Sooner or later you will find out that people can get really ugly on Twitter or any other social networking sites. I like to refer to these people as “internet warriors.” Let’s face it whenever you’re successful people are going to hate on you. It happens to many successful people each and every day. I have experienced it many times.
Maybe you know what I am saying. As we all know running an online business does have it’s pros and cons. But, what do you do when you start actively communicating on Twitter (or any social site) and deal with someone cussing you out or telling your company, website, or everything you make stinks? Usually, it’s in the form of something explicit and is meant as a personal attack.
Should you get mad about it, though? No, just send them to this page to educate them. For me, there are two options I usually take. I will either just not respond to them or send them a quote from an Adam Sandler movie.
Here are some of my favorite quotes I like to send to abuser:
“My Mama says that alligators are ornery because they got all them teeth and no toothbrush.”
“Not exactly what I call constructive criticism.”
“High school is great. I mean I’m learning a lot. And all the kids are treating me very nice. It’s great.”
“Uh oh, Happy learned how to putt.”
Not responding to this explicit insult on you is probably the best thing you can do. Don’t get me wrong it would feel great to fire back with some explicit insults myself, but I don’t stoop to their level. You can focus your efforts on your website and don’t bother getting all angry about something that doesn’t matter.
So Why Do People Cuss You Out On Social Networks?
Obviously, they have some real problems or issues in their life. They feel better about themselves by putting other people down. When you stoop to their level, you are giving them what they want, which is attention.
For example, let’s say you run a golf gear review site. You provide all kinds of information on golf clubs. Well, chances are you’re going to run into some people that feel they should either personally attack you because you say something they don’t agree with. Possibly, tell you your just an affiliate, and you only write good stuff about golf gear that pays you in the form of an “affiliate commission.” That may be partially true, but is that a reason to attack someone?
Unless it gets really out of hand, just ignore them and feel sorry for them. You can always just block them, so you don’t have to listen to their filth. However, if they are harassing you, you can always contact abuse departments on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn.
Unfriend them. Block them. Ignore news feeds. Contact Facebook through this form. https://www.facebook.com/help/contact/274459462613911
Block them. Contact Twitter through this form. https://support.twitter.com/forms/abusiveuser
Get in contact with LinkedIn through this abuse form. https://blog.linkedin.com/2009/03/27/how-to-report-abusive-behavior-on-linkedin/
Don’t let one bad apple ruin your day. Remember it’s their problem, not yours! Have fun running your online business, and please be aware that at some point in your life you’re going to have to deal with it 🙁
Additional Reading On Behavior Online
- How To Deal With Troll On Social Media
- How To Handle Negative Comments About You And Your Business
- Setting A Social Media Policy When Your Attacked Online
Ignore the low energies and they’ll go away 😉 Thanks!
yep!
Thanks for this piece, you’ve clearly given this a lot of thought. However, I do wish that the fact that the majority of abuse women face online is highly sexist, and often very scary . And it would have been great to see some advice for this sort of abuse – something I have recently been researching around – to be mentioned, to make the advice more relevant to the realities of gendered abuse online. Points like ‘start an offline conversation’ aren’t particularly helpful if your attacker has randomly found your profile picture on twitter and decided you are a ‘slut [he] wants to rape’. Also advising people to think about ‘how they present themselves online’ ignores the realities of a lot of abuse that takes place, which is based on your identity (race, gender, disability, sexual orientation, etc) – sure, if I didn’t say I was a woman, I may get less abuse, but is that the solution? I do really think there’s some useful stuff in here, and it’s important not to panic, respond to attackers, etc, but I think that the nature of abuse really varies, and when it‘s identity based (which is most often is) the issue becomes a lot more complex.
Also, relying on social media policies is difficult, particularly when you look at their attitudes towards gender-based abuse. For example, Facebook lets numerous pro-rape pages or rape jokes go unchecked, but censors pictures women consensually put up of themselves. I suppose the point is that while these neutral options do exist, the identities of the people involved at the nature of the attack means that the response to it – personally and by social media – can vary..
UNfortunately social media contains all kind of people .. idiots included
The lowest of the lowest bash people on social media!
I love it. That is normally what I do ignore them. Sometimes I write a quick response saying something like “that is why they invented ignore, unfriend or what ever the case may be”. Then utilize the function for the system. It is great. Thank you for the write up.
Marc
Internet warriors…nice way to say “trolls”!! hahaha. I firmly believe in the ignore and let be model. Seems to work best. Your come back quotes made me laugh though…love it!