Sep 10 2011
Hate Mail!
I read somewhere that getting hate mail is a good sign. It means you’re onto something. If someone’s willing to spend 20 minutes telling you how wrong, stupid or unattractive you are, there are likely many other folks who dig what you’re doing.
When I started C3T back in May of 2011, I knew I’d get something like this eventually. I just didn’t think it would happen so soon.
I hope you’ll forgive a little self-indulgence. This is worth a celebration. Receiving this email confirmed that C3T is exactly what I need to be doing. I thought I would have to work for at least a year before I started getting notes like this. But here we are, a little over 4 months in, and splashes have been made.
Want to Read it Already?
A little context – My day job is at Burst Marketing, where I recently gave a presentation on contemporary lead generation tactics.
We invited all of our clients (and got a great turnout! woohoo!) However, one person just didn’t feel it was a wise investment of his time. Here’s his RSVP.
Dear *Name Withheld to Protect the Innocent*,
I apologize, I won’t be making this event.
On a side note, if you are going to have someone speak on Search Engine and Social Media Marketing, have them have a Twitter with more than 247 followers (23 more than he’s following) and a website that is White Barred with Page Rank - http://www.cookingthreetimes.com/
All his backlinks come from one site alexlikestodraw.com. To put it mildly this would be the last person I would listen to about SEO, SEM, Internet Marketing or anythingregarding a website.
I’m speaking from several years of SEO Experience, both at a major national SEO firm, a multiple website owner and local business person.
Burst Marketing seems to have a good reputation. But if this is the “SEO Department” then it leaves me scratching my head.
If your company wants to ever discuss SEO and employing major SEO, give me a call or email. I’d be happy to come in, sit down and speak with your Executives and offer them a far more viable and reputable SEO alternative.
Have a look at my company site: *URL removed*
Hope all is well,
*Name Withheld to Protect Dude Who Appears to Want My Job*
Haters Gonna Hate
One of the biggest reasons I write this blog is to encourage passionate home cooks to push themselves. There’s so much satisfaction to be found in cooking. It’s immensely gratifying to put a dish on the table that your friends and family devour. Or to have a couple classics that your very significant other asks you to make over and over again (for me, it’s the pork roast with apple bourbon relish).
But know this: whatever you do in life, you’re going to meet haters.
It’s Not About You
Know this as well: aggressive stuff like that isn’t about you. It’s about the writer.
In this case, it appears that troll guy (not to be confused with Trololo Guy) believes I don’t deserve my job. Not to get too psycho-analytical, but I’d guess he’s seen many of the same things I’ve seen in SEO. It’s easy to claim SEO expertise because most business people don’t know how to evaluate SEO vendors.
Maybe he lost a client to a snake oil salesperson, and he’s fuming about it. Who knows. The point is, that’s his stuff (shout out to @Havi for the understanding of “Stuff”). And it’s got nothing to do with me.
How Do You Handle the Haters?
Had a similar experience? You know you have. Tell us about it here. Bonus points for telling us how you handled it and how it turned out.
4 Responses to “Hate Mail!”
I battle this stuff all the time. I could write a whole essay on the topic, but I’ll try to keep it brief.
First of all, screw that guy. You’re great at what you do, Braden, and your company is lucky to have you. Jealously is a compliment in my eyes.
As far as hate mail, I’ll speak to its role in blogging. As a blogger I have received my fair share of nasty comments and letters. The thing with blogs is no one is making you read them. It’s an at-will activity. Plain and simply, if you don’t like it, don’t read it, right? I’ve had people tell me I was a poser, a fraud, ugly and fat, a bad mother, had no idea what the fuck I was talking about, etc. It’s really, really hard not to take it to heart, and I had one that was so particularly nasty and biting that I cried about it for at least a couple of hours (I know, I know, lame, but I can’t help it. Double X chromosomes will do that to a person). Usually I can let it roll off my back but this was was tough to shake. Anyway… I’ve found that for every mean, nasty or particularly snarky comment I get, I get 4 or 5 amazing comments from incredibly loyal and kind readers. Like all else in life, you have to take the good with the bad. And if that doesn’t work, I just picture that “contributor” as a little kid, and think about what must of happened to them at some point in their life to make them so miserable (with nothing better to do). A little empathy is always a good thing. Sometimes I’ll write back, usually with an uber passive-aggresive tone (Aw, thanks so much for taking the time from your busy day to write to me! I really appreciate it. I’m sorry you feel that way, but it looks like there are about 50 other people who agree with what I’m saying here. I’ll take you note into consideration for next time, though. Hope you’ll keep reading buddy! xoxo – Deanna). Most of the time I just ignore it. And then I sing Lennon’s “Watching the Wheels” to myself and move on.
