Episode 78: What To Do When You Get Mean Comments or Trolls

Hello and welcome back. I hope you are loving these summer shorts. I, I know I've been like putting some guest episodes in between that are definitely longer. I try to do shorter guest episodes and I just can't, but these summer shorts are all 10 minutes or less. And in the last couple episodes of these, I have asked you to DM me for requests.

If you had episode requests. And I've actually gotten a couple. And so today I'm going to cover one of the requests I got and it is, what do you do when you get a nasty comment on your posts? So this episode is probably going to be way less than 10 minutes, but let's dive in.

Hey, welcome to holistic marketing simplified. This podcast boils down to the fact that we wholeheartedly believe that more humans need to know about holistic health solutions. And you didn't go to school to learn how to be a full time content creator and show up on Instagram and do all of this marketing stuff all day, every day.

So let's come hang out while we chat all things, even your marketing. And my goal is that you shift your mindset around your marketing from a quote should to a, I get to more dream patients and clients. Yes, please. Hi, I'm Dr. Tara Carlson, and I'm from YZ Minnesota. And I listen to the Holistic Marketing Simplified podcast.

All right. So let me just preface this what to do when you get a mean comment or a troll by the fact that this is what I do. I'm not saying it's right. I have, you know, I'm not saying it's right or wrong, or if you want to do something different, you do you boo. But there is actual data to support the fact that you will not change someone's mind on the internet.

You just won't. Have you ever been on a post with like a heated discussion? It's like, you know, politics, obviously right now, it's like, if you're in the US, it's like a, Crap show over here. And has there ever been a time when someone has left a really nasty comment? And even if the reply back to that person was like super thoughtful, maybe cite some data that someone wrote back, you know what?

You're right. I've changed my mind. People who leave nasty comments are having a bad day. They are typically humans that you are just not going to ever. Let's just say shift to quote your side of things and it's not someone who's going to see reason. So for that fact alone, I personally always delete any nasty comments.

Now I'm lucky in that. I just think it's because my audience is so niche that I haven't gotten a ton of trolls. I've gotten some, in fact, actually right now I'm running an ad. I've never really run Instagram and Facebook ads before, since we've finally gotten my evergreen funnel really dialed in. And, um, I feel like my Instagram posts organically are performing really well.

And I've like got a really good handle on who you are and what you need and, and, you know, my program has been the same for four years. So like, I'm just like in a really sweet spot to run ads because like I've done all of the testing for so many years. Right. And so one of my ads, it's, um, if you've been following me on Instagram for a while, it was a, just a post I made on the notes app of my phone, like really quickly a while back and it just performed really well organically.

And so that's what we chose for my ad and it just says, listen, if you can adjust someone's cervical spine or reverse someone's Hashimoto's, you can make a real. And obviously the ad is in reference, then it like leads people to try and download my app. Reels. Prompt freebies, which by the way, if you want it, it's actually one of my favorite freebies.

It's just Molly Cahill dot com slash reels It's got a ton of good resources on there including a real tutorial along with like a bunch of b roll Thought video like shot lists and it's got a bunch of hooks on it. Now. It actually just got remade But anyway, my point is that That's what the ad said And someone commented, too bad you can't reverse Hashimoto's.

It's an incurable disease, you quack. It just made me laugh because I'm like, okay, this is great data for me because that means this ad is not reaching the right people because I am not an actual provider. I'm not trying to do these things for people. I just know you can do these things for people. So anyway, I, I just deleted it because again, I just, I am not someone who wants anyone in my space, in my community to come to one of my posts and see that negativity.

I, you know, you can tell me I'm toxically positive. I just, I don't care. But I. Just don't think it's worth it. So my advice is to delete them, block them if you want, bless and release that person that's having a bad day. There's an old, old, old South Park episode. I don't watch. I never really liked South Park, but there was this really old episode.

I don't even know why I like saw it, but it was talking about like professional trolls and like how people just professionally troll people in their basement. This is not someone typically like actively like, I'm gonna. Like, I disagree with you as human, like they just, they're having a bad day. It's not personal.

Now, some other tactics that I've heard is I know of someone who just says, Hey, thanks for the engagement on my post. I hope your day gets better or Hey, thanks for the comment, um, on my post. It helps. It helps the algorithm hope you're have a great day, you know, so I know some people that kind of are like kind of smart ass about it and I also think that's funny and can be cathartic at times.

I also think that can be cathartic for some people, but the last thing you want to do is to try to get into an argument with someone. Now if they are genuinely asking a question coming from a respectful place and they're just like, Hey, uh, I really disagree with you here and I'd love to have a discussion about it.

Then by all means have an open discussion about it. But typically. You know, that's not, that's not the case. Now, I will say just a little caveat that if you're someone who this hurts your feelings and you're like, why is this hurting my feelings? This is a stranger on the internet. There's nothing wrong with you.

It is completely normal to want to be liked and loved and accepted. And it is completely normal to be afraid to put yourself out there because you're like, oh my gosh, what are these like, You know, what mean comments might I get there's, there's nothing wrong with you if that's how you feel. And I would direct you back to a couple different episodes I've done on the podcast.

I'll have Haley, my producer link them in the show notes, but with Chelsea Haynes, and she talks about using a subconscious tool to kind of deal with that. Whether you have the fear on the front end of like, I'm scared of posting because I don't want to get any mean comments or whether or not you've already gotten the comment and you're like, wow, this is really, this is really affected me more than I would like to admit that this would affect me.

Um, she talks about some subconscious techniques, um, and then also with April Adams, who's who, that's who I'm currently working with. I call her my not therapist. She talks about some things too. And I know there's people who say, you know, Hey, those people aren't paying your bills and whatever. And like, I get that.

Like, that's all helpful sentiment. But at the end of the day, I always joke, like y'all are going to be like, Molly, what the hell are you talking? I was going to say that a bad word, but I decided to make my editor's job easier. Okay. Bye. My producer's job is here. People are like, Molly, what the heck are you talking about?

But you know, like we're hardwired to want to be accepted by our group and not ridiculed by our group. Because back when we were like hunter gatherers, if you were exiled from the group, then like you probably didn't make it. So there's nothing wrong with you. You're not weak. You're not overly sensitive.

I mean, there are people who have literally stopped being content creators, like the people who are full time content creators. I'm not talking about like what y'all are trying to do. I'm talking about. In promoting your business, these are two very, very different types of marketing and I should probably do an episode on that, but.

Um, people who are like full time content creators who have left because they can't take the trolls. Like I said, there's nothing wrong with you. It's not that you necessarily need thicker skin, but my advice is to delete them, bless, and release. And you know what? If you're not stirring some crap up, then you know what?

Let's, let's, maybe, maybe we need to up the spice level a little bit. So I hope this was helpful. And, uh, if you have any other requests for summer shorts, please make sure to DM me at mollyakhill. And maybe that will be an episode that I do next. Thank you for listening to Holistic Marketing Simplified.

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