How To Deal With Negative Comments Online

(00:01):

Hello everyone.

It's Jen Kilbourne Obermeier welcome at 6:00 PM Eastern on Friday, April 11th.

I'm really excited to be here with you tonight, except for one small thing.

My dad and I accidentally scheduled our Facebook Live at the same time today.

If you've been following along with me I've been trying to coach him along with his setup, he was really stressing about sound quality, stressing about having everything be flowing right, because he is a professional musician.

He's -- "if I'm going to get on here, I don't want it to look horrible."

Trying to keep the language family friendly around here in case you're watching with your kids.

But anyway, after a few weeks of going back and forth and helping him get the right equipment, the right microphone, the right setup, he has his whole sound system somehow attached with his computer.

(01:01):

He is using a third party streaming service called OBS.

I was actually, I shared that earlier this week when I was talking about video tools.

If you have something a little more complicated than just literally you talking through the video what Facebook Live has built in may not be enough for what you need to do.

Without going into too much detail, he was one of those cases.

So we finally got them all set up and then he called me this afternoon and he was hey, I saw that you're doing a video tonight at six o'clock.

He said, I'm doing mine too.

I was like, oh, can't let my people down.

But I'm definitely going to go watch his replay.

Dad, congratulations for doing your first face Facebook Live!

I know this is a really big deal.

(01:45):

My dad, like a lot of people right now, his entire career revolves around public speaking in person, events, church get-togethers of all kinds.

He has been working quickly - or as quickly as possible - absolutely as quickly as he can to adapt to the world that we are in.

He is definitely my inspiration for starting this video series and for a lot of other things in my life.

Dad, I love you.

I know you're not here because you're playing guitar on facebook.com/Ed Kilbourne fan page.

Can't remember what your exact little uh, profile URL is.

But anyway, I'll definitely point some people over there just in case they're looking for that.

Welcome. Thank you for joining in again!

I am going to keep this one short today.

This one goes out to Rob, who is one of my fellow coaching certification cohort members.

(02:46):

I don't know what the word is.

Basically... we went to school together last year and he has been following along with my videos.

One thing that he asked earlier this week was how do you deal with mean comments when you start putting yourself out there online?

That <laugh>, first of all, that question really hit me in the heart. One because for somebody like Rob to be nervous about putting himself out there, he just seems like such an easygoing guy.

Like how could anybody have a bad word to say about him?

Then I realized, oh yeah, I used to be terrified about the same thing too.

Just to make it even worse for you, if you also have this fear, I have gotten some really nasty comments before on social media.

I would love to talk about this topic.

(03:32):

This definitely also goes out to a few other of my students, one in particular who just last week and I don't want to call her out by name since she hasn't identified herself over here.

But just last week she was posting that she had started doing live videos again after stopping for a long time because these women had been just making fun of her and saying horrible things about her.

I was just when she told me that I said, I want to come through the computer screen and punch somebody in the face.

Like, what do they have?

Like do they not have something better to do?

It is clear that they don't, but why tear somebody else down online, you can just scroll past anything you don't want to see.

You don't even have to hit the dislike button, just keep scrolling.

(04:17):

That really infuriates me and it makes me so sad that anybody has ever been a victim of bullying or trolling.

Just mean comments in general or even, private messages that let you know that essentially you suck.

<laugh> So kind of just want to pep talk you on this and also give you some practical tips as far as some people are not aware that you absolutely can block and ban people from ever showing up on your page again, as soon as it's a problem.

Another thing that I know has happened in my own community recently is that sometimes when you're doing a live video that has a big audience attending, which yay... that's awesome.

<laugh> ...For some reason, some people feel inclined to not necessarily post mean things towards you as the speaker, but just to be entirely inappropriate in the comments.

(05:08):

And my girl Cabri, she was a part of a live video series with another business owner while this was happening and she managed to have the wherewithal to block them during her broadcast, which - that was quick thinking, because I think that would've made me panic too.

Those things? Unfortunately they do happen.

I think the best case is to be prepared for that worst case scenario so that you already have a plan of action of if, this ever happens, then here is the course that I will take.

First of all, let's just talk about in general, the fear of somebody having something rude to say.

<laugh> As I mentioned, this has definitely happened to me or this also applies when you're thinking about-  you're building your email list and you're starting to email people and you're well, what if people get irritated or whatever?

