Social Media Empowerment

It is without doubt that Social Media empowers people to feel they can act with impunity. However this has never really been true, there is no impunity on Social Media as accounts can be traced quite easily.

LinkedIn Posters Experiences

It is now a common experience of people who post that they get blasted by someone else’s opinion instead of experiencing a discussion. It may be that the responder is so insecure that they feel the need to bully others or it may be a strongly held belief. Either way it’s unprofessional, even things that you may consider to be universal or culturally correct may not be someone else’s experience.

How to Respond on LinkedIn

Like a court case, when responding you need to provide context and evidence (case studies, though often without the client name). Your summary opinion without the context of why your saying something is the response of a child (around the age of 4). Structure your response;

I disagree based upon my experience of …. it showed me that …. what is the bases of your post?

Responses to LinkedIn Bullies

Some people simply won’t behave like professional people, in those cases the following responses are common;

• Block people rather than engage with them if your the poster take a note of who they are first then delete their abuse, then block them. If you block them first their abuse is still on your post but now you can’t see it.
• If the comment is particularly vile or brings their company into disrepute forward it to their Managing Director, Head of Public Relations and Head of Sales one of them will contact Human Resources and get them retrained or have them fired.

Why deal with this at all?

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men should do nothing

Edmund Burke, 1795

For those who experience this kind of abuse I would suggest that you endure, my father taught me to never run away from bullies, your mere existence and experience diminish their hate because you won’t surrender or submit.

Please remember that you add a perspective that many people want to engage with they just need to think and write professionally.