I think that you should only reply to posts, comments and forums under these circumstances:
- The criticism is founded on factual evidence. When discussing what you or your company has done wrong, the poster can cite specific instances where you've made mistakes and fouled things up. "Evidence" like, "SEOmoz sucks" isn't worth replying to. You can't prove that SEOmoz doesn't suck any more than they can prove that it does.
- The poster claims his comments. "Anonymous" is such a lame name. I lose a lot of respect for critics when they choose to remain anonymous, or give themselves pseudonyms but not link out to their own websites or include any identifying information. These people want others to take their opinions seriously (that is, they say "SEOmoz sucks, don't buy their services," and they truly want people to avoid our company) and yet they're not willing to put their names to such comments. Have I made anonymous comments on the Internet before? Yep, you bet I have. However, I've never expected to be taken seriously or respected for my anonymous opinions and I'd not expect a reply if I wasn't ballsy enough to claim my words. (This is yet another reason not to read or care about Digg comments.)
- The commenter is not a troll. If you've never come across the person who's posting bad comments, Google their username. If you find they have a history of trolling, hatemongering and nitpicking, just ignore them. You will never change these people. Their nastiness usually stems from something completely beyond your control. Very rarely will they admit that they were trolling; be nice when they do.
There are some great resources out there that all say the same thing. Ignore trolls. They do it for the reaction, just like the idiotic kids you went to elementary school with who'd call you a loser. They only wanted to see you get upset. They were the real losers, and now we have their Facebook profiles to prove it. Trolls are exactly the same. If you knew their real identities, you'd see that you are fighting with garbage.
However, if you come across an array of comments, some positive and some negative, from a certain user, chances are they're not a troll and they're not deliberately out to start trouble. - You trust yourself not to lose your cool. This is a primary reason for me not to reply to unfounded criticism. Sometimes, I'm well aware that spinning out like an enraged chihuahua is a stupid idea, but my fingers would rather respond in the language that dumb comments deserve. You know that you work hard on your products and services and you feel bad when they don't work properly. However, as I previously mentioned, true trolls want the satisfaction of knowing they've incited a riot. I will read this paragraph over and over and valiantly attempt to take my own advice.
UPDATE: Dan Garfield's recent post on how to respond to criticism contains some solid advice about anonymous versus claimed responses. While I prefer to remain silent as opposed to replying anonymously, the fact remains that if you're going to be anonymous, you better do it well!
I just hope that people continue taking out their aggressions on YouTube comments. They are some of the most hilarious things ever written. I almost want to do a rhetoric paper on it next semester.
If you only respond when the complaint is based on factual evidence, then false claims about you are left out there and don't get straightened out. If, for example, I were to announce that I have it on good authority that SEOmoz farms out their keyword research to a sweatshop in Indonesia that employs 9-year-olds, pays them pennies a month and only permits one bathroom break per 14 hour shift, you're going to have to do something about it. In a case like that, you're likely to sic your lawyer on me, but it's going to take a while to scare me into taking it down and issuing a retraction.
Because of that, I don't think you have a choice. You have to calmly respond with a statement like, "I don't know where you heard that, but it is completely false." That's just to get your perspective out there. If the original poster tries to goad you into continuing, of course you should stay away. You've made your statement.
As a general rule though, you have to just ignore attempts at Springer Forum Marketing whenever possible -- the post is almost two years old, but it's as true as ever.
I agree with you but I am not sure it is a good idea to ignore and disregard someone's criticism just because the person does not bother to identify itself (let's forget for a moment that one might have very good reasons to fear the anger of lord Fishskin... specially those who mispell his name :) ) For some people being anonymous is just that, their online identity, and does not change their online behavior .
Granted, they are few, but my point is that rational consideration of the argument should always come first.
Once I got to emotional and responded to a mail just after I finished reading it ( I know you can't find an e-mail via Google, unless someone makes it public ) and the consequences to my emotional driven answer was that my website got hit by dozens of spam bots. I also found my website linked on some porn sites and some other bad sites aswell.
