Youve been blasted, someone is ranting and raving in the comments of your blog or they have you in their cross-hairs on their own blog. What do you do? Do you delete the comments, do you respond, do you ignore them? This is the question many bloggers face daily. As a Realtor or lender, getting attacked is a complex problem with a very simple answer. Maintain your professionalism. While there are many ways of handling an attack, the key to managing a nasty commenter or blogger is professionalism and authority. Never lose either. Do not do or say anything that will cause your readers to lose respect for you.

Your blog is a social network so it must be engaging and emotional

Before we even delve into what to do when someone attacks you, lets look at what the blogosphere is and how it works. The blogosphere is a social network, meaning a place where readers come not just to see what you have to say, but also to participate by commenting on your blog. In order for a blog to be engaging, it must be emotional. Meaning, people have to feel like they can connect with you as a human being through your posts and communicate with you personally through comments. Most of the time you get love-y dove-y comments agreeing with you, sometimes you get insightful comments that make you think and occasionally a reader will rip you and your ideas to shreds in a comment. 

Now, before you go responding in a knee-jerk, angry comment of your own, remember, even this kind of comment is good for you and your blog. A negative, nasty or ranting comment can actually help your blog become more engaging because it produces an emotional response not only from you the writer, but from your regular readers. A negative response can actually help your blog become more popular. It can galvanize your supports or create feuding factions that regularly participate on your blog. And isnt that the idea, increase participation on your blog to grow your visitor base? So, that crazy raging bull that likes to destroy you and everything in your blogging path is actually helping your blog to become more emotionally engaging to visitors.

How to handle a disgruntled commenter

When someone comments on your blog negatively or attacks you personally you have 3 choices:

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  1. Respond: When someone attacks you or your ideas you can choose to respond, however I always recommend taking at least 24 hours to cool your rage, then pen something polite and steeped in fact, then sit on it for another 24 hours. If you still feel the need to post it, go over it one more time and make sure it will not offend anyone and the content will not diminish the respect your readers have for you.

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  1. Delete the comments: I dont really recommend this one, because I think leaving negative comments shows your willingness to accept criticism or, if the commenter is a raving lunatic, illustrates their character. However, I have run into situations where deleting the comment was what served the community best. For example, one of our blog clients was in the middle of a messy divorce and her soon to be ex husband would post slanderous/ obscene comments on her blog. She deleted them and eventually banned his user. So, there are times when deleting a comment is the best option, but on the whole, be the bigger person and leave the comment.

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  1. Ignore the attack: If the attack is personal in nature and just a clear example of sour grapes or general insane ranting, youre best bet is to ignore it. Fact is, you cant argue with crazy, so stay above the fray. Nothing pisses people off more than being ignored. Ignoring someone, tells them "youre not important to me, you dont matter." And by never responding you maintain your professionalism.

Recognize constructive criticism and reward it

One of the most important rules of netiquette is to admit when you are wrong.  If someone catches a flub on your blog, admit your wrong and correct it. Recognize that that kind of comment is constructive criticism and deal with it properly by giving the commenter credit for recognizing your mistake and being kind enough to point it out to you. It will only make your blog better. No one is infallible, by admitting that even you make mistakes, you actually help increase your authority and engage other commenters because they know you are listening to them and respect their positions. You get respect by giving it! (Hey Damion, this one is for you! Thank you for helping me make my blog better!)

How to handle a raving blog-atic

As you scour the blogosphere you see that one of your competitors, clients or vendors has slammed you on their blog. How do you respond? You dont. Marketing 101 says you do not want to drive traffic back to your competitor by providing their name or link in your blog. You do not want to draw attention to another site saying negative things about you. Why drive the hard earned traffic and repeat visitors on your site to someone elses site that is attacking you. Not a very good competitive strategy. Doing that is a sure fire way to lose your potential clients and chip away at the respect your existing clients have for you. 

Whether the attack was warranted or not, you dont acknowledge it!

Never book a room at the asylym with your crazy blogger/commenter

Remember when Howard Deen went nuts on TV? He was a presidential contender until he started acting like a raving lunatic. In 5 minutes of raving, he lost the credibility he had built in 30 or so years of public service. Or, a more recent example of raving attacks is exemplified in Allan Dalton of Realtor.com and Lloyd Frink of Zillow.coms panel discussion at the California Association of Realtors annual convention. (see the video on Sellsius) These were pretty credible guys until... the lunatic within busted out! Similarly, when people rant and rave on a blog, they lose credibility. So, dont get down into the mud and respond to a negative blog by ranting and raving yourself. 

Conclusion:

No matter what happens on your blog, be professional, maintain your authority and credibility. The less you engage with angry bloggers the more authority and credibility you will build and the more likely those disgruntled commenters will be to move on to another blog where they spew their nastiness.

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