I just learning a whole lot about confronting negative feedback head-on.

A couple of days ago on Twitter my @Refynr account got the following Reply to my Twitter Promoted Tweet:

[caveat - I'm changing the wording by me and him so that you cannot find this individual]

@refynr - you're a d____ b___. Spamming me about refining out spam? Get a f____ life!

[ He was responding to the following Promoted Tweet by me: "Hate all the #tigerblood / Sheen spam in your Twitter timeline? Me, too! So, I created #Refynr - http://Refynr.com (please RT)" ]

[ What would be your initial reaction? Well, mine was to ignore this guy completely. And I did for a little while... and then I thought, "maybe I should see if I can do a little detective work to find out what I did wrong"? ... So, I responded: ]

Where did you see that tweet ad?

@refynr - in Google, there's a realtime search area, and your ad is right on the top!

[ First off, I didn't even know that Google's real-time search would display Promoted Tweets from Twitter! Cool for me! Erm... not so much for this guy... ]

If you don't mind me asking, what term did you search for?

@refynr I searched google for "charlie sheen". But I didn't want to see your f___ ad!

[ ah ha, so that was one of the terms I was targetting in my ad settings on Twitter Promotions ]

So, you're saying you don't like the ad because you didn't expect such an ad based on that search?

@refynr of course! Don't advertize! I hate those

@refynr the more I think about it, despite your ad, I actually like the idea of your product.

Thanks. Your feedback has helped me to see that this ad wasn't effective, and I'll take it down.

@refynr but don't advertize at all

@refynr btw - are you like some sort of freakin professional custserve dude. Cuz I don't hate you any more

Nah. Just a regular dude who wanted to know what I did wrong so I could fix it. Sorry about the trouble

 

[ And that was it. He didn't become a customer, but I learned that, even though that ad was proving to be very effective in getting traffic to my site, that a spammy ad isn't worth it for your brand image. Also, I learned that if you are geniunely interested in solving the problem (even with irrate haters), you can turn the situation around. I feel bad about the ad, but good that it turned into yet another positive learning experience! ]