Troll Marketing: Benefits, Risk & 10 Ways to Defeat Internet Trolls

Troll Marketing and ways to defeat them in 2022 by the best digital marketing company in Singapore offering SMM solutions for local businesses in Singapore.

The digital marketing company states marketing is difficult. It’s becoming more difficult for brands to stand out in the sea of marketing messages sent to consumers. Every company wants its marketing messages to be memorable and effective.

It’s easier for large multinational corporations to spend hundreds of millions on marketing. However, it is not as easy for small businesses and startups with limited reach and budgets.

What can entrepreneurs do to increase their marketing messages? And what can they learn about big brands?

Studies have shown that emotion is the best way of attracting attention. was before:

It is easier to understand how emotions influence our decisions and how they are linked, which will help you plan your marketing strategy. 

Although every consumer is different and has their own set of emotional associations, we can still generalize. People like positive emotions such as happiness, connection, and pride. People dislike sadness, fear, regret, loss, and fear. 

A compelling selling tool is to link your product with positive emotions or show how it can remove negative emotions. When promoting brands and products, marketers tend to focus on positive emotions.

However, today’s most successful brands experiment with new things. Troll marketing is a way to combine positive and negative emotions.

How Troll marketing works

Troll marketing refers to when companies post controversial content on their digital channels.

It is usually in the form of tweets, but as you will see from the examples below, this tactic can also be used on other platforms.

This idea is to have controversial content quickly spark conflict and draw attention. It is important for something to go viral and draw attention. Sometimes, troll marketing can cut through the noise better.

The popularity of memes is also allowing troll marketing to be easily translated to younger audiences (like millennials). In an article on social media marketing, we discussed how brands compete for millennials’ attention.

As per the experts at the social media marketing company in Singapore, social media is the most media-saturated generation of consumers that the world has ever witnessed. They’ve seen tv commercials and radio ads since childhood. No surprise, then, that millennials are able to discern the truth from the noise in a constant stream of ads.

Christopher Mims is the author of “Keywords,” a tech blog for the Wall Street Journal. calls trolling a covert media message. Trolling is so deeply ingrained in the internet that we have let it mold our most important communication systems without even realizing it. He’s right!

People view brands as friends or voices they can correct when they troll younger people. These messages are often viral and reach new audiences other than target audience. These messages can be intense roasts in some cases. These messages are often sent to people who want to spam brands.

It is important to assess the benefits and risks of troll marketing

It’s not only marketers that are adapting to this new freedom. Companies often hire reputation managers to maintain clean messages and high approval ratings. They are having trouble deciding where to draw the line.

RepEcon Advisors’ Anthony Johndrow says that troll marketing is only the beginning of a new generation of digital marketing messages. Johndrow commented on Reebok taking a stand in a political dispute. 

He said that brand limits are changing. Johndrow, who is used to telling his clients to stick with neutrality, wonders if this tactic is still in use. Many companies are trying new things. I wonder if we see many companies trying new things, especially on social media.

Johndrow’s decision to change his mind or the decisions made by brands on the internet are not shared by all marketing professionals. Senior Vice President of Digital at Edelman, Dave Fleet, says that brands must weigh the risks and benefits carefully.

Before engaging in this type of approach, brands need to be honest with themselves. This approach is more appealing to those who have a playful identity or are familiar with this tone.

Startups and small businesses are less well-known in the marketplace, so the risk/benefit analysis must be more thorough. A small brand can benefit from troll marketing, but mistakes can quickly kill it.

Troll marketing examples

As per the experts at best digital marketing company in Singapore, witty messages that are not characteristic of a company will be deemed fake and unprofessional. Audiences will either see it as a mistake or, worse; they may choose to ignore the message entirely.

Before you do any digital media stunts, it is important to build on a cheeky voice or gradually transition into one. Troll marketing is a strategy that the best brands are already using, even though larger companies like Wendy’s are well-known for responding to rude customers with a matching tone.

This works for Wendy’s and other brands. For most companies, however, balance is crucial.

Here are two of our favorite examples when it comes to using troll messaging and balancing.

• Spotify

Spotify released reflection videos and statistics to celebrate 2017’s end. Their New Years’ campaign did not end there. Spotify used the data that it had compiled to create giant billboards.

What’s the twist? The 2018 Goals ad campaign poked fun at their customers’ music choices and extended troll marketing to the web. It was a great success and attracted mass consumer attention through publications such as Adweek.

Spotify managed to balance humor and data and communicate a clear message. Seth Farbman, Spotify’s CMO, commented about how Spotify is trolling its customers. It felt like you couldn’t catch a break. 

So, we asked ourselves, “What can we do?” We decided to “Look forward instead of the back” and to inject optimism and humor wherever we could. It was that simple. Spotify’s creative team came up with the idea for goals. How can we think ahead? To say something like, “I’m going against this or better at this.”

Billboards were often funny and retweeted frequently. Spotify achieved a few big goals despite all the humor. They demonstrated their customer base’s varied and eccentric and showed their data capabilities. Additionally, they proved their company’s fun personality.

• Netflix

Netflix used the same strategy as Spotify, using statistics and the end of the year to make fun of their customers. Netflix decided to remain online using this strategy, posting an infographic on Twitter. However, they also highlighted some of their most interesting but strange stats. However, not everyone likes Netflix’s use of data and humor.

Some customers cited privacy and data specificity concerns in response to the tweet. This sparked a lively debate that has gained more attention on social media as well as think pieces in different publications.

Netflix replied with a corporate declaration that their data had not been individually cherrypicked. Critics largely ignored the virality of the tweet. Netflix is a great example of how brands can overcome negative emotions even after making cheeky comments.

