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Have you ever wondered how to deal with haters? If you release a lot content for your brand or your business, you’ll invariably get wide a range of responses.
In today’s digital world, it’s all too easy for people to be “keyboard warriors.”
Meaning, they’ll write things that they would never have the courage to say in person.
Let’s explore the main reasons to embrace your haters and how they actually fuel your success.
How to Deal with Haters Online?
Here’s what you need to know about dealing with haters online:
If you get hate mail, it’s good feedback.
If you get love mail, its great feedback.
However, if you get no feedback at all, that’s terrifying because it means no one cares.
It’s a sign that you’re not doing anything special, unique or profound.
Social Media Engagement
When you post on social, you can’t be fearful of haters. Why?
Because it’s also a reflection that you’re posting the right types of content. Your content should elicit reactions from other people.
If you put out a piece of content and it’s met with silence, it’s because:
- It’s not entertaining.
- It’s not controversial.
- It’s nothing new.
- It’s not pushing boundaries.
- It doesn’t evoke emotion.
- It’s not very interesting.
- It’s not helpful.
- It’s not unique.
- It’s not presented in an interesting way.
If this happens, take the feedback from your audience and change your content style going forward.
Why to Embrace Your Haters Online?
Put simply, all interaction with your content is helpful because it fuels a dramatic increase in exposure for your messaging.
Social media platforms love engagement—all types of engagement— and their algorithms heavily favor it.
After all, humans are a social species and we like to be part of group interactions. In fact, we can’t resist it.
As neuroscientist Matthew D. Lieberman wrote in the his pivotal book Social: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Connect:
“Long before there were any primates with a neocortex, mammals split off from other vertebrates and evolved the capacity to feel social pains and pleasures, forever linking our well-being to our social connectedness.”
The faster and quicker the comments, likes, and back-and-forth the replies on a piece of content, the better the feedback loop.
Both engagement rate and engagement speed are favored by social media platforms within their algorithms.
How Do Social Media Feeds Work?
Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and all of the other social media platforms initially show a new post of yours to a small fraction of your followers. (*Think of it as a small “test group” of viewers.)
If, and only if, those followers engage with it above the “average” level for the platform, then your content gets shown to more of your followers.
This increased exposure is your reward for posting content that is highly engaging.
Engaging Content Gets Rewarded
If this engagement continues as you get allocated larger scale exposure on a platform, then your content will be rewarded with even greater reach.
On platforms like Instagram where hashtag exposure can further spread your post or story to new viewership, this is how your content can go viral.
For example, this Instagram post got substantially higher engagement compared to other posts I’ve published and the reason is that it started showing to a lot of viewers through hashtag exposure.
View this post on Instagram
Social Media Platforms are Auctions
Remember, the social media platforms are auctions.
The content you post is part of the “supply” in the auction and the feed shown to users is the “demand.” Your content has to over-perform in comparison to content posted by other users on the platform to “go up in value” and get shown to more users.
The best way to know you’re doing well with your content? You could dig into your social analytics OR you could simply ask people where your content is appearing in their feed!
Are you winning that coveted TOP spot?
Are you the very first post they see when they open up their app? This is know as appearing “above the fold” in the desirable space before the user has to scroll.
If you are appearing there, it’s a huge success.
How to Deal with Haters? (Case Study)
As a stellar example of how to deal with haters, let’s reflect on how the Queer Eye star Jonathan Van Ness (JVN) had social media trolls and haters going crazy about his unusual (and fabulous!!) outfit from the 2019 MTV VMAs.
MISS @JVN WITH THE LEG OUT AND THE HEELS HIGH!!! #VMAs pic.twitter.com/9VvbNKfywj
— Normani Stan Account (@papermagazine) August 27, 2019
Thankfully, JVN knows a thing or two about handling haters, so he wrote a lovely and thoughtful reply to these comments:
The VMA’s were so major for me. I’ve gotten caught up in reading some really judgmental mean stuff about me. Some people hated my outfit, some hate me, they think I’m fake, irritating, too loud, too femme. But really I have to stay focused.
— Jonathan Van Ness (@jvn) August 28, 2019
Unsurprisingly, JVN’s audience responded to this message with an explosion of comments about how JVN has impacted their lives.
Because JVN stayed positive, stayed authentic, and responded in a positive and focused manner, he controlled the online conversation and rallied his fans.
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