5 Types of Audience Members You Can Safely Ignore

5 Types of Audience Members You Can Safely Ignore

Reader Comments (13)

  1. Very insightful! This is excellent advice, not just for blogging, but for life in general. These lessons should be taught starting in kindergarten. If more social interactions were based upon these ideas, there would be more unity and peace, instead of divisiveness and hate. I look forward to your next blog.

    • Thanks, Douglas!

      And we don’t always have to agree with each other.

      I think we can welcome different opinions in peaceful ways, but it’s smart to recognize when someone isn’t playing by those rules. 🙂

  2. I’ve experienced it all on some level. But, the person who just wants to argue was the hardest one to deal with.

    I used to have a blog geared towards single men looking for love. It did very well and got a lot of traffic. But, I had a few guys who would argue any point I made, even if it was in line with their original opinion.

    I remember one guy who affected me so negatively that I almost stopped writing on that blog because of him. It wasn’t just my blog that he was argumentative (really hateful) on. I had seen his comments on other blogs. But, it felt very personal.

    He was just a miserable guy who wanted to fight, fight, fight.

    My energy was drained from him. I knew that I soon as I hit publish on any type of post, he would be there bashing me and everything I said. I wanted people to feel free to speak their mind, but he was too much. Finally I had to block his IP address. Thankfully he didn’t get on a new IP address.

    • That’s a tough one. In my experience, blocking those kinds of relentlessly toxic folks from reaching you is the only way to move forward. There’s nothing constructive about that kind of criticism.

    • I’ve had too many of those – also known as trolls. The worst type of troll, in fact. I teach startups how to go to market and earn revenue in early stages of launch, and it seems like nearly every troll online wants to argue over some of the techniques, sources or tools I cover. Or just argue in general… about me, my writers, etc.

      • I’ve always wondered … are trolls aware that they’re trolls or do they really just think they’re doing the right thing by relentlessly arguing?

        However, I’m also aware that answering that question is a waste of time. 😉

        Writing a Comment Policy isn’t a waste of time though. It’s a great way to establish guidelines for your site, so you have a public document that clearly states what you will and won’t tolerate.

    • That’s a shame, Kari. It’s such an unfortunate part of being online that we can’t control.

      Luckily, we can control our standards for our online homes, so I’m glad blocking his IP address worked.

  3. Similar to the person that just wants to argue is the person that wants to “save” you. But since they’re always claiming higher ground and seeming not to be mucking it up, but simply not accepting your point of view, it can be pretty frustrating. Eventually I got to a place that I was grateful for their readership but understood that they just couldn’t understand me, and stopped placing any energy in it.

  4. Oh, this brings to mind a valuable lesson I learned with my first book! Reviews were coming in at 4/5* until I received blistering comment from a reader saying I had stuffed the book with quotations just to make it longer. I was crushed because I had worked so hard to avoid that very thing. I had a kneejerk reaction and immediately set out to remove ALL of the quotations. The book was self-published but still, it took me a few days to make the changes and ensure the integrity of the formatting. A day after I republished it I received an email from a reader (who obviously had the original version) praising the book and telling me how much the quotations inspired her! And yes, I changed it back to the original version. Oh, what a lesson that was and I’ll never forget it!

    • Thanks for sharing, Marquita! That’s a terrific example of how you can’t please everyone.

      We’ve all had some version of that happen to us.

      The criticism can really psych you out, but it’s a beautiful moment when you get that praise and (hopefully) regain confidence in your original vision, knowing you produced your best work.

  5. How about the one who says “I love your content, can you point me towards more sources on X topic”? Only X topic is something that’s only tangentially related to yours, and it would take time to pull together anything useful for them…

    • That’s an interesting one, LJ!

      It could be: “The person who asks too much of you.”

      On the surface, if a reader asks for more information, it can be a great opportunity to provide value for them.

      However, like you said, if they ask for something “only tangentially related” to your topic, they are essentially asking you to do their content research for them.

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