somehow bury it, so it won’t hurt the post or my business. We do, after all, have the option to hide comments on Facebook.

So, should you actually hide comments or negative mentions on your Facebook Page?

The short answer: sometimes yes and sometimes no.

Either way, you shouldn’t automatically hide negative comments just because they’re negative. There are pros and cons to hiding comments on Facebook and other strategies you can use instead. (And the best pro of all: You can get started with Agorapulse for free today and start managing your Facebook like the pros.)

Types of Facebook Comments

The first type of comment that typically triggers our “hide” reflexes is negative comments about our content or brands.

Negative comments

Not only do they make us automatically defensive, but negative sentiments shared online can hurt our businesses.

Because social media often acts as powerful word-of-mouth marketing, we want comments to work in our favor.

You should consider hiding other comments, such as:

• Blatant spam. These comments may send users to broken links or sites with viruses and malware.
• Self-promotion from other users. One case I see the most often is users trying to put their “refer a friend and get $15” codes on the business’s posts to rack up referral bonuses.
• Inappropriate content or language. This includes explicit language and sexual content, as well as racist, homophobic, or sexist comments.

Pros of Hiding Comments on Facebook

The pros of hiding negative comments on your Facebook Page are clear. Ideally, you’d protect your business’s reputation and eliminate any negative sentiments from your posts.

It can actually hurt your Page if you’ve got a ton of spam in comments on every post that you don’t hide or delete.

The last thing you want is someone turning your post into a hotbed of controversy that has nothing to do with the original status.

Nipping all of this in the bud can benefit you.

Cons of Hiding Comments on Facebook

You should consider, however, the cons of hiding comments on Facebook. (Especially when you hide comments that aren’t offensive and only criticize your business. If users notice—and many will—there can be a perceived loss of transparency.)

Social media is all about transparency, so people may not trust you, leading to a loss of customer loyalty.

In rare cases, users who notice that you’ve deleted their comment can get angry—really angry—when they’re already agitated and tried to complain about a product or customer service.

Deleting their comment may not do you much good. They might leave you a scathing one-star review or very vocally take their opinion somewhere you can’t control it—like their own pages.

Though you can’t avoid fallouts with all of these so-angry-their-eyes-are-bulging-out-of-their-heads customers, reducing collateral damage is a plus.

Hiding vs. Deleting vs. Banning

When you go to hide a comment, you’ll see that you can also delete the comment or ban the user who left it.

Options for social media managers

You have three options in regards to negative Facebook comments:

1. Hiding the Facebook comment will keep it hidden from everyone except that person and their friends. They won’t know that the comment is hidden, so you can avoid potential fallout.
2. Deleting the Facebook comment will erase it; no one will be able to see it. The user will know that the negative comment has been deleted if they go to view it again, but they won’t be notified of its deletion.
3. Banning users will keep that particular user from commenting on any of your posts ever again. This is a good move for users that are unreasonable and seem to enjoy leaving negative comments every chance they get, or for users who drop spam or offensive content on your posts.

Options for Hiding a Facebook Comment

Instead of jumping to hide comments on Facebook posts automatically, ask yourself whether there’s another way to resolve the situation.

Address the problem

Sometimes users really are just frustrated.

Remember that a bad customer experience turned into a good one can create some of our most vocal advocates for our brands in the long run.

Addressing comments head-on can sometimes be the best approach.

Show other users that your brand is ready to step up and resolve complaints. If you can solve their problem publicly, other users will take notice.

Lyft does this extremely well, as pictured in the example below.

• If you can’t offer an immediate solution, reply to the comment and ask the user to move to a private message to resolve the issue. Many users will be willing to do this.
• If they aren’t, you still look good for having publicly attempted to get to the bottom of their complaints.
• Sometimes, though, hiding is the best option.
• Comments that can hurt your business should be hidden if they can’t be addressed. Catch the comment early before it gets much visibility or any traction with engagement.

Similarly, comments that come from users who will just stay unhappy no matter what should be hidden if they’re at risk for impacting other users’ perception of you.

More details: Social Media Best Practices to Help Guide You During Any Crisis

Always Hide These Types of Facebook Comments

There are some cases when you should always hide comments, if not delete them or ban their creators entirely.

Hide these types of Facebook comments

This includes comments that:

• Are blatantly spam
• Are offensive or inappropriate
• Have been reported by other users
• Come from “trolls” or users determined to drag your name through the mud

In all those cases, go ahead and delete the comment completely and ban the user; they’ll almost definitely bring trouble back to another thread later.

Should I Skip Hiding and Go to Other Options?

Hiding a comment on your Facebook Page may seem like an extreme option, but this option really is one of the tamer ones.

Deleting the comment ensures that no one can see it, and banning the user means they can never interact with your Page again.

Keep an eye on users if you’ve had to hide their comments before.

If their first comment isn’t worthy of banning them outright (which it would be, for example, if they were antagonizing other customers) but concerns you, put a label on the user through Agorapulse. This will only be seen by you or your team and allows you to flag users who may be an issue moving forward.

If there are repeat problems, you may be able to spot them more easily and act more decisively to ban them outright.

If you do decide to ban someone, deleting their comment is typically warranted.

Delete Facebook comments

Deleting may also be a strong option when the comment doesn’t offer any value whatsoever.

(Sometimes negative comments do offer some sort of value, even if it’s just for their friends and followers to see your level-headed response.)

For example, sometimes someone will comment about my appearance on my professional Facebook Page. I’m personally in the camp that this is never OK. The comments range from borderline like “so pretty” to more obscene ones.

