Whatever we post, we never know for sure how people will respond to it. So how do we handle comments?

It’s like plucking a fowl!

Use hot water first before you start. And don’t throw the feathers to the wind! 

• Be hot stuff and write hot stuff! (Chuckles) Been properly prepared for the worst, takes some of the strain out of the job. 
• Some feather may stick to your fingers and clothes, and the rest spread worldwide into unknown territories! And you can’t gather them in again! 

Right at the beginning:

• Decide what you will not talk about. And censor any personal connections to what you say. 
• Consider people’s feelings in everything you do. Don’t say inappropriate things. 

Know your topic inside out:

The more you know about the topic you’re covering, the more likely you’ll be able to handle comments. 

Once something is posted:

You can’t stop or interrupt it. It is out of your hands! 

Remember you can’t please everyone:

No matter how hard you work on your blogs, not everyone is going to love it. 

• So boost the topic with something super extraordinary.  
• Approach the topic from different angles. Get the `die-hards’ something to think further about. 

Remember there are many points of view: 

So don’t post your draft for a few days. Then before posting, read what you have prepared again. Look at it from other people’s perspective. As if you were one of them. 

1. Would you be offended, if you had to read that personally? 
2. How will they relate to that? Is the topic too sensitive?
3. What you have written, does it cover the topic effectively? 
4. What is left out? Do you need to fill in more sentences to make it more understandable? 
5. Is it truly helpful? Or is it just a lot of `hot air’ without substance? 
6. Is there a little gem of knowledge or info there that someone will benefit from? 

Ten-to-one, 

…there will be those that don’t comment on your actual topic! Don’t let that surprise you. Remember not everyone is `on the same page’. 

• In that case, re-read their comment and try figure-out their proposed agenda, their purpose for commenting. 
• Perhaps they haven’t even properly read your post, or understood it, to follow the basic train of thought running through your post. 
• No matter how people respond to you post, keep it friendly. If you are friendly, people tend to follow your attitude.  

Let me relate to you, what someone else taught me… 

Laugh in the face of opposition:

I was doing art demos in a gallery and watched the young man help customers choose frames at the counter. He was brilliant at his job.  

Even though he knew just what design and colours would suit the painting involved, he didn’t actually do the framing himself. Framing was done elsewhere, not in the art gallery itself. 

1. And if customers came back with a complaint, that there was dust under the glass, he would agree with them with a smile and a light chuckle, and said that it sometimes happens when there is static.  
2. That would put them at ease and they would laugh happily with him when he said he would have it fixed right away the way they wanted it done. 
3. They would walk out the gallery knowing he understood their problem and how crazy it was that dust had somehow got under the glass! 

His wisdom: He knew how to defuse an ugly situation by been friendly and by showing people things weren’t really as bad as they thought. He did it with suitable humour! 

Conclusion: 

• Emphatic humour often gets us out of many a bad situation. 
• Sensitivity and a smile, makes the `world go round on better wheels’