(06:03):

In my nearly four years of my online business - hey Cabri oh, I just was talking about you. I'm so glad you're there.

In my nearly four years of online business, I have had a few nasty email responses.

Maybe I've had more, but in the past two years I have had an assistant helping me just with our email inbox.

Maybe she has gracefully hidden some of them over the past couple years.

That might skew the numbers just a little bit, but it is really nice.

One of the very first hires that you should make in your business is someone to manage just your general Q&A customer service emails, one so that you don't have to do it all yourself and two, so that hopefully you can avoid seeing those things that are neither helpful nor constructive.

(06:51):

They're just not good for your overall energy, but when you're just starting out, I know that one of the things that is a major obstacle to you even doing it is - what do I do if somebody is posting mean things about me, or saying that I don't talk correctly or making fun of the way that I sound?

Let's discuss this, first of all I want to talk about the content of the message itself is never about you.

It is about them.

I know that sounds really kind of fluffy life coachy whatever, but it is so true.

It is absolutely a reflection of one of my favorite quotes:

I'm going to say it horribly is but - people think that their opinions are revealing their opinion about you, but they're actually revealing the nature of their own characters.

(07:37):

You can always, always consider the source when it comes to someone who's willing to say something nasty online.

Again, that's not constructive at all.

Rob asked, is my assistant gig a Fiverr job?

No, she is someone who has been working much more closely with me.

In fact, she found me as one of my students in my audience.

Essentially she found me on YouTube and realized that we didn't live that far from each other.

So we started emailing.

That was how that came about.

Maybe that's a good story for another day. How did I find my assistant?

Because she started out as just somebody that I was paying on a project basis.

Then at the beginning of 2019, she became a part-time employee.

(08:23):

Cabri said LOL and all the haters who hate on me saying "y'all" - Cabri says "y'all" too.

<laugh> There you have it.

The first thing I want to remind you guys is that these things, when they happen are going to hit you and take the wind out of your sales and you do have to take a minute or an hour or a day or a week to process it and forget about it.

I'm not saying it gets better over time.

I'm just saying that maybe you get quicker at remembering that yes - how sad and how poor and empty - these are good words from somebody else I talked to recently - poor and empty those people must be to take the time to write something negative.

(09:07):

However, I do want to tell y'all, one thing that is a silver lining in that nasty cloud of negativity is that your people who do post comments are just not even being mean, but just saying - oh, well I disagree with that.

Or they seem they're trying to pick a fight - those people?

If, they're, say for example, they're commenting on your Facebook - if one of you guys decided to start being real aggressive at me right now in my chat, here's what would happen is the more they post, the more my Facebook Live is going to get visibility right now, because it's completely about the comments that people are making.

I'm not saying that's obviously the best way to go about it, but I can always go back later and delete those comments.

(09:58):

But they are at least temporarily boosting visibility for your video.

Even a regular Facebook post or Instagram post - engagement is good for your page and for your social media, even if it's negative - again, because it doesn't matter really what the comments actually are.

But if you're posting content that people are reacting to, then Facebook thinks, oh, this is good stuff.

This is interesting stuff.

People are taking the time to write about it.

They're going to show it to more people on whatever platform you're on, whatever platform you're in.

In the short term, just remind yourself there is no bad publicity.

I'm not sure I totally agree with that, but in the end you can always go back later and edit stuff out.

Whatever was just so rude and unhelpful!

(10:48):

Now here's the other thing is that if people are really kind of coming at you a little bit, it does open up the opportunity for you to again, continue engaging with them in the comments maybe after your live video is over.

Rachel said, can I delete the comments during the live?

Yes, I can.

I just clicked on the little three dots next to your comment, Rachel, and I can delete it.

I can hide it or I can report it. I won't, I will not do that.

But what I was going to say was is when people are trying to pick a fight or raise objections, you do still have the opportunity.

I see it this way:

Like if anybody ever leaves you a negative review on your Facebook business page or your Google business page or whatever you have set up, it gives you the opportunity to show your character.

(11:37):

You have the opportunity to respond, to be the bigger person, to show here are the values of my business.

I think you guys have probably heard before that the worst thing a business owner can do is not respond to a negative review.

