Two things, first:

As the old saying goes:
“If your business involves unrepentantly clubbing baby seals maybe you shouldn’t be engaging the public with social media”

I think when you start engaging using social media you have to be keenly aware of your organization’s weak spots. You should be ready to deal with poor or misleading information on the part of the poster but more importantly you should be willing to listen, take feedback and use it to guide and change your organization. If not, then your organization should stay way from social media, you’re only using up time and energy that could be better spent bludgeoning baby seals to death for fabulously soft fur coats.

Secondly, deciding whether or not to risk engaging is one consideration, deciding just how to handle it is another consideration.

At the organization I work at we are working on creating social media guidelines and have mashed together the following six points by looking at what others have put together before us for their social media guidelines.

1. Ignore them or delete the comment
Not usually the best course of action, this should be a last resort. If you are dealing with some one trolling this may be the only course of action.
2. Attempt to pacify them
Bribery with a 50% off coupon may work but it does not solve issue since you are just trying to make the problem go away.
3. Address (but don’t Antagonize them) them
This is always the best course of action. A negative comment can become a great opportunity for your organization to improve itself (see first part above).
4. Contact your boss, PR, etc…
If in doubt as to what to do contact a department supervisor or someone that can give you advice on how to handle the matter.
5. Have a firm policy in place on the blog/Twitter/Facebook site
Having a comment or anti-negativity policy in place.
6. Ban the offending party
Don’t be afraid to ban someone who constantly creates a negative environment. If some one is being a troll, remember it is not their community, it’s yours.

~end comment.

I would like to conclude with the following from Intel’s Social Media Guidelines:

“Follow these three principles: the Good, the Bad, but not the Ugly. If the content is positive or negative and in context to the conversation, then we approve the content, regardless of whether it’s favorable or unfavorable to us. But if the content is ugly, offensive, denigrating and completely out of context, then we reject the content.”

The blog post is overly formal and comes across as if PR wrote the post rather than the curator as it does not fit the writing style of the rest of her posts so it lacks a bit of genuineness and risks sounding condescending and dismissive. However, otherwise I think it was handled well and given the controversial nature of the subject it was probably better to be conservative in the writing style.

Some observations… It was an interesting preemptive tactic to invite the public on their social media channels to post comments on their blog.

1. Having comments on their blog directs any attacks and comments way from other Brooklyn Museum accounts. The blog post functions as a proverbial blast wall that is helping to direct the blast.
2. While the comments may be negative it is still on their forum. The dialog will happen, but it is better to be part of the dialog helping direct the discussion rather than outside of it.
3. The blog post is highly specific to traffic and less public than a Facebook wall or twitter feed.

I am curious what other people’s observations are on this.