How to React to Your Personal Brand Haters
August 29, 2008 at 11:29 am | In PR, Personal Branding, Reputation Management | 14 CommentsI’ve spoken about gaining visibility for your personal brand many times. When you have the spotlight on you, the “haters” come out to play.
When you stand for something, there are going to be people or groups that are against you. Every Hollywood celebrity has AT LEAST one person in this world who hates them. Unless you’re Gandhi, there’s a pretty safe bet that you won’t get along with everyone. I think it’s important for all of you to learn what to do when these “haters” come after you.
Yesterday, I had an incident where a group of people in a forum posted a total of 21 entries citing my name, picture, and a video. Their thoughts were all negative and very harsh. Aside from trying to rip apart my personal brand behind my back, they decided to post comments on my MODERATED blog 9 times in order to really dig into me. First, I’m going to show you what they said and then I’m going to go over what I did in response and what you can do if this should arise in your life.
Please note that I’m not upset or angry. I like to take punishment, so I can help protect all of you.
Some of the comments
- “He is inspiring. He can make any blog a success (except apparently his own).”
- “I’d hire him…as a dart board.”
- “He does look cartoonish! He looks like one of those cartoon characters who wear glasses, and when they take them off, their eyes are really tiny and squinty. But he’s pretty cute for a squirrel getting hit by a car. BRAND ME SCHAWBEL!”
- “Regardless of how smart his ideas are (for the record I won’t read any of them), this guy is a major douchebag.”
- “This fella is quite sincere about all this, unless of course this is a joke of Andy Kaufman like magnitude. It’s a thought.”
- “He’s in Boston, so he could just be exceptionally annoying.”
What I did
I did absolutely nothing about this situation (until I blogged about it today). This discussion board is locked down, so I couldn’t register as a user. Also, the conversation wasn’t based on fact; it was a bunch of immature opinions. To these people, it wasn’t about analyzing my brand. Instead they wanted to tear into my brand and spare no expense. If I weighted in, the situation would have gotten worse. The best move was to back-off and let the situation settle. Ignoring works!
Dan why aren’t you linking us to this forum post? Your Google results are so important. What Google says about you is how others will perceive you. I have 124,000 Google results for my name right now, so the chances of this forum gaining traction and placing in the top 10 is near impossible. If I were to link to it in this post, it might give the forum wings, and we certainly wouldn’t want that!
Your options
1) Do nothing and ignore. When you can’t post a comment or write an email to the haters, then just sit back and ignore it. If the site has low authority and credibility (such as the above forum), then Google will brush the incident under a carpet (it will always be there though).
2) Show them the facts. Any legit source, such as the NY Times or TechCrunch will revise their articles if they don’t get their facts straight. It’s part of good journalism and building a brand. Send the journalist an email citing the facts and ask them nicely to repost or revise the article.
3) Comment with your opinion. If the article allows comments (blogs, forums, traditional news sites), then feel free to comment. When you comment, you MUST reveal the real brand you and not make up a fictitious name. Trolls should stay under the drawbridge. They have no place “hanging out” on blogs.
4) Blog about it: After showing them the facts and commenting, they might still not budge. The next step, is to post about it in your own blog. Only do this if you have to. I blogged about this incident to show that bad publicity does happen and what to do about it.
My Twitter friends weigh-in
14 Comments »
RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI
Leave a comment
Book: Me 2.0
Subscribe
Blog Syndication
Personal Branding Magazine
2008 Personal Brand Awards
Dan Schawbel
My Social Networks
Standing
-
Recent Comments
-
Blog at WordPress.com. | Theme: Pool by Borja Fernandez.
Entries and comments feeds.
Dan,
It is really interesting that you wrote about this. After I initially started blogging, the same thing happened to me.
What is so funny is that the forum that it was posted on was a forum people actually pay money for to talk about this crap!
Who in their right mind would pay money to share their opinion. LOL
Good work in ignoring negativity!
Can’t wait to hang out with you in Boston This Weekend!
Comment by Scott Bradley — August 29, 2008 #
Hi Dan – Negative stuff happens a lot, and often times the best thing to do is to ignore it. Good for you. Besides, if people don’t like you, it means you’ve really made it
Comment by Rebecca — August 29, 2008 #
Hi Dan, I agree completly with you.
I have seen that when somebody create something different receive 3 reactions.
1st. The “haters”. Forget them.