In some cases, sometimes you can't delete reviews.

Like I think if you were a business owner on Yelp and somebody was just leaving these awful reviews about your restaurant I don't think you can delete them, but it gives you the opportunity because everybody's going to be reading to see what you say.

I've never gotten a negative business review, per se, in a public forum that I couldn't delete or respond to.

But if I did, what I would do is take the opportunity to really 1.) one reassure and make sure that person was actually a customer in my business and not just trolling, like I'm just going to leave bad reviews, even though wasn't even a customer or didn't even buy anything or I didn't even ever visit the restaurant.

(12:39):

Like you want to make sure it's a real person.

But then also 2. ) I would take that time to really address their concerns.

Like I really want to hear your concerns and I really want to make this right.

Knowing that that's going to be a public response in the end could actually be a better thing for your business than having a hundred perfect five star reviews and being and other people just say, Hmm, nothing has ever gone wrong in your services.

Hey Pavla. Hey Suzanne!

So I just kind of want to reassure you that even when those things happen in a public forum, which I get, again, I get it - it is very difficult to deal with.

It gives you the opportunity to shine a spotlight on your integrity and what you stand for and being willing to hear people out and make it right.

(13:26):

But let's go back to just mean all comments on Facebook Live, where somebody is saying your hair is messed up and I don't the way you talk, and that was stupid.

Whatever you just did a video about.

Some of those things don't really deserve a response and here's what you do:

As Rachel asking, I can delete a comment during Facebook Live.

I am on my desktop by the way right now.

I'm sure that the same potential is there when you do Facebook Live on your phone, or you do Instagram Live on a phone, that's where live video things happen.

If somebody is being just nasty and inappropriate, not family-friendly, same thing.

It's that doesn't add value.

You're being deleted. (Goodbye LOL)

Here's another thing - when you do get a negative comment or a snarky comment - say you're doing a Facebook ad. This was a huge reason why I didn't even want to run Facebook ads at all ever was because I was afraid of somebody saying something really negative about it and that it would just be out there.

(14:31):

Well, yes.

You can hide a comment and here's how you want to do this.

If you do need to ban somebody or block somebody from your page, what you want to do is there's three, there's three ways to go about it on Facebook and you kind of have to do them in order: 1.) first, you want to hide the comment, 2.) then you can ban the person.

(14:50):

Completely, or you can block them temporarily, but you have to just go ahead and hide it first.

Because if you go ahead and delete it or you go ahead, I can't remember how, what order it goes in, but if you go ahead and delete the comment, then you don't have the opportunity to go back and say, okay, I want to ban this person permanently.

So you want to 1. hide them first, 2. then ban them and then 3. delete the comment.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that was right.

We talked about live,comments.

We've talked about other post comments, same thing as true on YouTube, same thing as true on Instagram.

You have control over the conversation that is happening.

Like you don't own the platform in the sense that you don't own your Instagram page, but you are the owner of what happens in the comments of your post.

(15:41):

If you're being a good business person or content creator you are going and engaging in being thoughtful and saying thank you to the people saying, hey, this was really awesome.

Not only going and looking for negative comments and ignoring all the other people that said all these great things about you.

We talked yesterday about positive feedback.

Like when people give you positive feedback, I think it's really important to acknowledge it as best as possible.

Like you don't have to write out a long response every time, but the more that you're building, here's another really good tip.

The more that you are building up your good will in your community, then when somebody is rude or posts something or says something that's basically not true about you, other people will come they will come and help defend you and support you.

(16:25):

Like it won't be you all on your own frozen like a deer in headlights going, oh my God, what did you, what did they just say?

How do I handle that?

Like, you will have other people come to your rescue, because they'll be saying no, she does know what she's talking about, or whatever.

Live comments, post comments. We talked about YouTube, Instagram.

Then the last thing I want to talk about is just when you get, and this is probably the worst part actually is when you get that private message <laugh> or that private email, that you are a horrible person and here's why, and again, remembering, the source is important.

The good thing about this is that you can engage in a conversation that can be private and it doesn't have to happen publicly.

(17:10):

I am not sure actually, which one is worse because I kind of feel if somebody takes the time to write you a private message they really are expecting an answer from you.

I will give you guys an example of something that happened fairly early on in Pro Oganizer Studios history, definitely less than a year in.

