Podcast Trolls and Haters Survival Guide

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Hey everyone, welcome back to Feed you'd Brand. This is Tom and Tracy and we've got a subject that not a lot of people like to talk about when it comes to their own podcast because they want everyone to love their show and I want everyone to love my show too. I'm no different than any of you. But you know what? There are going to be people out there that don't like what you're doing and are pretty negative when they communicate with you. So we thought we'd talk about some of those types of people today and how to deal with them.

Yeah, especially how to deal with them because, I mean, there are times at which you want to make a response and times at which you don't. And this is really a kind of a fine line. This happens all the time with my income. We get a lot of hater comments and we get a lot of Twitter trolls. And so you've got to find a way to deal with them and not encourage them, which is also a kind of a big thing. And then I also really want to just address out there that it's not any safer to be a woman or to be young, because we do have some kid podcasters out there and those tracked a lot of negative comments from all over and you may find yourself in those situations. So we just kind of want to bring it to the forefront and talk about that.

Okay, well, Tracy, let's start by defining what's a podcast troll. And a podcast hater is probably pretty easy to define, but we'll put a little definition on it. But what's a podcast troll?

Okay, so a troll is anyone who's really out there. I mean, this is what their whole purpose is. They're like the mythical creature, a troll. Right. So they're out there antagonizing people. They're trying to stir up negative comments, they're trying to stir up that kind of animosity amongst people and that just for shock value.

Or is this kind of like, why do people hack websites just because they can? Or what is this part of it.

Is that yes, and part of it is it doesn't really matter. You think about what's going on in the thing. You have millions of followers on Twitter and they follow you because you're nasty to people. And that's really how it works. They're being egged on by the following that they have for this, right? They're encouraged to do more of it, whether it is going after a very specific demographic of people like there are, and I've been victim to them many, many times. There are trolls out there that victimize women on Twitter, women on LinkedIn, and they come after you. And it doesn't matter what your subject matter is. It doesn't matter all of that. They just basically are out there antagonizing you about things and so hoping that you'll bite. And then they can, you know, stir up and start a nasty conversation, because it's in that nasty conversation that the fun happens for them. And so you have to recognize when you see a pattern of that. So a lot of times I do this where I will check them out. So if somebody's made a comment, and I'm not 100% sure, it's not just they truly don't buy into my position, which I have no problem with, or they just are really starting a conversation that they want to start in kind of an innocuous way that will build into this sort of troll conversation that you see happening many, many times. And so I usually go and check out their Twitter page and you can see what they posted and what they comment on. Other people, when you see that, you see this pattern of nasty commenting and resharing and all of this other stuff that happens, you go, I don't want to participate in that. You can basically report the comment, which is something you can do if you're on social media. You don't have that ability, though. And this is where I want to be really clear about this. In your own comments field, unless you set that up or have control of the backend of your own WordPress site, which I highly encourage you to have, and so you can control the comments that get even posted, but there are certain places in which you can't. You can't stop the comments from it. You won't be able to stop them in your itunes subscription area. So when somebody subscribes or they leave a rating, you won't be able to take them down. You have to report them. And they'd have to be inflammatory or violate the itunes rules in order for that. So there are places in which you don't have a lot of control over them. But Every place that you do take control. And that means either delete the comments, don't continue to further them, add a lot of comments so they drop down farther. That you can do, right? Have more tweets happen for the day and they'll drop to the bottom and no one will see them. You can do that. And of course, on your WordPress site, you can treat it like spam and just have them deleted. And you just have them taken out now. A lot of people will come back to you. This is one of the things that happens a lot of times with trolls and haters is when you delete their comment, they realize it's gone. They come back and they harass you and your site for being unwilling to deal with controversy or being unwilling to deal with other viewpoints other than your own. And so they start to try to call you out and egg you on in that way as well. But I've also gotten it personally into email, and that's really where it feels really personal and it hurts a lot. And it's really hard not to respond once you get one in email.

When somebody sends you an email criticizing or trashing your show, I agree. When you receive an email, it feels.

Like that's the haters out there. That's where you get hater. They've taken the time to email you and they email you venom. And it happens.

