I've been blogging for the past 8 years and have seen my fair share of internet trolls both personally as well as to many of my blogging friends. It doesn't matter if you're a new blogger or have been blogging for many years, somehow, people think it's ok to hurt one another's feelings regardless of their actions or thinking about how their words are going to affect that person.
What Are Trolls?
Trolls are the people online who purposefully stir up trouble in social media communities. It's important to companies or your business to deal effectively with those trolls so they don't tarnish your brand or your online presence.
Tips To Handling Them?
1. Decide If You're The Victim - Trolls are going to come all the time and while you can't control whether you will become a troll's target, you can decide if you will make yourself a troll's victim. Knowing that the troll's goal is to embarrass, demean and shame you, you have th choice about how you are going to react.
2. Call Out Their Behavior - If you become a victim, many people recommend you simply ignore them and don't respond at all but sometimes that gives them even more of the power to silence you. Instead, ignore the troll but address the problem with the 'audience' in the matter of fact way. Don't respond in a matter that stoops to the troll's level or you might risk engaging in an argument that might esculate or your audience may you see as another irritant troll rather than balanced.
3. Don't Take It Personally - Of course your initial shock is going to be angry or wahtever emotion you decide to feel when someone starts to attack you. But honestly, a mean person is just that- a mean person. It isn't personal if you refuse to take it personally. Recognize that this troll is the one with the problem. If the attack is directed at you exclusively, via email or a comment on your website, report the abuse, delete it and forget it.
4. Above All- Choose Kindness - If there is one thing I always try to do above anything else, I treat people with kindness. Despite some mean words that could be said about me, I'll chose kindness any way I can. I'm sure you've heard the term 'kill with kindness' and that's the way I will treat others, even if I don't like how or what things were said about me to someone else.
How do you handle internet trolls?