I had somebody send me a private message and said, Jen uh, while, it's great that you put out all this content, I would really recommend that you take some public speaking lessons.

I"t would be, it would be wonderful to hear you say words other than awesome; such as great, fabulous or well done."

Like she literally told me other vocabulary options to use.

I can't even remember how she wrapped it up, but I literally was just oh my God, I am not a professional public speaker.

(18:02):

I am so sorry that this upset you so badly that it, you needed to tell me that because it really did hurt my feelings, but I will tell you that, over time as I, and I think that my response back was just, I really appreciate you taking the time to give me that feedback and then I never replied to it again.

But one thing that you have to, so I'm always trying to reframe and look at the bright side of pretty much anything.

I was just well, if she didn't really actually try to listen to the things that I was putting out there, then none of that would bother her so much.

Maybe she was one of the few people who was willing to say, hey, you have a lot more potential.

If you would invest a little bit more time in your public speaking presence, maybe that was a good thing.

(18:47):

I can still choose what I do with that.

I never have taken a public speaking class speaking class (I clearly need to.)

But you can't let things like that...

Like you have to show up imperfectly to ever have the opportunity to show up perfectly.

You have to do 50 or a hundred kind of mediocre presentations before you can do this one perfect presentation.

If you're going to let anything like that keep you from ever getting started - you're never going to get to the end game.

You know what I'm saying?

I want you to think of this from this day forward as badges of honor - if you're not putting yourself out there, you never get any negative feedback.

You never get a mean comment.

You never get the troll person.

(19:33):

Who's just - I can't even think of a truly trolling thing, but I have had people complain about the content that I have put on our Facebook page before.

I've had people be upset that we talk about organizing tips or, the organizing business tips "when the Amazon rain forest was burning down..."

I mean, not to mention during the time that we are in right now.

Again, you have to remember that your content is intended for a very specific niche purpose.

If the people who are not interested in it, don't like it <laugh>, they can scroll right past it.

They are grown human beings and they have free will, and they are responsible for the choices that they make.

You do not have to defend or justify what your stuff is about.

In the case of that person who was saying - that's kind of stupid, considering the Amazon rain forest was on fire, how long ago was that?

(20:28):

Like a year ago?

We deleted the comment.

We didn't ban the person.

We didn't block them, but we were just - you can see yourself out.

It doesn't hurt my feelings and I - but I also never forget and never forget.

Anyway, so that's another thing is you have to keep showing up for the people who are there for the stuff that you came to talk about, because that's why they came to hear from you.

If you start watering down your message, just in case it's going to upset somebody that is not going to help as many people in the long run.

If that makes sense, Rob said they can scroll right past it...

Oh my gosh. What did he say? Did he delete his comment before I could read it?

(21:11):

Oh man.

I think he did <laugh> I think he, I think he deleted it as I was reading it.

When you're putting yourself online in order for you to, oh, he did edit it.

That's hilarious.

He used the word fornicate, so I'm not going to read that out loud, but love you, Rob.

Remembering that when you put yourself out on the Internet, this is what we've been talking about for the last few weeks.

When you put yourself out on the Internet, if you are not talking and making a stance and standing up for something and choosing a niche and, kind of going all in on that and sharing your opinion there's something in the online world called attract and repel.

You are going to only be able to attract the people who are right for you.

(21:58):

If you are also at the same time, repelling the people who are wrong for you and your content and your style and your business, <laugh> y'all are making me laugh.

Remember that it is a badge of honor when somebody is pissed off about something that you say, I have said many controversial things in the time of my business because I 100% believe that they're true.

Occasionally somebody is yeahhhh, Jen I don't agree with everything you say, but most of it is good.

You know, they kind of do that whole thing and that's like, no, not your ideal clients or customers or whatever.

They still will follow you for all of the things that they do get that are mostly vibing with how they feel and how they want to move forward in life and in their business.

(22:45):

That's really making me laugh. Thank you, Rob. You're not going to win every person over.

Even each individual person is not going to be a hundred percent on track with you a hundred percent of the time.

They're not going to watch a hundred percent of your videos, but take comfort in the fact that the majority of the people who think you're just okay are - they're never going to say anything - they're never going to write you and just be you know, this is just, mediocre.