There's a website/forum where I used to comment and help out a little bit around problems but I don't do that anymore cos whenever I left a post there my website got more hits from other spammy bots and I got much more spam than before. I still not sure wether these things are connected together or just some coincidence.
If I could go back . . . I would do the same, yeah this sounds a little bit wacko, but I would do the same, the only thing I would do different is, I would use other work combinations which would make my response sound more polite. I would make the response sound more educative than like a negative critics.
I agree 100%. Plenty of times we can't "keep our mouths shut" and reply to every comment you read, resulting in something hard to deal later.
Thanks for this Jane. Solid advice for when you're in a bind. :)
+1. Great post!
I once responded immediately to a completely irresponsible comment. My response was emotional (correct and spot on...but emotional), and I still regret not waiting 24 hours.
A rule to live by: "Never press the Enter key if your finger is shaking."
:-)
Yes, it's amazing what you can't take back once it's online. I love your rule!
Jane, I think point #1 here is the most salient. From what I've seen on the boards, Rand and the rest of you guys do an excellent job of telling your side of what seems to be a legitimate "factual" beef that the posters have. Engaging in a healthy discussion can only help your brand, while succumbing to mudslinging with trolls and their ilk can only bring you down.
An incredibly important point is the "Internet Never Forgets" - always be VERY careful of the wording of every response you make on the Internet.
Archive.org and the Google Cache will likely begin appearing more and more regularly in courts - don't let a comment typed out of anger come back to haunt you and your company.
I do believe you have a spammer in the comments here (please remove this line if you delete him, thanks. :) )
Jane, I also have a problem with the troll label. Now, I'm not saying that you yourself do this (mostly because I don't know you, and have yet to have the pleasure of watching you actually in attack mode), but it is because it seems to be the favorite fallback of those who have weak positions. I just recently got called a troll myself actually, and while I may be aggressive in wanting people to back up whatever bs they spew, I hardly fit that description. There are many people who will frequently take the "you're a troll" position and refuse to reply when in fact they simply cannot back up what they say.
What's worse in many ways is when people will use the fact that there is a single real troll in a thread to refuse to reply to everyone else because of it. I've seen that more than once, and it really is unfair to those with genuine concerns.
I think the nutshell of Jane's message is that you have to pick your battles. Honest comments, questions, criticism? Sure, reply to them with any productive response you may have. It's often a waste of time and effort, however, to try and reply to, reason with, or attempt to explain yourself to a "troll" who has no interest in actually advancing the conversation or getting more information, but rather just wants to make snide, cruel, unproductive, malicious and often anonymous attacks.
It is unfortunate, as you say, that when "trolls" pollute a thread, it can often result in the participant in question abandon the conversation because it's simply not worth the harrassment or personal attacks. I'd hope this would cause the community to reflect negatively on the person who interferes with the discourse (the "troll") rather than the person being maliciously attacked and driven off.
i guess the best time to respond is after a few hours or next day after you had time to think more. Sometimes getting too involved in a topic clouds our judgement and once posted on blog it is tough to retract. Take time before you post.
hello, new to this site. A friend directed me here.
I know you're speaking about bloggers responding to negative posts, but should individual companies ever consider responding to posts? Are there any good/bad examples of some of the bigger companies responding?
Really sorry if I am like an irritating child invading grown-up chat...but we've got to start somewhere.
I think the guidelines can apply to individuals as well as companies. Remember that you're never obliged to reply. Don't reply when you're angry and don't reply if you foresee the argument turning into a "yes you did / no you didn't / you're stupid / no I'm not" type of nightmare.