And it's really unfortunate. And I think, especially if you're a new podcaster, the first time it happens, it can really be a punch to the gut and you don't know how to deal with it, and it sort of shakes you and makes you question the validity of what you're doing with your show. And initially, and I guess that's something that I want to talk about today because I agree with you, Tracy. I have no problem with constructive criticism. Having an intelligent, informed debate with somebody who doesn't agree with me when something.

I talk about on issues and topics.

Yeah, issues and topics. It's fine when you get into things.

Like that, but this has happened, right? Like your voice annoys me. Like it's not. The recording levels aren't nice and, you know, and not professional and it's, you know, it's hard to listen to. No, it's your voice that annoys me. That's where it really trips into, like, being haters.

Well, to me, that's not productive because you're not going to be able to change your voice. So what are you going to do? So, you know what, if you really don't like it if it's that annoying to you, then don't listen to the podcast. It's sort of my answer to that. And we've dealt with some really controversial subjects in some of our podcasts at times in the past.

Yeah, we've dealt with guns and bump stocks and other things that happen in 3D printing. We've dealt with that kind of thing. So you do get a lot of controversy. Plus, because we're in. In a tech world, you get a lot of very, very opinionated people, which was actually, I thought was constructive. It was probably one of the least, you know, troll like ones we. But it could have tripped into that was we had a debate about whether or not you could edit code and it would be considered design. But we. And we seriously had a long.

But no, we came out with a pretty. I would say in some circles it's as a very niche topic. But we came out with a title for our podcast that is something like coding is not design and making a statement like that. And definitely some people really disagreed with that.

Right. And what I find is this happens a lot with my Ink column in that it has more to do with the headline and the sub headline and less to do with someone actually reading the whole article. And this is where you want to be really careful with how you title things because when you title things sarcastically and or title them as like, you really are going to take the opposite position in your podcast or from what the title is. From what the title is. Yeah. Then people don't read enough, they don't listen enough, they just get pissed off. And so that's where you can have a lot of that happen. But what I do is when I see that though, and that happens, then typically I will make the comment of. I invite you to read the full article or listen to the full podcast because I agree with you. You know, it's not this. Right. And if you listen further, you would have realized that was the position we were taking. Right. And so you can call them out on that, which is good to do if you want to leave that comment trail or especially if a bunch of other people have started jumping on the comments because you don't want to shut it down because that makes you look like you aren't interested in debate. And so you want to go in there and just invite them to, you know, and don't do that in a comment to a comment. You do it straight up on as the next comment in the row because you want to push those comments down on the bottom so that's another thing. Just make sure to do that, whether you do it on Facebook or you do it on your own comment feed on the blog page.

Yeah. So I want to talk for a minute about, you know, how you might go about handling this. And I think it is difficult. Tracy, I think you're right. More often than not, when somebody responds in a knee jerk reaction kind of way and, you know, spews some venom out at you, oftentimes they haven't listened to the whole episode. They are reacting to only a portion of it, to the title, like you said, not having really listened, or the description of the podcast. And that's unfortunate because as a podcast host, when I know I'm going to be discussing a controversial topic, I really try to diffuse any potential haters right up front and I say, look, guys, this is a controversial topic and I want it to be clear that I'm not taking a position for or against this aspect of it. I want to talk about the realities of this other sort of aspect of this issue and try to keep everybody's understanding, understanding and the discussion you're having with your audience more productive. And usually that works if they actually listen to the episode. You know, people will express their opinions. Not, I don't agree with you. Coding is designed, you know, whatever, here's why. And hey, we can have a good productive debate about that and that furthers the conversation. That's the type of thing we like to do. I actually enjoy that.

