Melanie
The Monday Morning Marketing Podcast is brought to you by Esther of IPA Group, bringing premier online promotion to your business.
Esther
And Melanie of STOMP Social Media Training, who empowers business owners to manage social media and marketing for themselves. Good morning and welcome back to another episode of the Monday Morning Marketing Podcast. Today we're talking about dealing with trolls. Now, we're not talking about the little people that live under a bridge that you hear about in the fairy skills. Unfortunately, these trolls are real.
Melanie
Yes, we're talking about social media trolling, which unfortunately, every single person who's listening to this podcast has had an experience of. Either you've seen it on somebody else's platform or it's even been on your own. Now, one thing I have noticed, maybe I'm just becoming less observant as I get older, but I've noticed it is not happening as much in the public eye anymore, or they're finding ways to hide it better. When I see social media trolling, sometimes it's somebody who has got a particular personal grudge against brand, and they will either all the time or periodically post on that brand showing their dissatisfaction.
Esther
Yeah, and it can be on any platform at all. It can be in the form of written comment. It could be in the form of, in the case of TikTok, they allow you to do stitches and duets and that thing. It can be replying with almost It's like an encrypted message, like trying to be funny, but when you read it, it just hits differently. It just comes across as, I don't think that's what they really meant.
Melanie
There could be something that wasn't sorted out to their satisfaction, let's say. But the other problem I see is that sometimes they pick the wrong brand or page. It may even be the right brand, but it may be the wrong type of page if they've got different departments to make their issue on. There's very little you can do about that. You can't exactly say, Don't abuse this page. You need to abuse that one.
Esther
Well, we have a good friend, Samantha Kelly, who always tells us, Don't feed the trolls. So do not engage, do not reply, do not give them the satisfaction. And most of the time you'll find that it's other commenters, other followers, that will come to the brand's rescue. And I have been sorely tempted to do it myself from time to time because I just get so annoyed and so frustrated reading these comments. So I will sit and I will type out a reply to them and then go, no, because it's part of feeding them. So I'll delete it before I post it. But it means it gets it off my chest in a way, and I can move on with my life and scroll on to the next one. I just hope that the people behind the brands do the same. Just let it slip off them like water off a duck's back, because some of them are just uncalled for, really nasty, really... Some of them get really quite personal as well. It could be a brand that is really well known, or it could be a single person putting up videos. I've seen a lot of trolling on TikTok of people who are putting up videos saying, oh, here's a meal that I made. People start commenting, going, well, that looks disgusting. If you don't like it, scroll on.
Melanie
Unfortunately, what they're looking for more than anything, their whole aim of doing this is to provoke a reaction. That simple reaction could even be an emoji. They're looking for some response that gratifies it. It gives them a bit of an endorphin dump. Sometimes, even if your customers jump to the rescue, it's not actually saving the brand. It could actually escalate things and make things even worse.
Esther
Yeah, because it gives them more fuel to keep on feeding the fire of their anger, and then they'll start taking it out on people, innocent bystanders in the whole situation can then get a feeling of being attacked. But these keyboard warriors probably don't have a leg to stand on if they were to come face to face with the person. They're very brave behind the keyboard. It's the way I always like to of it. I mean, hopefully, I've never met a troll. Thankfully, on Monday Morning Marketing, we haven't had any trolls.
Melanie
So far.
Esther
So far. I'm sure this episode might bring them out. But I have in my other business an IPA group because we are a bilingual agency, so we post things in English, we post things in Spanish, and sometimes native English speakers do not like when we post things in Spanish. And I mean, all content is available in both languages, but they take offense to not being able to understand every single thing that we post, even though platforms like Facebook and Twitter use or have the ability to translate it at the touch of a button.
Melanie
It actually says translate this, doesn't it? It does. As an option. Yeah. But what do we do? Okay, so Let's say our listener right now is experiencing an issue like this. What can we do to protect people from trolls? Well, one of the first things we said is don't feed them. But sometimes that's not enough. I manage some social pages, and one of them is fast moving consumer goods page. I have to be pretty much on the ball. Their policy, which I agree with, is to not delete posts, but to respond to posts, or if needed, made posts so that the person who's created that post can still see the post, and so can any of their friends or family or anybody who's connected to that post. This is on Facebook. They can see that the abuse is still on the page as far as they're concerned, but nobody else can. Nobody else can see that post. Because we don't respond to it, because once we hide it, we can't physically respond to it, they just stop posting on that page. Now, periodically, there'll be a smattering of five or six posts over a week, and then they'll disappear into the little hole they came from for a little while, and then they'll come back out again. But even when you try to write those wrongs and you try to take the complaint off a page or off a thread or wherever the complaint has been made and try to bring them off and into a private message or DM scenario, you can't always help them. Or they refuse the help that you're providing.
Esther
Yeah. Or they then take screenshots and share out on their personal page, oh, look what these guys told me. I mean, you really can't win. I would tell a lot of people to just block them. Block them. I know we all like to have our followers. We like our numbers. We like to see those numbers go up. And if you block someone, then the numbers start going down. But it's better for your own sanity and for the sanity of your other followers to just disengage them completely, take away their ability to follow you by blocking them.
Melanie
Once you've reached that level of management, then sometimes they may get further profiles, which I've actually seen before actually happen, especially with this fast moving consumer goods business. You just have to keep doing that. But you can also report these profiles as well as fake or impersonating others. And that can also get rid of the page as well.
Esther
Yeah. If worst comes to the worst, if you are feeling threatened, if you are feeling a personal attack on you, you can take it to the authorities. Because online bullying is not acceptable in most countries. I would like to hope that it's a standard across all countries that online bullying is highly frowned upon. And you can take your evidence to the local authorities for them to help you, because they're the only ones that are going to be able to track down the person through their IP address and through all these things that people can hide behind. But use that if you need to, because there's no point in you feeling that you can't show up to work, feeling that you can't show up online, feeling threatened if you do show up, the authorities are there to help you. If you feel you need that help, then do reach out.
Melanie
There's also support organizations in every country similar to Samaritans. If you're feeling depressed or low from potentially an ongoing battering that you're getting online. Sometimes, really, the only cure for some brands is to disengage completely by changing their brands or coming offline. Now, fortunately, that doesn't happen very often because you can normally find the culprit before it gets that serious. But this is such an important thing. We're hearing more and more frequently how dangerous social media can be. It's the likes of these keyboard worries, these trolls, that are making the entire experience incredibly unpleasant.
Esther
Yeah, and on that cheery note, it's been quite a downer of an episode today. We apologize for that, but we do feel it is an important topic to cover. And we feel that you should be better prepared for if and when this happens, because we would love to say that it doesn't happen to everybody, but eventually it will. Eventually somebody will say something, somebody will write something, someone and we'll post something negative about you online. Just remember, most of it is their problem, not yours. So we just want you to remember that, take that away with you, and do reach out if you have any issues. We'll be back next week with another episode of Monday Morning Marketing Podcast.
Melanie
And have a great week, and we'll say goodbye for now. Bye.
Esther
Bye-bye for now.