2nd. The neutrals. They like some things that you say and others no.
3rd. The “lovers”. This is the people that love what you do. I work for this group.
Very interesting post and I have read it in a moment that I needed. Thanks Dan.
Comment by Andres — August 29, 2008 #
I try hard not to let the bozos consume too much of my time. The worst thing is if you spend too much time responding to them…then they just toss something back at you and get you all wound up again. That’s their objective.
Sometimes we can learn from the haters though–I come off as an elitist at times and I need to be reminded of that. So I try to make a quick decision whether to respond or not, then keep it minimal. Make small moves; don’t try to comprehensively address these people. Don’t let them think you are sitting there for hours and hours composing a response. But a quick short comment indicates you are not “out to lunch” but that you have more important fish to fry.
Your brand is an easy target…the whole concept of a personal brand is a bit pretentious and begs to be “taken down a notch.” If you want to reach people who are not already on board with the idea of personal branding, then you can use “hater” comments as a way to illustrate that you have more substance than they do. I think that is kind of what you are doing with this post…
Comment by Dave — August 29, 2008 #
Dan,
Thumbs up to you for your level headed response to this “attack” on you. I’ve been following your blog and picking up the great tips that you have.
Comment by astrodarlings — August 29, 2008 #
odd thing is that none of the attacks seem to be anything other then junior high type name calling. What exactly is their issue other then the fact that you are getting attention and they want some of it?
Comment by Meg Bear — August 29, 2008 #
Dan,
Funny you should blog about this now. A week ago I was the subject of an attack comment for a guest post I wrote a few months ago on another site.
This person lambasted the whole concept of personal branding in resumes and job search. He/she is actually a careers industry professional, but obviously doesn’t get what personal branding is and why job seekers need to shape it into a marketable career brand.
He/she referred to personal branding as just the latest gimmick resume writers use to charge more. Curiously, this person’s Website was branded to the hilt!
I fretted about this and spent quite a bit of time tip-toeing around writing a reply, then decided to sleep on it before responding. The next day, I decided there was no point in commenting and fueling the fire. So I ignored the whole thing. Luckily, this person didn’t mention my name in his/her comment.
The first time this happens, it can really shake you up. Whatever you decide to do, if it happens to you, I suggest sleeping on it before moving forward.
Meg
Comment by Meg Guiseppi — August 29, 2008 #
@meg bear – they are against what I stand for, which is furthering the concept of personal branding, teaching everyone how to incorporate marketing in their own lives and for mentoring young individuals.
Comment by Dan Schawbel — August 29, 2008 #
Hey Dan, good to see you being open and honest about this stuff…cyber bullying and online vandalism are all part of the game unfortunately, and it is so easy for people to attack others onoine given the ‘relative’ anonymity of the medium. Is there anything to be learnt though from this experience, is there anything you would/will do differently (I believe all feedback is a chance to learn?). Cheers
Comment by Luke Harvey-Palmer — August 30, 2008 #
You did the right thing, which was writing this post. I was first Google-bombed 5-years ago. It was the moment I knew my brand had started in the right direction.
Continue on your path, stay positive and have fun. The negative people are part of life, online and off. It takes years to learn how to sluff them off. You’re ahead of the game.
Comment by Jim Kukral — August 30, 2008 #
Dan,
Great job! I really admire how you have handled this situation.
Eventually the haters will turn their attention elsewhere. You have nagigated this with professionalism and class, which of course is part of your brand!
All the best to you!
Comment by Margaret — August 30, 2008 #
This sort of thing is more than a hassle, but if your branding is authentic and based on your core being, then it’s actually a good thing to find people reacting negatively to you. Had you build a veneer to be attractive to those people, you would be serving the wrong crowd. As you’ve shown, the greatest lesson learned about your personal brand, is the integrity it takes to stand on it.
Comment by Dave Saunders — August 31, 2008 #
[...] job. Think about the old photos an ancient friends has posted without telling you, the campaign of haters on your blog,… and remember that it is nearly impossible to erase what was once avilable on [...]
Pingback by Will social media lead us to tribes ? « Stetoscope — September 1, 2008 #
[...] group, so it’s easy to find readers who like what you have to say, and easier to disregard the haters because, after all, they’re just names on a screen, hiding somewhere in cyberspace. [...]
Pingback by Finding the strength to live transparently « Life in the Middle Lane — December 1, 2008 #