Effective commenting as a way to build reputation in professional communities

In an era of socialization, it is difficult to imagine a person ignoring all kinds of communities and social networks. If we do not vote for photos of friends on Odnoklassniki, then, for sure, we exchange messages on Vkontakte. If not Vkontakte, then on Facebook. And, more often, at the same time both there and there. However, these social networks have the character of entertainment and for promoting themselves as a professional, if not completely unsuitable, they are poorly adapted. Another thing is professional communities. We will talk about participation in them.


I often observe how, seemingly successful, successful specialists, in response to criticism, allow themselves to leave remarks, the impression of which remains, to put it mildly, ambiguous. I’m ready to argue if they were with their opponent at the round table in the presence of other observers - they would surely choose expressions that are much more neutral and would not give the impression of guys who are quarrelsome and unbalanced. But negative comments are as natural as minus temperatures outside the window.
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Was Ivan Goldberg talking about the lowest level of self-control when defining Internet addiction? I do not presume to judge and instead formulate a few recommendations that I tried out on my own experience.

Do not comment

It looks, at first glance, the absolute nonsense. If you still decide to respond to a negative reply to your address, I ask you to think again. Allow one unpleasant comment to get lost among a dozen neutral ones and do not focus attention on it. Please note - users on the Internet tend to provoke each other for long meaningless discussions. I cannot explain why this is happening, but I can use this knowledge for my own purposes. Remember: your aggressive reaction to a negative comment in response will generate another negative comment. And so on ad infinitum, until one of the opponents runs out of funds on the provider's subscriber account or, less likely, is smart enough to stop. In addition, voluntarily getting involved in a verbal skirmish, you take up a defensive position. And the best defense, as you know, is different.


What to do when a statement directed against you is untrue, is defamatory and directly or indirectly defiles your honor or the honor of your company? In the case when it is impossible not to answer ...

Pause

Do not write back the first thing that came to mind. Firstly, because you risk roughly speaking a lot of things about which you should be silent. Secondly, in a fit of anger, you are more likely to start typing the keys faster than usual and make some annoying grammatical, logical, punctuation or other mistakes. Remember - this can be read by your potential customers. Among their business partners, they want to see confident professionals, rather than illiterate sociopaths.


Each of us at least once found himself drawn into such battles and in a fit of indignation immediately spoke many uncooperative and probably offensive words, and after a few minutes he lit up with a truly worthy and convincing answer that came to mind - "That's how it was necessary parry! " In order not to repeat mistakes, let off steam and calmly pick up an acceptable formulation of the answer. Avoid profanity, do not go to the discussion of the personality of the opponent. State the facts, stick to the main topic of discussion and be wary of bringing rumors as arguments.


And finally ...

Do not support the discussion

Honor your opponent with one but convincing answer. Be, however, ready to be answered, but this is likely to be the end of it. Once you join the discussion again - the discussion branch will continue to grow by leaps and bounds. It often happens that such wars of eloquence go in their madness away from the topic under discussion and expose their participants not in the best light.


Finally, another tip. If you, nevertheless, have gone all serious and are fighting to the last - do not delete your comments the next morning. Remember the Streisand effect - the removal of some information only leads to its wider dissemination.


Have a nice chat!