Millsy81, to add to what Jane said, you also shouldn't try and reply to negative comments with misinformation, especially here on the web. There's a great example of someone trying to clean up their rep over at SEORefugee last year. The company themselves were an old spyware related gig where they would (still do, as a matter of fact) sell rankings based on their product doing a browser hijack:
https://www.seorefugee.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1677
The company changed hands several times, and kept changing their name whenever their rep got bad enough. Thing is, everything out there leaves some sort of trail, and lying on the web when there is still data out there to show that you are in fact lying is not a good idea. Don't go based on the assumption that no one will bother to research what you say.
Some things also are fairly indefensible, based on opinion, and sometimes just from people who will never be happy. I think Dreamhost gets alot of that, quite a bit based on their old performance history. With people like that it might be worth the effort to say to someone "I'm sorry you feel that way, but we did try and resolve the issue", if it happens to be relevant, or something along those lines, but Jane is right... if you are in the right and someone is just pissed off it doesn't look good to get into some sort of online yelling match with them, or to lose your temper... that in and of itself looks bad.
This post is B.S. Where's the Attack Copland I sit next to every day? This person is...rational. Who are you, and what have you done with my Kiwi?!
Haha, I'm trying to learn how to keep Attack Copland behind the fence and present Rational Copland to the world. I will re-read the post whenever I see nasty things, as it's harder to act like an idiot when you're going against your own advice!
Oh, I'm sure you'll find a way. ;)
Ooh! Mean! Wanna start a comment war, Kelley? WANNA?!
Haha. Let's see a follow-up post from Attack Copland. "How to destroy stupid people's arguments".
EXACTLY! As soon as I started reading this I thought, "Where's ThunderThumbs Copland? The rabid Kiwi who never met a comment thread she couldn't get the last word in on?"
I've realised that it only leads to bad things :\ I'm speaking from experience here, unfortunately.
As long as we learn from our mistakes, it's all good. I don't think anyone here can claim to have never made a PR (public relations, not PageRank) mistake somewhere along the line. :) Thanks for sharing your advice, Jane. These are all great points and very applicable.
Thanks :) Glad you enjoyed it!
Thanks for your replies.
I never respond to criticism on my blogs. I don't care who it is or what they are saying or if they are right or wrong. The most I'll ever do is post a correction to the story if needed - but that's happened maybe once.
When I see bloggers defending themselves in their comments it just seems really elementary to me. If you're trying to be a professional blogger, responding to every little negative comment makes it look as though you care about that single person - I think you lose face that way - you make yourself look needy and small.
I don't mean to be harsh - you can really care about every single person who hits your blog - there's just a strategy to make you look big and authoritative, and getting in flamewars on you blog doesn't help it.
That seems counter intuitive, maybe even arrogant, if you're receiving feedback (positive or negative) I would have thought it vital to your business (or personal persuits) none the less.
Negative comments provide a perspective unique to your own, it's rewarding to have alternative opinions as you can weigh up actioning them (correct the contents of a post, impliment changes in your business, etc.).
Maybe this is a new breed of business, dealing on a very personal interaction-relationship basis, SEOmoz is a perfect candidate for this model. I purposely wrote a flame post below and expected at least a single refutable response from staff member, I got several (and several thumbs down... 'I'm going to find you...')! XD
I think you'll find a major contributing reason for today's leading industry blogs is their able capacity to debate and persuade altering opinions to their own through extended knowledge and tested references. You don't start out big and authoritive.
How many flamewars has SEOmoz been in I wonder?
As I said on the whiteboard post - we certainly want the 'moz input on reputation issues. I think this is great advice and the more you monitor, the more you realise that there are things you just have to ignore...
I've got some experience in this dept.
Jane, I think you lose credibility half way through the second paragraph (the one on "the poster claims his comments"). From there, this reads like a self-rationalization piece.. how you wish it were. The comments about the "real you" confirm it. Sorry.
A critic or troll has an objective just like everyone else. Make a judgement call about that objective and go with your decision. It has nothing to do with anonymity or "nasty people", as much as that would make us feel better. Maybe she wants attention and you don't want to give it - that's your call. But typically you are not the unbiased reader that you need when you encounter criticism. I think that's the key: when you discover someone criticising or baiting you, get someone else you trust to read it and tell you what they think.
