October 5, 2007

Being Attacked Online? Do Nothing.

What do you do if you're being attacked online?

Maybe you have a restaurant and some patron hates you personally or your restaurant. They begin to post negatives reviews about your restaurant on popular web sites.

One of the best things you can do is to ignore the attacks, instead of frustrating yourself trying to respond to each post or use legal means, advises the NYT in an article.

Of course if the attacks or illegal or libelous you could try to bring in law enforcement. But with their resources being stretched you might not get far.

If the attacks are hampering your business here's a few things you can do:

Have customers write positive reviews

Have a place on your site addressing the negative comments

Ensure each customer you interact with has no reason to believe the comments

On your own discussion board use registered email addresses only and moderate comments

The NY Times writes "Some people, for whatever reason, aren't going to like or appreciate what you're selling," she said. "Accept this as normal, and you won't stay awake at night letting a disgruntled client or a negative person who decided not to use your services bring you down with what will be transparently obvious to most people as sour grapes feedback."

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