Right. But I think that, you know, sometimes you have to look at this as you've hit on something that is an important thing to consider. And you have to look at your show from a perspective of monetization, if that's your goal and. Or brand value, whatever those two things might be, because it's the value of the show. Right. Whether or not you are able to take advertisers and sponsors and. Or it's creating value for your brand and what you sell, your services or your coaching or whatever the program is, or whatever services you offer. So those two things are building value or you wouldn't be doing this or you wouldn't be listening to our show, because that's what our show is about, is really how to build that kind of value for yourself. And so when you think about it from that perspective, having a negative going on in that is not an invited thing unless it's important to the brand value of where you're going. And if that is that you are that kind of person who's a mediator, you are that Kind of person who can turn a negative into a positive. If that's who you are and that's what you're about, then you dive into that. That makes total sense there. But advertisers really like to shy away from that. They call it negative keywords. And so there is a way in which you want to dive into negative keywords and people do do it, but you have to do it in a very different way. So for instance, Route 91, Route 91 in the Las Vegas shooting, that was a high level negative keyword going on. Right. People are searching for that because they want information, but it's not a positive thing that they're doing. Right. So associating your brand with that, if there's not a purpose, not an authenticity and not a reason to do it, can backfire on you by the comments that you'll get back from supporters of survivors, right? So they were like, you're just jumping on the bandwagon. This is terrible. Veterans, whenever you write something about veterans, it can backfire on you if you're just really doing it and gratuitous way. And so these are the things you have to be really cautious of because that kind of backlash can hurt your ability to monetize later. Sponsors are very, very cautious of that. They're also very cautious of right now. This is why there's a huge devaluing going on on YouTube channels because they have banned anything having to do with violence. And advertisers, lots of advertisers block those negative keywords. So if there's associated with you, you might get your whole show blocked on YouTube from being allowed to take advertisers on that. So that could happen. It's highly unlikely to happen in POD because of the way that the shows get sponsors and especially in our system, the way that we do it, because you're in control of that process, Right. So any sponsor would know you like. In our case, we did talk about Route 91, but my sister is a survivor. There was a very personal reason for having that discussion and I had her permission. And so it made sense that we were talking about it and we were talking about it in a positive light as to thinking about your responsibility in that. And so we were looking at it from a very different perspective. And anyone who would go to place ads on the show, they may prefer they didn't place an ad on that particular show, which we can block out. But knowing us, they would not have said, oh, this show, I don't want to touch it. They're Too controversial?

Yeah, no, I think we were very upfront. We did that in a very appropriate way with that episode. It was relevant to our podcast mission and subject matter in general. And you had a personal reason for wanting to do it, so it was worth doing. But we made a statement very much up front. Look, guys, we are not making a political statement for or against the second amendment of the US Constitution. That is not what this episode is about. Sort of defusing anyone, saying, oh, you guys just want to talk about this because you don't want the second Amendment. You know, we didn't want to get into that kind of debate and it didn't matter whether we were actually for or against the second Amendment. That wasn't the issue. You sort of take that off the table, the most controversial element, and then you can get into the deeper subject that actually makes it worth it. There was a lot more common ground in general between, you know, people out there in the podcast listening universe. So you can handle it. So that's what I always try to do. I always try to take the high road when there are people that, you know, disagree with things that we have to say. We welcome the disagreement. We always say that, hey, guys, you know, let us know your thoughts. You know, we know you're not all going to agree with us, but hopefully we can have that civil discussion and keep it productive. And generally the listeners always do that. Especially when we know we're getting into a potentially touchy subject. We try to do that.

Right. And that's really where I think that, you know, in a sense, our ad system has an advantage, because if there is a brand that wants to sponsor a show and they don't want to be associated with controversial subjects around sex or around violence, or they just don't want any of the shows that have explicit content in it because they're a family friendly company or a brand, we have the ability to block those and move the episodes around and being able to say, oh, don't place that ad here. So it gives you a lot of control and a lot of flexibility. So it makes brands feel a lot more comfortable with it. But you do have to be aware of that when you have these negative comments start happening on episodes that you didn't expect it to happen on, that's when you get into this issue of like, wow, what have I stepped in?

Right?

What's going on here? And so that may be where you decide that that is a subject definitely worth addressing in the comments, but addressing in a very constructive and non antagonizing way and then making another episode about it. And that's what we did.

That's right.

