I’ve had a bit of a sabbatical from my “how to blog” series. With holiday, work and a little more work on the top, I’ve simply had no time. I’ve also not had time to tell you about the talk I did for ignite.
Which is handy as I’m going to pinch that idea for todays post.
A few weeks back I spoke to a room of people about dealing with negative online comments, we were all in the same boat, everyone in that room either blogged, tweeted, uploaded photos, facebooked, generally created something online etc so its safe to assume that most people had come across a negative comment or two in their time online.
If you were at the talk, you’ll know I got side tracked…if you weren’t then I had to hone my usual rabbeting down to a 5 minute segment so briefly here are my tips on dealing with negative online comments.
*note for the purpose of the blog post, when I talk about negative comments, I’m not talking about the type of comments that include death/rape threats or fascist and violent behaviour – those need to be reported to police asap.
Instead I’m talking about those pesky commenters who lie in the shadows, waiting for you to post something before leaping out and essentially shitting all over your work.
One story I shared with the room at ignite was a time when I was a guest on BBC Radio Wales. I was talking about something serious at the time I’m sure *ahem* so the last thing I expected was to receive was a tweet calling me a “bap head” – seriously!! BAP. HEAD. This person had gone out of his way to set up a twitter account with the sole purpose of tweeting the presenter of the show (and kindly @‘ing me) just to call me a name. It was the ONLY TWEET on their account!
I’ll be honest, I laughed it off since I’ve always thought I’ve got a bit of a moon face anyway.Since I’ve been blogging since 2006 I’ve come to expect that there will always be someone sat in wait ready to kindly share their shitty, irrelevant opinion of you. But it’s not always that easy, especially if you’re lacking confidence, are new at blogging or you’ve posted something personal and heartfelt.
So here are my 5 tips on dealing with negative comments online…
Put it in perspective:
Think about the type of people who are leaving these comments. Whilst you’re there trying to create a successful blog and sharing your wise words with the world, they’re using their internet connection to scour the net for things they can be mean about. It’s dull, its childish and the majority of these comments come from grown ups so I found it a lot easier to start picturing what these people are like in real life. If you start picturing these people as sad, middle-aged virgins, living in their parents back bedroom, with very little going for them (probably true) then suddenly it doesn’t seem to matter so much.
Turn off comments:
A little bit drastic but bloggers like Seth Godin, Gala Darling and Danielle LaPorte all made the decision to switch off the noise and turn comments off. As Gala Darling said on her post “Comments are a blessing and a curse”. Personally, I’m a comment whore, I love a good comment so I couldn’t switch them off but if you find that comments are dampening your creative genius then flick that switch.
Turn the hate around:
It is generally the case that those who leave you negative comments basically want you to “shut the fuck up and die” { < that is actually a direct quote from one of my fans} but instead of doing that, take what they say and use it as inspiration for your next post. For example, going back to #bapheadgate, I could use that as a perfect excuse to chat about my favourite bap filling {fish fingers with plenty of salt and vinegar btw}. Not only will you have pissed your hater off by not shrivelling away but you’ll also have gotten a blog post out of it. Result.
Ignore/Delete/Block:
Your mother wasn’t wrong when she told you to just ignore the bullies and they would go away. Luckily social media has a great invention called the block button. If you don’t want that kind of hate in your space block the offender or if it’s a comment on your blog, delete it and block the commenter. You can find out how to do that here. Although, just a word to the wise, don’t just delete comments because you don’t agree. There’s a difference between a healthy debate and people disagreeing with your views to sending you hate comments so don’t be too sensitive when dealing with the dreaded block button.
Be mindful about what YOU are putting out there:
Its all very well saying that you don’t want to receive negative comments but if you’re putting bad stuff out there (ie “isn’t that celebrity fat, doesn’t that girl on factor sound hideous etc) then you’re going to get it back. If we want to make the internet a kinder place then everyone has to start doing it, the odd celebrity slagging off session makes you a slight hypocrite. So be nice. Make your social media and your blog a nice place. Have an opinion yes but don’t be cruel.
Now tell me your tips…
