The act of ‘trolling’ is when someone posts inflammatory and provocative content, which is more often than not offensive, in order to enrage, or to use another internet slang term, ‘trigger’ others into engaging with their posts.
These ‘trolls’ have been around since the dawn of the internet, and fortunately, web users are gradually becoming more wise to their presence meaning they are more prepared for when they strike. Saying that, there are times in which trolls can still have a very negative impact; one of these being if they decide to target your business.
But why am I being trolled?
Perhaps you’ve annoyed someone in the past; an ex-employee, colleague or friend might be out to seek a petty form of revenge for any wrongdoings. Perhaps your business has aggravated a customer to the point they wish to take further action (though if this is the case, we’d recommend taking a look at your policies to see whether they could be improved). Perhaps you were just unfortunate enough to be a random target of an unexpected troll attack. Regardless of the reason, trolling can happen to anyone, and can have severe consequences.
What are the consequences?
With small businesses, trolling can occur in the form of anything between posting negative comments and reviews about your business, to launching a full-blown cyber attack. Some more advanced internet users may even be able to hack into your website to take it down from the inside – though if it gets this far, you’ll definitely want to consider a lawsuit as it’s past the point of supposedly ‘harmless’ trolling. This can even ruin a business so much that they have to close up shop and stop trading. You will want to get High Net Worth Insurance Gloucestershire cover from a site like johnmorganpartnership.co.uk/ to make sure your business is secure.
How can I avoid it?
Provided you’ve taken the ordinary precautions of ensuring your business is genuine and takes care of its customers, there are a few ways you can safeguard yourself against unfounded reviews. They can design and maintain your site so you can review the content posted by new users and eradicate any unfair reviews.
Of course, you’ll still need to be aware of reviews posted on external sites but provided you keep an eye on it, you will be able to contact Google directly to remove any defamatory content from their engines.