We've done that a few times. You can follow up with another episode about it and just say, hey, I said this at the end of the episode and somehow I stepped in something that I shouldn't have and didn't explain my position really well. I'd like to explain that now. And I think we can have a really constructive. Because I think this is a hot topic. Let's have a constructive conversation around it and. Or invite one of the counterpoints, the counter opinions. Invite someone knowledgeable in that to come on and talk about their position.

You know, that's a great idea, Tracy. And because I always find that when people out there, podcast listeners, people who visit your website and read your blog post, whatever, it is much easier for them to be negative, controversial, more harsh in expressing their opinion about what you had to say when they do it over social media or in an email than if they're talking to you actually live in person, on the phone or as a guest on your show. There's something that I've noticed over the course of our careers, Tracy, that started happening about 1995 is sort of my earliest recollection of the emergence of the Internet at being this sort of shield geek out a little bit, you know, sort of like being on the Star Trek Enterprise and you got your shield out, you know, holding people back from you. You know, the Internet and email especially was the first way it started happening because text messages weren't around then became this sort of buffer zone for people expressing their opinions. You know, it used to be you had to write a letter and that, that took a lot more effort. You're going to write a letter and nasty someone and mail it. You know, you had to take a lot more action to make that happen. And then, wow, email, Jeez, I just have to type something up and push a button. I don't have to go to. Well, it's a lot easier. And then chat and bulletin boards, all sorts of things. And then text messages and now social media. While in some ways, you know, it's a double edged sword because when you put something out there on the Internet, you almost can never take it back. It lives there pretty much forever. And you're branded by what you say on the one hand, on the other hand, you know, you have things like Yelp and people leave reviews there and Facebook and Twitter and all this stuff on your itunes.

There are ratings and reviews. So there's, you know, there are places at which it will happen, and they'll be very negative. And the best medicine is really to just to, like, load it with better comments ahead of time. I mean, that's exactly how we do it on Amazon all the time when we're doing product, right. We get better reviews in and we comment on and we drop them to the bottom so that they have less value. And so that's the one way to do that. I just do really want to touch on the email, though, because it can be very personal, because that still feels like someone took the time to write you a letter today. It feels like that. And so I have been the recipient of a couple of really nasty emails, and it has always shocked me how.

I would say brazen.

I wouldn't say brazen because I think that emboldens them too much. I think how little regard for the fact there is a human being at the other end of that email. I don't think people realize that people have. Yeah, in Twitter, yeah, I get it. People just type stuff. It's 140 characters. They barely spend three seconds on it. And they type dumb stuff. I mean, that's very apparent in the world, which is one of the reasons why we drop Twitter personally. I mean, as a business, we just, like, it was a little value. People weren't spending enough time, so there was no quality conversation going on. So why keep doing it? It didn't feed into our brand and what we want to do. Right. It didn't feed our values, and so that's why we dropped it on Facebook. We have much better conversations all the time. And the reality is that I don't see it happening as often. And I think it's because there are actually a little more social controls on Facebook. So, in other words, if we're good people, we provide a really good value through our shows, and we have lots of friends and family and associates and other things. They'll jump on and say, oh, you've got Tom and Tracy wrong. Right. Like, you know, they will jump on the negative comments before it happen, when it happens in a private message or when it happens in email, that it really, really feels hurtful and hateful. And that's where we get these podcast haters. And they are specifically targeting demographics. They're targeting young kids, millennials, who are maybe a little green.

Right.

They're targeting a lot of women making, you know, really overt overtures. I get them all the time on LinkedIn, which just shocks me to no end. And I get these emails that are basically women hating Emails basically saying that I should shut up, get in the kitchen and let Tom talk and that I shouldn't have an opinion. And you know, you gotta address it, you've gotta just straight because it feels too personal. So what I have chosen to do is I certainly don't out them. It is not my personality to do that. I do personally respond though. I do personally respond in an email back to them and say, you know, I'm sorry that maybe some woman hurt you really badly, but my show is free and I invite you to not listen, listen. And that's basically the way I chose to address.

