Vickie Sullivan

Market Strategy for Thought Leaders

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Written by: Vickie Sullivan  |  June 29, 2021

How to Handle Hostility on Social Media

How to Handle Hostility on Social Media
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If you participate in online discussions on social media, inevitably you will encounter aggressive strangers. These people don’t know you, but they bring on the snark anyway. These folks have taught me the finer points of how to ignore mean comments.

It’s easy to delete comments on your social posts and be done with those hostile people. But you can’t do that when hostility arrives on others’ social posts. If I respond to those people, two things drive my decision to do so. I ask myself these two questions before I start typing:

• How well do I know the original author? If I’m commenting on a post from a close business associate, I’ll respond privately to my colleague. (And my colleague then usually steps in to referee.) If I don’t know the author well, I will ignore the comment or block the offender.


Listen: To Block or Not to Block Someone on Social Media? 


• Can I have a good conversation with this person? There are angry people that you just can’t reason with. So, I won’t add fuel to the fire when I encounter them. If there’s a reasonable argument in the middle of all their inflammatory language, I’ll address the point respectfully and then move on.

Participating in discussions that you don’t initiate is a great way to showcase your perspective and insight on issues. How you handle hostility in those environments can highlight who you really are.


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Comments:

  • Author : Lee Robert

    Published: 2021-06-29 09:12:18

    This is good stuff! Well worth exploring the few minutes it takes to read! Thanks Vickie!

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