It's a badge of honor.

The first time you get your first hate mail, send me a message and, screenshot it.

I'll laugh with you because it's crazy.

It's crazy that someone... (and actually it's not crazy.)

It is an indicator that there is something inside that person that they have a need that is not being met.

(23:31):

Apparently you are the one that they chose to take it out on.

Now if you are this very centered spiritually or centered personally kind of person, maybe you can explore that with them a little bit.

Like, hey, so it sounds you're not enjoying this content.

What could I do for you that would really be a game changer right now?

That's always a question that you can ask because obviously that person has a pain point that is not being solved.

They can write back and say, well, nothing.

Like, I just, I don't the way you talk, it's annoying and just say, okay, love it.

You can even send them to other resources or whatever, but honestly, in the long run, you didn't want that person in your paying audience anyway, because once they are paying you can't just kick them out.

(24:13):

You know what I'm saying?

It's okay that you don't win everybody over.

It's a badge of honor when you get your first hate mail, your first mean comment.

I'm sure I have other ones to share, but I did definitely tell you guys the ones that stood out the most in terms of, in terms of just the free content that you're putting out there.

I mean, we could talk maybe a whole other day about occasionally.

Yes.

You're going to have somebody who's not happy with your paid content.

Like, how do you deal with that?

I have strong feelings about how to deal with that because I always want to do right by everybody.

But knowing you cannot make everybody happy all the time.

I mean, I have certainly been through some huge challenges in my business, times when I could have communicated things better.

(24:56):

But you know, the only thing that you can do is make things as right as possible moving forward.

Again, that's something that if you knew right now that you were going to go through these ups and downs and go through these challenges, you would never start and you would never get to the point where you're I feel confident enough to handle anything because I have been through all of this stuff.

It's, I promise you, it's all going to be okay, remember, you can ban somebody, block them, delete them, and they can always unsubscribe themselves off your email list.

If they really didn't like an email you sent you can write back and say, I am so sorry you felt that way.

There is an unsubscribe link at the bottom of this email.

Do you want to click it?

Or if not, I'll be glad to unsubscribe you personally, if that's what you wish to do, you can always offer that just in case they didn't realize, you don't have to be on my email list.

(25:43):

You can opt out.

Anyway, hope that gives you guys just a, few deep breaths of it's all going to be... There are there are ways to handle it.

In the long run, people, usually filter themselves out.

If not, it's send them back meme that says, "why are you so obsessed with me?"

Like, because likely they're probably not.

They will go away.

Okay guys. Thank you again for joining in for, with me this week!

This is Friday, tomorrow's Saturday, as you would suspect.

I am not sure what our topic is going to be tomorrow, but I did want to go ahead and get your attention on the fact that on Sundays I'm doing a book club for the next eight or nine weeks.

I started last Sunday.

(26:27):

We jumped right in, I skipped the introduction.

It was a challenging week to catch up on because I forgot the introduction was so long.

Last week we did the the intro and chapter one of one of my favorite books, The Last Safe Investment -- oh Rob said, you can UNsubscribe them yourself.

Yes you can. You can go into your email list on your side and just delete them out!

That's a good thing.

Uh, and people do unsubscribe.

That's a normal - ot is very normal for people to unsubscribe.

Sometimes they come back and subscribe again.

Like I do that with email lists all the time.

I don't take it personally when people do that with us, with me.

Anyway, we're doing book club Sunday, so that I can tell you is definitely happening on happening on Sunday.

(27:13):

This week is chapter two, which talks about the super skills in life and in business.

The way that the author describes it is these are the things that are the most beneficial in good times.

In bad times, as in good economies and bad economies, what are the skills that are always the most valuable for any human to use and adapt in their business and in life.

I find (obviously found) this whole book, very enlightening, very good.

I first read it four years ago and I decided, well, I'm going to reread it, which I never reread a book.

I'm rereading it now. I wanted to do it along with, y'all.

On Sunday, is chapter two. You can go ahead and get the book downloaded if you didn't yet.

Catch up a little bit and join me for chapter two. It's going to be really good.

Again, I will post tomorrow.

I'll post tomorrow about our time and topic per usual, but until then I hope y'all have a wonderful evening and I'm going to go jump on my dad's Facebook Live and see if he's still on. Bye!