Hoe omgaan met negatieve reacties op weblogs?
Keith Robinson:
- Read and understand. Make sure you really understand what is being said. It's easy to read something negative and jump in with a response that might not be as informed as it should be. That just causes more trouble.
- Learn from it. Sometimes you will get a negative post because you were wrong. Take it as an educational experience.
- Don't get defensive. This just makes matters worse. Take a step back and try to be objective. Thing long and hard before you respond to negative feedback.
- Ignore trolls. Do not engage in a discussion with someone who is just looking for a fight. Ignore the comment, or delete it if you feel comfortable with it.
- Post your comment policy. Let people know if there is are types of comments you don't want to see. For example, if you don't want off-topic comments, let your readers know.
- Respond with kindness and a willingness to understand. I don't know how many times I've turned a bad comment into a good one by simply trying to understand the point of view being offered and taking a positive attitude.
- Admit when you are wrong. Your readers will actually respect you more if you acknowledge your mistakes. We all make them, don't beat yourself up over it.
- Don't take it personally. Sometimes it may seem like a negative comment is a personal attack, but this is often not the case.
- Take it offline. I've found that engaging in an e-mail conversation with someone who I'm butting heads with is very helpful in resolving the situation.
- Use self-deprecating humor. Let's face it. If you have a blog that you post to with any frequency there are going to be times when you screw up. Sometimes this can actually be pretty darn funny if you can take a step back and look at it through another's eyes. Take teasing from your readers with a grain of salt and if you can't beat 'em join 'em.
- Realize before you hit "post" that it's a big world out there and you're not going to please everyone every-time.
Marco Derksen is onderdeel van
Upstream
