Khloe Kardashian has stopped tweeting. Oh, the humanity!

It turns out she’s tired of being bashed in the Twitter-sphere. “The negativity that I see, hear, or read today is out of control.”

Clearly Khloe and her merry band of reality TV clones (khlones?) attract at lot of negative attention because they seem to find every paparazzi and TV camera in the free world. But the Kardashians are also a very popular brand – and one that is being forced to deal with Twitter fans turning on them, rather than tuning them in. With more than 2 million fans, there are a lot of eyeballs at stake.

The same can hold true for any business using social media. One negative Tweet can spread far and fast. What do you do when the masses turn on you?

First, learn as much as you can about the negative Tweeter. Look at their feed. Someone who regularly complains about anything and everything isn’t going to carry as much weight as someone who doesn’t make a habit of going negative via Twitter. In the worst case, it could be a journalist, blogger or very loyal customer.

Next, contact them directly, hear them out and see if their problem has an easy fix. A hotel might give them a free room in the future, a restaurant may offer up a free meal. Making it right can often make the problem go away quickly.

Do not – under any circumstances – decide to engage in a Twitter war. This is neither a battle you want to engage in nor a war you have any hope of winning. Your social media war of words will just attract an even bigger audience as people retweet.

Done correctly, your Twitter nightmare may land you a loyal customer and let others know that you genuinely care about your customers.

And you can rest easy – Khloe has started tweeting once again.