I have a policy on my blog(s) that all comments are welcome, just use some tact. I’m a firm believer that if you put your views out in the world, you have to be willing to accept what someone might say about them. It doesn’t mean that nasty comments are truly ever okay, but it does mean that we need to realize the world for what it is: A place where the democratic process is openly pursued and promoted; a place that isn’t all flowers and rainbows and sunshine. I WANT people to tell me if something I say is inaccurate or if they feel a strong opposition. With those comments (as long as they are coming from a good place), I ALWAYS respond, even asking for more information about how I can improve or learn more, if possible. Likewise, I’ve posted on other people’s blogs (in the kindest way possible) if I have found a gross neglection of fact or truth. But I think if the author(s) continue to publish faulty facts or veer away from the blog’s intent, I just stop reading, stop following. Once follower and traffic numbers dwindle, the author will need to re-evaluate what is being published. And perhaps that’s the best method.
This process has been going on for millenia (open conversations are the only real way to affect change, in my opinion), it’s just found a new platform in the form of blogs. Maybe I’m taking the matter too seriously, and maybe I romanticize it all a bit (okay, a lot), but whatev. As long as you are true to yourself and the mission of the blog (and know a little about SEO), the GOOD followers will come.
PS – congrats on being initiated into the club. Wear it as a battle scar, a badge of honor. You’re one of the cool kids now
Also, that wasn’t brief at all #fail.
Deanna recently posted..Hurricane Irene
Thanks @Deanna. Your buddy over at fussylittleblog assures me that it gets much worse.
My favorite part of what you wrote is about the good people. @Havi from fluentself.com (who I can’t stop quoting these days) talks about finding “your right people”. And I believe that wholeheartedly. C3T has proven this out. There have been over 100 comments so far on the blog, and only one has been aggressive. That’s a good ratio.
Shout out back at’cha – you’re exceptionally talented.
I should be finishing my reading for class tomorrow, but I’m exhausted. So quick C3T break before finishing my course prep.
As a teacher, I get the equivalent of hate mail every semester. They’re called course evaluations. While it might sound prideful, I’ll admit that I’m good at my job. I’m a good teacher, I’ve won teaching awards. And yet I promise you that I’ll get at least one negative evaluation from a student each semester. It’s just a given. Sometimes it has nothing to do with me. But sometimes it absolutely does. I’m a good teacher, but that doesn’t mean I’m a perfect teacher, and sometimes a mistake I make either really rubs a student the wrong way or it sticks with them. I can usually get over the comments that seem fair: I seem disorganized (sometimes I am disorganized), I talk too fast (I do), I am repetitive (which reminds me to be more transparent about WHY I repeat concepts). Bad evaluations remind me to take stock and see when they’re right, what I can improve. And if I see trends, then — and it took me a while to be able to do this — I know there’s something I need to change, even if it’s (again) just making clearer why I teach the way I do.
Then, sometimes, there are bad evaluations that are personal. One student wrote, almost verbatim, “She is the worst teacher I’ve ever had. She shouldn’t be allowed to teach a class by herself.”
Ouch.
That student hated me. He also included AN ENTIRE ARTICLE in the middle of his research essay. He couldn’t believe I wasn’t okay with that.
I knew that his evaluation was wrong, but it still made me stop to think about what it is that I did to make him hate me so very much. If it’s nothing, then no worries, but maybe it’s something.
And then there’s my yearly evaluation where all of my colleagues get to write anonymous comments about whether or not I’m meeting expectations and in what ways. Then they get read to me. Aloud. By my boss. It’s awful.
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