Getting flack on Twitter? We’ve all been there. If you are being attacked on your personal account and not the brand you work for, here is the best way to handle Twitter trolls:
- Don’t delete your account! You will get called out for this and it will only make things worse. Corey duBrowa, ,SVP Global Communications Starbucks learned this the hard way!
- THINK before you respond. In most instances, my recommendation is not to respond. Most likely the troll will have a small following. If you don’t respond, the only people who will see the troll’s tweets are his / her followers. If you do respond, all of your followers will see the interaction as well.
- If the troll starts to tweet negative things about you to other Twitter accounts, just message the account and have them consider the source. Last year, a conference in Chicago was under fire for a party they hosted that offended some people. Someone started a @XYZconferencesucks twitter account and started tweeting negative things about the event to the event’s sponsors. The event ignored the tweets and reached out to sponsors explaining what was going on. The troll account didn’t have much validity.
- Grab a screen shot.
- Report the account as spam — you can access the report / block function by clicking the gear icon right next to the follow / unfollow button
- Block the account if the tweet contains a threat. Have a bit of a thick skin, if someone calls you a wus, just ignore them, if they threaten you the harassment is serious, it’s time to bock them.
- Contact Twitter support.
- Contact police if the tweet contains a threat.
There you have it! It’s very stressful to be under attack online, but most people ignore trolls and if you ignore them, they tend to lose interest and move on.