First I must start with a confession… I am a people pleaser and I am very sensitive to criticism and negative comments.
So I bite my tongue, hit delete and skip controversial topics in order to avoid negativity and haters.
But I am NOT saying that you should be as cowardly as I am. LOL
The real life fact is that I don’t like
to argue and disagree with friends or strangers. If I’m at a dinner party, and I’m chatting with someone who has a differing opinion from my own, I will politely offer my point of view, but I’m not likely to get into a heated debate.
I'm very Canadian, sorry. ;)
I tend to try to see both sides of an argument and then agree to disagree. That’s just my personality.
Since our tagline is “Bringing Moms Together”, it works for us to avoid controversial topics that divide our audience.
But the downside of rarely talking
about “hot-button” topics is we miss out on a ton of traffic, comments and the ability to vent and voice our own opinions.
The benefit is we have been blogging for 9 years and have rarely had any negative backlash or “haters” attack us online.
I assume there are people who don’t like our blog or don’t like our
style, but they don’t tend to voice their thoughts in our comments or on our social channels.
I believe that whatever negativity you put out on social media or on your blog, will come back at you exponentially.
If you write a post that alienates, upsets or attacks a group of people or disrespects
their opinions, you will get people attacking you.
The old saying goes, “If you can’t take it, don’t dish it out.”
I know I can’t take personal attacks, so I don’t dish them out.
And as demonstrated in the example in this post, I recommend you do NOT use Facebook for debating sensitive topics. Your name is too easily attached to a position or side of an argument. Other people who disagree strongly can then use social media and your words against you.
That said…
Even if you aren’t putting out negativity, chances are still high you will experience some haters… mostly because of jealousy.
Many people are jealous of bloggers because we are given swag and various perks. Somehow, the never ending hours of work aren’t so obvious.
Since we’re taking fancy photos of our houses and families at their best moments, the messes and fights aren’t usually centre stage. I choose to keep my Instagram feed full of nice photos,
thus it might appear that my house isn’t the complete mess that it is.
And when we selectively present the best parts of our lives, we do open ourselves up to more jealousy.
If people saw the full range of the ups and downs,
the boring parts of blogging and the rest of my stressful life, they likely wouldn’t be jealous.
But the fact is being the target of jealousy is a risk of being a professional blogger.
And I think the best way to deal with it is to recognize why it’s happening and try not to get too upset with the person who is
acting jealous.
If you do have a "hater" emailing you or leaving comments on your blog, I think the most important piece of advice I can give you is...
Do Not Engage.
If you haven’t opened a post up for debate and someone is attacking you in your comment section, personally, I think you should delete their comments. It’s your blog and your comment section, and you have the right to avoid negativity there.
If someone emails you an attack, you could send a short polite response designed to diffuse the
argument, or again just hit delete.
Just try hard to not engage with them if they are attacking you.
If you do communicate with them, don’t argue… you won’t win.
Be extremely polite, try to see their point of view and then diffuse the situation.
You'll never convince someone who is jealous of you that they shouldn't be jealous, so don't try.
And you'll never convince someone who wants to dislike you to like you.
Don't waste your time. Just do your best to not add fuel to their fire. If you can ignore or delete their comments, do so. If you need to send a quick reply email that politely shows that you've heard their complaint, do so.
But don't try to win them over. You've got bigger and better games to play.