Here, I originally hid the comment but later went back to delete it altogether when I established a no-tolerance rule in my professional business.

If you’re on a social media management team and want to let the business owner decide what to do, keep in mind that you can always hide the comment for now and delete it at a later date.

You can take this approach when you feel that a user may be lying or exaggerating about something. You can hide the comment to do some fact-checking before you take more decisive action.

For example, I once worked for a brand where this was the case: Someone said their daughter had been carted out of the restaurant in an ambulance because her shellfish allergy was ignored. I paused and hid the comment while I did research, only to find that not only did the incident never occur but that the restaurant was vegan—no shellfish in sight.

The hide button gives you enough time to make a decision, so a bad snap judgment isn’t made.

Should I Respond to the Facebook Comment Instead of Hide It?

Part of this will come down to a bit of gut instinct.

If you read a comment and it reads like a legitimate complaint from a frustrated customer, you’ll get further in the situation by confronting it head-on.

Transparency

I’ve been the customer considering a brand, seeing a negative comment on one of the brand’s ads, and then noticing an hour later that the comment is mysteriously gone.

That doesn’t read like great transparency to me. It’s actually stopped me from purchasing before. I’m far from the only one.

Consumers today are savvier than ever before, and they’re less trustful of brands.

If you hide that comment, too, remember what we said earlier. If the customer figures it out, they could get really angry, especially if they’re already at a tipping point.

Reaching out directly, addressing questions, and offering to find a solution is a better way to go here. They’ll appreciate it, it gives you a chance to rescue a guest experience, and other users will take notice, too.

More details: How to Rightfully Earn Trust From Your Network Followers

Facebook Comments That Should Be Left Alone

You don’t really need to respond directly to some comments.

Though I’m a big fan of trying to engage with everyone who interacts with you on your Page or your Ad, at a certain scale, it becomes so difficult. We’re all used to seeing naysayers everywhere we go.

Most consumers are pretty good at spotting and writing off people who just want to complain.

Ignoring the Facebook comment works best sometimes

Let’s take a look at an example.

The first two comments on the following ad from Freshly are negative, arguing that the product is pointless. It’s too expensive, it’s not really homemade … On and on they go.

These comments may dissuade some tentative users from learning more, but the true audience for these ads—those who are struggling to make dinners at home for whatever reason and need a little help cooking—won’t necessarily be put off by their comments.

The brand didn’t even need to respond, as it turns out because Christine Potter came in and argued on the brand’s behalf. That looks so much better to third parties than a defense from Freshly itself probably would have. She argues for the validity of the service and explains how it’s benefited her.

You should monitor your campaigns, even if you don’t necessarily need to hide all comments.

You then can take action if anything escalates.

How to Hide Comments on Facebook

To hide comments on Facebook’s native platform, all you have to do is hover over the comment. You’ll see a drop-down arrow; when you click on it, you’ll see the option to “hide comment” or “embed.”

Just click “hide comment.”

After you do this, you’ll see other options you can take, including “unhide,” “delete,” and “ban user.”

Agorapulse’s moderation tools make it incredibly simple to find comments that need your attention quickly. You can view all comments under the “Inbox” tab and select your Facebook Page. To hide a comment, click on it.

The post and comment will be fully displayed, and you can choose to hide, bookmark, or remove comments.

Once you’ve hidden a comment, you can unhide it at any time from the Agorapulse dashboard.

If you want something more automated, you can set up moderation rules that will trigger actions upon seeing certain keywords. If, for example, you don’t want a whole bunch of comments or “visitor posts” with links to external Websites or contests, set up a rule to filter out “HTTP.”

Then tell Agorapulse what you want to be done with any comment that features “HTTP.” In this case, I set up the tool to bookmark, tag, and hide comments and visitor posts with that trigger.

See the “email notification” in the above illustration.

I’ve also said “yes” to receiving emails each time the rule is triggered.

Here’s an email I recently received about a visitor post that included a website link.

I can then decide to keep it hidden (thanks to the rule I set up) or if for some reason, that comment/link was important, I can go into Agorapulse and “unhide” it.

Best Practices for Facebook Comments

In addition to all the strategies and situations discussed above, there are a few Facebook best practices to keep in mind when hiding comments on Facebook.

Hide them early

We discussed this above briefly, but it was important enough to mention it again. If you’re hiding a comment, you have a good reason; make sure you take it off display as soon as possible to mitigate any potential damage it could do.

Address it if other users ask

Some users (or even the original commenter) may notice the hidden comment and generate further discussion about it; since the potential loss of transparency is huge, address the issue if it comes up. Explain clearly why you hid the comment: was it offensive? Did the user have a history of leaving negative comments? If you hide a comment, you’d better have a good reason—and this is why.

Always consider alternative actions first

While we’ve all got an itching trigger finger when we have the opportunity to delete negative sentiments about our brand, don’t jump to hit the hide button immediately.

Consider what other alternatives you have and what would be most productive.

The last thing you want is for users to trust you less when you have an opportunity to increase their trust further.

In Conclusion

Hiding comments on Facebook can hurt you or help you, depending on the comment in question. In some cases, hiding comments won’t be the best move; instead, you should address the comment head-on for more productive and beneficial results.

Either way, the features in Agorapulse make it easier for you to decide which action to take.

Get started on saving time and energy on your own social media management! Check out our free trial of Agorapulse to help you schedule, track, and measure all your social media efforts.