Pros of Haters in Blogging Sphere. Is It True that Any PR Is Good for You?

This is a guest post by Leah Cooper. She is a professional writer and editor at AussiEssay. She writes about different topics in such spheres as e-learning, content marketing, blogging, self-development and freelancing. Feel free to follow her on Facebook and Twitter.

Someone decides to share their music with the world. They post videos on YouTube and they get few positive comments. What else do they get? Tons of hate. A writer publishes a book. Some people love it, but others post devastating comments on Goodreads, saying this publication is another proof that contemporary literature has no value. It seems like when someone is entitled to their opinion, they tend to trash other people’s work.

The blogosphere is not immune to haters. You’ll see them everywhere. They will be writing bad comments on your articles, they will troll you on social media, and they will post mocking commentary on forums. If you decided to blog, you have to be ready for such treatment.

Let’s observe haters from a different point of view. How they affect your confidence? How do they affect the popularity of your blog? Is any publicity good publicity?

Constructive Criticism Makes You Stronger, but Hate May Distract You from Your Goals

If you start maintaining a blog and you become really committed to regular posting, you’ll get all kinds of comments. Some people will thank you for sharing your insights. Others will suggest some improvements. Here’s a simple example of a constructive comment:

“I like what you suggest, but I think this post is too long. Did you consider presenting it as an infographic?”

Maybe your self-confidence will be affected by constructive criticism, but you’ll think about it and you’ll make some changes to make your audience happy. Hate is different. You can’t think about it because it doesn’t suggest any positive changes. It just tells you how bad your blog is. Almost all of your posts will end up with comments like:

“Do you have no smarter thing to do? Save us from your wisdom, please!”

“This dumbass believes millions of people will read this crap.”

“Let me give you an advice: never blog again.”

We can’t tell you a trick that would stop you from getting these comments. It doesn’t matter how smart you are and how great your blog is. Some people won’t like it. Most of them won’t even bother reading your posts before pouring their hate in the comments.

Obviously, they will affect your confidence. You can stay relatively immune to trolls, but some of the comments may hit you in a weak spot. However, you will be okay as long as you realize that no matter what you do, there will always be people who won’t like it. You have to stay focused on the goals you had when you started blogging. Are you getting good comments and constructive criticism? Well, that’s a good enough reason to carry on.

Plus, hate may not be such a bad thing after all.

Is Any PR Good PR?

You’ve heard this claim many times before: “there’s no such thing as bad publicity.” The consequences of hate on your confidence are obvious. Sometimes you wonder why you ever started blogging, and you consider the option of giving up. From a marketer’s point of view, however, the effect haters have on your blog is not that obvious.

Yes, Bad PR Can Be Good PR

Think about Kanye West. It’s like he enjoys getting hate from the public, so he tries hard to give them more material for witty comments. When you think about it, it wasn’t his music that made him a superstar; it’s the negative media coverage and hate he gets from people from all around the world. That reputation helped him build a career.

• Negative attention is still attention. If you’re getting hate in the comment section of your blog posts, it means you managed to reach out to people. Plus, getting comments on your blog is always a plus, since that means you got clicks. In other words – your marketing campaign was effective and people opened those links.
• Negative comments on social media can also be beneficial to some extent. When someone sees your post and tons of hate in the comment section, they will be intrigued to click the link and see what the big deal is. If you get only “good job” or “that was a nice post,” you won’t get the attention of random social media users.
• Here is another positive thing about hate: it devastates your true fans and they are always ready to defend you. We’ll assume that you have an awesome blog and your posts always make a point. Yes, you’ll still get bad comments, but you’ll also attract the attention of people who understand you. Some of them will respond to the haters, so you’ll realize that those are the fans you write for.

Not Any PR Is Good PR

Look, negative comments can attract tons of attention to your blog, but that doesn’t mean you should focus on getting them. Don’t be Kanye! You don’t want to give people reasons to hate you. If you’re purposefully producing hate material, you can’t turn it into good publicity for your blog.

Focus on your main goal: maintaining an awesome blog. Instead of trying to “troll the haters” by giving them more reasons to post bad comments, you should keep your loyal readers in mind and produce what they want to read.

Haters Will Always Be There. Make Sure They Don’t Push You Away from Blogging

There’s another thing we need to talk about: most haters will forget all about your blog as soon as they post their comments. When someone gives constructive criticism or disagrees with your point of view, they will come back to the post to see if you or other readers commented on their opinions. When someone posts a hateful comment without even reading your post, they won’t bother coming back. Why don’t you forget about them, too?

Feedback is great. Criticism is good when it makes a point. Hate is bad, and you should try not to pay attention to it. If you’re getting love from your loyal readers, you always have reasons to continue blogging.