And I think what that does and other techniques like that, what they really do is hold a mirror up to that person who made that statement. Because I think a lot of times people, while, you know, they are definitely communicating their opinion and they didn't like something and it's generally negative, I don't think they always are completely conscious of how what they've written will be received and it's often received in a much more negative and harsh light than they intended. Whereas if they had a conversation with you or in the same room, your facial expressions, your posture, your tone of voice as you communicate back and forth gives them a feedback loop that they realize, wow, maybe, you know, oh, what I was thinking, I'm not going to quite say it as harshly and maybe I was thinking about it the wrong way. A lot of things happen in real time like that, that don't happen when you're having a one way communication like an email, like a Twitter post or a text message, whatever it may be, where technology I think has hurt human communication in a lot of ways and made it more harsh.

Right. And I also think in a way that we're. There's also this sort of idea that we must have some social management group and so there's like always a shield and that it's not being received personally. So they can be more harmful and hurtful and it just doesn't matter. Like that's how it has always felt. So I used to own a store, I owned a store for tween girls up in Northern California for a while and it was called Pure Girls. And we used to have these fun glam parties and I used to get, get nasty emails all the time about putting makeup on five year olds and you know, it was like a little bit of glitter and a lot of glitter in their hair, mind you, but a little bit of glitter on their face or a little bit of lip gloss, you know, it wasn't like and it was fun. We had fun parties. And I knew I was, it wasn't.

All five year olds, it was mostly tween, like between, you know, 8 and 14.

Yeah, 8 and 12 is probably our biggest age groups. But I used to get nasty emails from parents about this yet how it wasn't appropriate, how it wasn't appropriate. And honestly, a lot of them actually weren't parents. It's like you got the emails from people who weren't parents because mothers were like in there all the time. But what would happen was, is that you started to realize that they were treating the emails that they were sending in the way that they were sending it, like there wasn't a person at the other end, that there was a corporation at the other end. And so when you respond back, you enlighten them to the fact that, look, I'm a mom with three daughters. At that time I only had one, but you know that I'm a mom with a daughter. And this is what we're doing here. And I invite you to come in and check it out because see, it's in good fun and in good experimentation and good taste. And there is none of that going on. And if you actually, you know, walked in here, you would realize that. And in our case, we were fostering this big sister environment, so we had teen girls working with tween girls. And so it was like a mentorship, but it was really a cool way to go about doing it. And one of my daughters is named after one of those big sisters. That's how well it worked. And so, you know, you get into this position in which you really don't need to explain yourself, but you invite them to come in and check it out in a more detailed way. You're calling them out on the fact that they aren't doing that.

And the nicer way of saying that is you're illuminating to them that maybe they were having a knee jerk reaction to this. And if they took a little bit different perspective, thought about it a little different way, maybe they wouldn't have chosen to say what they said in the way that they said it. And that's really what this is about. So I think this is just sort of a good cautionary sort of episode. And I know we have some of our customers, we have of new podcasts coming up that aren't launched yet, but are treading into some controversial territory, some territory that definitely can breed these kinds of comments and communications, you know, especially ones that I don't want to give too much away because These are new shows that haven't been produced yet, but things that tread into government conspiracy theories.

Polarizing. Polarizing ideas, Right?

Polarizing topics that can be seen a certain way. And so I think, you know, you just want to always think about that just because you as the host, are thinking about it a certain way in your mind and it makes perfect sense, and you think it should be perfectly benign to everyone out there, realize that different people will see things different ways and may not see it the way you do. So you, on certain topics, you may want to preface the discussion, or if not preface it sort of close with some sort of diffusing sort of statements that don't diminish the weight of your message and what you want to communicate, but instead help take things off the table that you really didn't intend.

Like, we're presenting one viewpoint. We'd like to present you more. Those are other ways that. Which you could do it. This is one episode of three in which we'll present you the three different viewpoints, right? So you want to be cautious of that and cognizant of that. When you have a topic that is like that because you are not the recipient of it, right? You're not the listener, you're not the receiver of it. So you don't know what baggage they're bringing to that as well. So it is sometimes surprising to you. And when it surprises you, you. You need to take it in a constructive way. You say, wow, I didn't mean it that way, or I did mean it that way, but I didn't realize how it was going to be received.

And look, I want to be clear here. I'm not suggesting that you, as a host, do not express your opinion.

Oh, no, please do.