It’s up to each company to decide if troll marketing is right for them. Sometimes virality isn’t as good in some cases. This was the case with T-Mobile, Verizon’s argumentative Twitter exchange, and T-Mobile’s #Unlimited Moves campaign.

In other cases, such as with Spotify and Netflix, trolling works well and is in line with current social media trends. As we previously created: Consistency in branding is the ability to communicate messages in a way that does not take away the core brand proposition. 

Although branding elements may change, the core message should not. The light is still green if trolling and cheeky replies don’t detract from your brand’s identity. If they don’t fit in or it seems like the direction your company should go, rebranding your brand may be a good idea. 

This alone could spark some interest. Sometimes, a simple change to your tagline or logo can make it more compatible with the new voice you are trying to use and help you reach the next target demographic.

These 10 techniques will help you defeat internet trolls.

Trolls don’t care about who they target – they will target celebrities, individuals, businesses, politicians, and anyone else they can find. Trolls will target anyone who is online.

Here are some ways to stop them.

1. Do not feed the Trolls.

This internet adage is still relevant. Trolls thrive off emotional responses to their provocations. Although it can be hard to control your impulses, don’t let that fuel the flames. If you do not engage, the troll may move on.

2. Be the boss! No Trolls

You are responsible for a platform, whether that’s your blog, discussion forum, social media profile, or discussion forum. You need clear guidelines, including a “no trolling” policy. These rules are impartial.

You can refer to your policy and point out a violation if someone is upset that their comment has been deleted. See, for example, how the Library of Congress established clear guidelines in its commenting and posting policy.

3. Modifiers can be added to your roster.

It’s one thing to manage a small blog or social media account. But if you have thousands or hundreds of posts and a serious troll infestation, it is time to get help! If you’re not able to keep up the troll madness yourself, a team of moderators can be a good investment.

They can verify your comments and handle policy violations so that you can concentrate on other tasks. You don’t need to pay moderators if you don’t have enough funds or resources. There are many tools that can be used on different platforms.

Facebook’s comment moderation plug.

YouTube’s comment setting allows for automatic moderation.

Twitter’s reporting feature is available for abusive tweets.

Instagram’s reporting feature to report policy violations

WordPress’ comment moderation tools.

Other popular blog tools include Disqus, IntenseDebate, and other similar ones. If you can’t ignore the Trolls, call their B.S. Trolls don’t want to have civilized, rational conversations. They don’t think logically and are not good debaters.

Be calm and ask for facts and other sources to support your claims. They won’t have any and will be in utter silence. They really wanted a passionate, heated debate. You denied that. You can counter any wild statements with polite requests for evidence.

4. Kill them with kindness.

It can be difficult to respond to hatred with kindness. Trolls will often seek out a fight, so it is difficult to respond with kindness. The funny side of Tumblr posted a particularly encouraging example. 

An exchange began with a furious mother attacking another person for making her child sick because the youth was exploring gender identity. Instead of reacting to anger by becoming defensive, the user responded with kindness.

He even complimented the mother, who was upset, and answered her questions. It began with “My child is sick because of you!” and ended with “Blessing you, if you have more questions, I can ask them.”

This shouldn’t be the outcome you expected. This case was a result of fear and confusion. However, in many other cases, trolls won’t change. It doesn’t hurt to be kind. It might be a positive change in someone’s day.

5. Humor can disarm them.

Trolls, just like humans, aren’t equipped to handle humor. They want to make people mad and not make them laugh. Laughter is troll Kryptonite. Wendy’s Twitter has some great ideas for how to combat trolls using humor. The brand is well-known for its tongue-in-cheek humor when responding to trolling.

6. Make friends-only social profiles.

This is a simple solution. You can keep your posts private if you don’t wish random trolls to comment on them. This won’t work for businesses, influencers, or anyone who needs to reach the general public. However, it is a great way to protect your personal information.

You can make your Twitter account private by clicking on More > Settings and privacy > Account (you will need to enter your password again) > Protected tweets. You can also modify your photo tagging options.

You can update your Facebook settings by running a privacy checkup. Click on the drop-down arrow and then Settings & Privacy > Privacy checkup. You can also create individual posts for friends, friends with exceptions, and specific friends.

7. The report, Ban or Block Trolls

This option can be more time-consuming, but it is sometimes necessary when a troll just won’t stop. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and many other social media platforms allow you to report abusive posts and unfollow the person who made them.

• Do not reply before you decompress.

Remember that a troll is trying to upset you and others. Don’t let them succeed in their objective.

– Try this before you send your response 

– Take a deep breath.

– Take a pause for at least five minutes.

– It’s not personal and certainly not worth being upset about.

Keep your mind open and clear when you are able to make a decision to address the issue. It’s not going to work to resolve conflicts peacefully if you respond when you are angry.

•  Keep it professional

Unprofessional responses and confusing unhappy customers with trolls are two of the most serious mistakes you can make. Keep calm and be factual. You should apologize if someone complains about your business.

You can thank someone for pointing out a typo or minor error. Then, stop engaging in further conversation. No matter if you are answering a troll or a customer, your comments will be seen by the entire community. Most people care less about the cause of the problem and more about how you deal with it.

Checkout our SMM solutions for local businesses in Singapore. Get in touch with SySpree Digital for digital marketing services.

Conclusion:

Internet trolls thrive off drama. You can win if you are at their level. Whether you are correct or incorrect doesn’t matter. Stop engaging with the trolls. You’re taking their fire out of the flames.

You can take the high road and let the trolls go far below. If you like this article, check out the previous blog