How To Deal With People’s Negative Comments On Social Media Requests

Let’s face it. Not every request we make on social media gets a positive response. Not every interaction we have with other people is kind and supportive. This is true on social media and in life in general. We have to be able to deal with negative comments when we are interacting with people – whether we like it or not.

Some of us have a lot of life experience in dealing with negativity, and this is why I feel compelled to write about this. And I have spoken with several people who stopped reaching out on social media because of bad experiences. That is unfortunate because we also know that reaching out to people and connecting with them on social media is a great way to build awareness about our businesses.

This article offers some insights on dealing with people’s negative comments in your social media requests, so you won’t let negative comments discourage you from growing your business.

First, let me give you a couple of examples for illustration.

Aloha, I see that we have?similar interests in …

I often use this sentence starter for my connection requests on LinkedIn. It can be based on following the same topics or being a member of the same group. Most people respond in a friendly manner thanking me for the connection request. But every once in a while, I get a negative reply back like:?

“No!”

or

“Good luck proving you know so and so….”

Another example is from one of my clients. She had reached out to some of her connections to ask if they wanted to participate in an audience survey for her online course.

Most people replied positively and participated in her survey. But one connection said:

“I’m not your audience.”

The one negative comment stood out for her rather than the many positive responses.

A similar situation had happened for another person I met with recently for a virtual coffee. He mentioned that he had stopped making connection requests on LinkedIn because of negative comments about his connection requests.?

I know that we are not unique in this respect. A lot of us like to be liked. I know I do. I don’t like rejections. The negative comment tends to stand out rather than the positive ones. And I know from experience that I don’t like to feel socially excluded from the tribe.?

Why our brain is sensitive to negativity

Researching the topic, I found this interesting quote that explains why our brain is sensitive to negative comments:?

“In order to survive, the human brain had to have the innate ability to learn and to learn what its social environment demanded. That is, the human brain adapted by prewiring itself both to learn and to be social. As our ancestors discovered, the inability to do either, led to social exclusion and significantly reduced the odds of survival.” (Stone & Heen, 2015)?

In other words, there are good reasons for our sensibility to negative comments because our belonging to the group early in our evolution was imperative to our survival. As human beings, we fear rejection, not being liked, and isolated.

In business, this human drive for approval and acceptance can hinder our business growth if we don’t know how to deal constructively with negative comments and feedback.?

Below are the responses I got on a poll on LinkedIn about how negative comments affect how people do business.

As you can see in the poll:

• 31% answered: “I don’t care what people think.”
• 19% answered: “I argue with negative comments.”
• 25% answered: “I hesitate to make requests.”
• 25% answered: “Other.”

In the comments, an answer was:?

“I don’t allow a negative to bother me; it’s part of the process,”?Larry Reines.

I found this answer very inspiring. The response highlights how we choose how we deal with things. I have needed to learn that for myself.

Man’s Search for Meaning

In?Man’s Search for Meaning,?Viktor Frankl describes how he survived imprisonment in the concentration camps during World War 2. This was a first-hand experience dealing with an extremely difficult and harmful situation.

“If … one cannot change a situation that causes his suffering, he can still choose his attitude.” (Frankl, 1992 edition).

Even though incarceration in a concentration camp cannot be compared with receiving negative comments on social media requests, Frankl’s approach to coping with negativity is helpful. It can be applied in dealing with all sorts of negativity.

He Who Has a WHY…

The key takeaway is that when we are clear on our purpose in life and business, a different opinion will lose its power to dominate our thoughts.?

“He who has a?why?to live for can bear almost any?how.” Nietzsche

Put in the extreme context of the concentration camps:?

“…those who knew that there was a task waiting for them to fulfill were most apt to survive.” Frankl

For Frankl, it was the deep desire to rewrite the manuscript he had lost when he arrived at Auschwitz.?

We need a worthwhile goal

The bottom line is that we can overcome many challenges when we feel like we have a worthwhile goal in our business and life. Knowing our WHY also makes us better equipped to deal with negativity.?

According to the logotherapy Frankl developed based on his experiences, we can discover meaning in 3 ways:?

1.?????By?creating a work?or doing a deed – striving to achieve or accomplish a goal

2.?????By?experiencing?something (goodness, truth, beauty) or?encountering?someone (love)??

3.?????By the?attitude,?we take toward unavoidable suffering?

“Suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning, such as the meaning of a sacrifice.” Frankl

In my experience, I have found that it becomes easier to deal with the negative comments when I take a step back and look at the interaction from a detached point of view. Often negativity is a projection of other people’s own stuff.

“It’s not about me!”?

The other thing that helps me is that I try to come from kindness and tolerance. It is part of building a business to reach out to people and grow a network. How people choose to respond is their business.?

The other thing that is helpful in my eyes is humor. It is always great to be able to laugh at ourselves.

These are my thoughts about dealing with negativity. What do you think?