I think expressing your opinion is very important, and it's your right as the show host. This is your show. You don't have to deal with a network who's going to put it out there. Now, at some point, you may have to deal with potential advertisers that may or may not want to advertise on your show. And that's something for you to consider. But certainly in the beginning of a show, that's not as usually as big of a limitation. But, you know, express your opinion. Just be aware of how others may perceive what you have to say and.

The backlash that might come from that. Right? And that's okay. I mean, I guarantee you there are people out there. Bill O'Reilly started a podcast, and I guarantee you he's probably getting tons of mail that have nothing to do with the show topics. Tons of backlash just because of who he is. And that can happen to you as well. So, you know, it just, just as you know, we have a couple of great sports figures. They have a bad season, their fans might go nuts, and you just don't know what's going to happen to you. So we just want you to kind of be prepared about how to address it. And so really, my three guidelines for you is, number one, just really check out who they are and if this is a pattern for them, just don't respond because you're treading into what is a podcast troll territory.

Sometimes less is more.

Yeah. So just ignore them because that's exactly what they're going for. And in that, you get caught up and they want. They win in the traffic, you lose every time. And then if it is valid, take it for what it is and say, wow, you opened my eyes. I really need to rethink this or I'm going to do a new episode. Invite them on the show, whatever that might be. But take constructive criticism well. And then if it truly is a hater who is just doing some hurt, then find a way to respond. Don't do a gut response back. Don't wait.

Let it marinate.

Let it marinate. And think about the appropriate response that is constructive back.

Even if they're not constructive.

Even if they're not constructive, because I have found every single time I have done that, it has shut it down. They usually are too embarrassed to respond back again.

I agree.

And it hasn't mattered whether I did it on social media or whether it happened in email. They will not respond back once that happens.

Yeah, I agree. Taking the high road is always a good thing. Politely, even if they haven't been polite to you, pointing out what they may not have considered when they wrote it. You know, I agree with you, Tracy. More often than not, they're embarrassed and they just don't want to continue the discussion because they realize they made a mistake. Can I guess they don't have enough integrity to apologize and own up to what they did, but at least it ends at that point.

That's right. That's right. So anyway, we just wanted to kind of give you some fuel and preparation for it because the more you feed your brand, the more negativity you might attract. And that's unfortunate side effect.

Yeah. And actually, just a little side note, if you're a new podcaster, please don't panic about this. This doesn't happen that often. I mean, in what have we total. We've recorded like 550 episodes across our couple podcasts. Somewhere in there, south of 600 episodes and honestly, less than 10. I thought we could them on the fingers of one hand, maybe.

I know. I think there's. Because there's a lot of comments we don't ever allow on the blog post that just get deleted off of there. I mean, we haven't even touched on spam because you get a lot of spam in there too. But yeah, we get a lot of comments that never even make it to it. So you would never see it cut it down before.

So think about that. Five or six hundred episodes. What now is. I don't know, it's at least. We've got to be getting close to a million total downloads total on all that. And so out of that, really, you say less than 10 people, so it's. It doesn't happen that often, but this is for those of you that haven't experienced it yet. And when it happens the first time.

Oh, my gosh, it does hurt.

You're going to. It's going to like shake you, shake you through your core. It's like an earthquake or seismic event happens with your show. And don't let it be that because it's really not. Hopefully this will help you deal with it. And if you need something to bounce it off of, then write to us, reach out to us, and we'll.

Believe me, I. They will involve many, many phone calls to your life coach after that, just anyway, because you'll be like, is this really true about me? So it will still feel right in your soul, but you can bounce it back and you can bounce back from it, and sometimes it makes a better show.

Controversy is one of the major things that makes people listen, so it's not necessarily to be avoided.

That's right.

Anyway, just be prepared. I guess that's what we're saying today.

So. Well, anyway, if you have anything you'd like to share with us or a topic you'd like us to cover, we invite you to reach out to us on social media, eat your brand, or of course, on the website at feed your brand.

All right, well, hey, thanks for listening, everybody. We'll be back next time with another great episode. This has been Tom and Tracy on feed your brand.

Sam.