A few other things come to mind, like "pick your battles" and "you can't fight mother nature" but I totally agree you need to have a presence in a legitimate-sounding conversation about you, even if it just serves to muddy the waters. Witnesses rarely see the truth; they see what they already believe. Pay attention to that, survey the conversational landscape, and plant a flag if you have a chance of maintaining ground. In my experience, almost every critical comment teaches me something about myself and my critics. Writng them off as nasty or ignorant or unworthy of consideration would therefore almost always leave me ignorant.
Writing off someone as unwothry may hut the barand and the company that the commentor is critiquing.
Learn what it is about...do not use labels...sometimes a good use of Google search will teach you about where this person is coming from and what is on thier minds.
If the commenter makes references to some urls, investigate.
Take your time before replying but do not ignore or delete a comment because that will make the commenter angry against you, your company, and your brand...
This applies to a person, a small company, or a multi billion dollar corporation...done the wrong way it may really hurt a company very bad...
So, a commentor is your friend - a source of information and knowledge.
Jane attack? No way, a sweet girl with a smile like hers will always be nice...
I think her smile is her secret weapon. :)
Jane you mentioned a few good points, but your way about it needs some help.
Calling someone a troll is a Label. Everyone has something to contribute and we can all learn from each other. Yes if a commenter has nothing to say except to bash someone they are not even worth to engage, but then there are others who may know many things but not be part of the inner crowd of the people who you use to get comments from.
So do you call them a Troll and ignore them?
https:///www.igorthetroll.com
Jane check out what Vanessa has to say about it.
We never call someone a troll because they're new to the blog. Asking for topical comments is not the same as calling someone a troll.
The post I link to defines trolls as those who deliberately inflame others for no other reason than their own strange satisfaction. I think you are implying that the community at large is calling you a troll (especially given your tagline and URL); I am not. Did you read the post and the examples I gave of commenters who say "Your company is a joke" and don't give a reason?
What about my "way" needs help? I make an attempt to address those who make relevant points, and I try to ignore the hatemongers. It's a relatively simple way to go about things, but it means I'll spend less time bogged down in childish banter and more time engaged in constructive dialogue.
Jane, I never said you did.
I love this place Rand, the other SeoMoz staffers and all the contributors to this blog...
My handle has sublime significants...I will tell you more about it as we get to know each other.
Good luck,
Igor
Yes, it is very important to ingage an atacker and not to show fear or hatrate.
Learn about the person attacking you, see what they are about.
A negative reply to them like you do not know blah, blah, we cause a lot of problems to you or your business.
Anyway at the end of the day, it is about respect. You want to be respected, respect the individual.
Anyone can start a war, but very few people can make peace. And the person with the power is the one who knows how not to fight.
This is a sort of the same premiss of Kang Foo. You learn it so you do not have to fight. So, same on the Internet and in business, if you know what you doing and you have a brand name there is no need to be defensive. You and your brand speak for themselves.
So a negative criticism scenario would be something like...
What does a post on the basics of reputation management have anything to do with the goals of a search marketing blog?
How can you separate search marketing and reputation management? Ever done a vanity search on your name, your company's name or your blog name? Ever searched for an apartment complex's reputation online before renting there? We talk about reputation management all the time, as we get a lot of calls from people who want advice or SEO work done in regards to their reputation in the SERPs.
You win, Jane and Scott, I roll over... skim your eyes over comment #jtc31925 on this post though. ;)
Visser,
For most agencies, in-house SEOs and even solo SEOs, a big part of the business of SEO is sales and marketing. We try to not only help inform people on how they can improve their SEO practices, but how they can improve their SEO-related business, for themselves and their clients, and to that end reputation management is extremely important.
Agreed Scott. Great points...all true. Reputation management is a huge part of marketing because it can help or hurt your brand. It goes well beyond SEO, but definitely includes it.