How To Deal With Hateful Comments Online

This will happen to everyone, so let's talk about how to deal with hateful comments online so you're ready when it does.
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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Whenever I give a talk about howhigh leverage a platform like
YouTube is, the fact that youcan grow your business 24 7
without having to think about itall the time.
Usually there are people stillholding onto one limiting belief
and it's a valid one, and thatis.

(00:23):
What if people leave me a hatecomment?
I don't want to put myself outthere.
I don't want people criticizingmy appearance the way I talk.
I don't want people to thinkthat I'm not very smart.
Whatever it might be.
It's different for all of us.
And so I like to help peopleovercome these things so they
can see the value of building abusiness out of high leverage

(00:45):
assets like YouTube, which iswhat we do at done by lunch
entrepreneurs.
And so in this episode, I wannatalk through how to deal with
hate comments.
My hope is you've never had oneand that you never will, but.
If you do, you'll be ready.
And if you're even just worriedabout it and this is holding you
back for putting yourself outthere, then this hopefully will

(01:10):
help you overcome that andrealize that there are solutions
and different ways to thinkabout it.
Alright, let's jump in.
Welcome to Done by LunchEntrepreneurs, where every
episode is designed to help yourun and grow your business in
half the time so you can move onto other things that give you
purpose.
when it comes to puttingyourself out there online for
your business or otherwise,sometimes it feels like you're

(01:30):
facing a crowd of strangers whomay or may not be holding rotten
fruit.
So what do you do when a hatefulcomment does show up?
Out of nowhere.
This is actually something thatI struggled with for a lot of
years.
Even before I was on YouTube, Iactually worked as a
professional radio personalityand one bad comment could ruin

(01:50):
my entire day.
So we'll talk about how Iovercame that and then also
equip you in case you ever get ahateful comment, I'm gonna share
the worst way to respond that Ilearned the hard way never to do
as well.
So first of all, I want you toknow if you've only posted for
friends and followers, I.
if you're deciding to post onYouTube or anywhere else that's

(02:12):
publicly for the first time, andyou're worried about this,
totally normal, right?
You're opening yourself up topeople who don't know you.
You're opening yourself up topeople literally around the
world, and some of them are notkind.
I.
And the way that you feel whenyou get a negative comment
definitely doesn't make youweak.
Okay?
Makes us human and that's okay.

(02:33):
this is even more true if you'retalking about video and you grew
up self-conscious about yourappearance like I did.
I mean, the braces, the acne,the whole deal, and then someone
finds another flaw in the wayyou look and decides to
introduce it to you for thefirst time.
Which has happened to me.
So the worst way to respond thatI learned the hard way, when I

(02:53):
worked as a morning radiopersonality, we had a team show,
and if a comment came in thatwas negative, no matter where it
was, social media, email, text,phone, it would derail me for
the entire broadcast because I,I.
Would try and win that personback over.
So instead of hosting the radioshow for our half million
listeners, or whoever was outthere, I'd be trying to email

(03:15):
somebody back saying, I'm sosorry you feel that way.
I hope you'll give us anotherchance.
So there was a rule on our show.
After a while, the rule became,Jerry's not allowed to answer
the phone.
Jerry's not allowed to look atsocial media, email, text, or
anything because I would letthat one comment ruin the entire
day.
Okay, so the worst way torespond, and you might do this
if you're a recovering peoplepleaser like me, is to try and

(03:36):
win that person over.
First of all, odds are if theycomplained or said something
negative, they were probablyjust having a bad day.
Now, more on that in a second.
Now, if they're just an internettroll, you might waste hours
trying to win them back over andactually making them angrier
than they were in the firstplace.
Now, whenever a negative commentcomes in on YouTube or wherever
else, this is what I remindmyself of and my clients.

(03:58):
Those are not my people.
They're almost always not ourideal audience.
They're just the loudest people.
And something else that Ilearned being higher profile
when I was in radio is that hurtpeople.
Hurt people.
You wouldn't believe how oftenwhen I was trying to win
somebody over back in the daylike I used to, I would get a
response to whatever I sent themthe next day and they would say,

(04:19):
I'm so sorry.
I just found out I'm gettingdivorced, or something terrible
was going on in their life andthey decided to take it out on
sort of a stranger.
So remember that hurt people,hurt people.
Now, how do we handle it?
So there are three things youcan do when you get a hateful
comment, and then I'm gonna showyou one thing that you should do
to remove the emotion from itentirely.
Or I should say almost entirely.

(04:41):
Okay?
We'll leave it at that for now,and then you can decide when I
tell you what it is.
All right.
So the first thing you can do isnothing, literally ignore the
comment.
You might look at it and feellike, oh, I've gotta respond, or
something like that.
But if you're already busy.
They may not be worth your time,and that's okay.
Just move on.
Not everybody can do that.

(05:02):
So let's move on to optionnumber two.
The second option is to takeadvantage of whatever platform
you're on and hide, delete, orblock the comment.
So on YouTube, and I know, Ithink on Facebook you can just
hide the comment.
The person who left it doesn'tknow it's hidden, but nobody
else sees it on Facebookspecifically.
Their friends will still see it,but nobody else in your audience

(05:24):
will see it.
So I always like the hide optionunless I have a really good
reason to delete something.
If someone is saying somethingdisparaging about someone else
in my audience, that's usuallywhen we move on to deleting.
But I never like to censorpeople just to make myself look
good or anything like that.
I would rather reply and have aconversation with them.
And of course the third optionis to actually reply.

(05:44):
If someone has a very validcomment, maybe it's constructive
criticism, then I absolutelylike to reply, ask more
questions.
Honestly, if you follow up withcuriosity, half the time they'll
never come back again.
But you look good in front ofyour audience because you didn't
just ignore it or delete itpotentially.
But also sometimes they'll comeback and they'll say a little
bit more.
They might go, sorry, I washaving a bad day, as I realized,

(06:06):
just happens quite a bit.
Just know that whatever youreply with, remember.
That's public if you arereplying in like a comment
section, so you're sort ofreplying for that person, but
you're mostly replying for therest of your audience or anyone
else who may see it.
And here's how you remove theemotion entirely.
This is the important partbecause when you get a comment

(06:27):
like that.
There's going to be emotion, andin a perfect world, at some
point you'll have somebody elsethat manages it and you don't
have to think about it, butwe're actually going to approach
it as though we do have somebodyelse to manage it.
Starting now, essentially we'regonna design our own internal
company policy for how we dealand reply to negative comments.

(06:49):
So, for example, if it's hatefulonly, then you just ignore it or
delete it.
But if it's an actualconstructive criticism, then you
reply in kind and ask for moreinformation.
So you can make sort of your ownchecklist or process like this
for your business.
Then when that negative commentcomes in, you can go through and
deal with it and move on withyour day without having to feel
as much emotion around it.

(07:09):
So when you do this exercise,think of it as though you have
an employee and you are trainingthem how to manage these
comments.
Alright?
If you take one thing away fromthis, please don't let a few
loud people keep you fromshowing up for the quiet ones
that need your help.