In our daily planning and publishing online, we’re bound to come across a creature so common and so horrible, it has a name – the troll. Trolling around on your social media pages leaving filthy, nasty, horrendous comments is just one of its favorite things to do. Today, I’m going to show you how to deal with these malicious trolls.
[Troll] – Defined, a troll is someone who deliberately posts a provocative or offensive message in a group, forum, comment section or on a message board – with the intention of causing maximum disruption and argument.
How To Spot a Troll
It can be tough trying to identify a troll, especially when you could be horribly wrong and end up offending one of your long term readers, who has disagreed with you about something. Here’s how I spot trolls on our social media pages.
• They come out of no-where, i.e. they’ve never commented rationally before
• Sweeping statements that would outrage many people
• A complete disregard for the topic, attempts to derail rational conversation
• Absolutely no sense of humor, like they’re born combatant
• There is no or little personal information about them, i.e. no image or real name
• They use attention-seeking tricks, like making blatant claims, and huge lies
• Often poor grammar, as they could be children
• Sometimes seem plausible, but don’t stop causing arguments or trouble
Courtesy of pointsincase.com
How To Deal With These Foul Trolls
In my experience the absolute WORST thing you can do is respond to them, or fuel their argument. Trolls exist because they get a kick out of causing trouble and getting lots and lots of attention out of it. If I see an obvious troll on my blog, I delete their posts. They like nothing more than to enrage our community and cause trouble.
Step 1 is to remove their social posts if you can. If you can’t, then don’t respond to them at all. If you find other people are suddenly responding to their posts, kindly ask them not to in either private messaging or directly on the post. Try not to call them a ‘troll’ but if it comes down to it, at least your community will understand why you’re not talking to them.
Courtesy of programming4.us
Finally, if the conversation continues, accept the idea that the troll could be controlling both sides of the conversation. It’s not hard to do, and it’s a tactic I’ve seen done many times to draw other people into the conversation. Report them and ignore it. Hide, delete, remove or bury the message.
If you must, and I mean absolutely MUST respond, because they’ve insulted your fans or done something equally as awful – keep emotion out of it. A standard – please stop posting here, your IP has been reported’ will be fine.
I once had a troll that would not go away. Eventually I traced him back to his own blog! Trolls you see, love to cause trouble anonymously. If you know who they are, they will back off, as mine did when I emailed him on his blog!
Have you ever had a troll bother you on your social pages? What did they say and how did you deal with it? I’d like to know!
