It’s not a matter of if a social media manager will experience a troll attack. It’s a matter of when.

I’ve handled social media accounts for all kinds of industries and of all kinds of sizes. It doesn’t matter how small or how nice your page is. You can’t please everyone all the time. So you will do something that will set off a troll attack at some point. This has nothing to do with you and you can’t really make sure it doesn’t happen. A troll is just an unhappy person who wants to take their unhappiness out on someone. You were just the chosen target that day.

Knowing that, it makes sense to prepare a plan for it. Because it can take you down, so far down, and it can be very hard to dig out. But with a plan, you don’t have to work so hard to get back to normal. So let’s talk about it.

Backup person

You should have a fully trained backup person for so many reasons. But having one for the eventuality that someone on social media is attacking you and you’re not mentally capable of doing your job is probably one of the best.

Having a backup person ensures that you won’t have to deal with all of the ramifications of a troll attack on your own and you won’t have to be posting or engaging with fans when you’re mentally not able to. Because the person handling social media, especially during a troll attack, needs to be mentally strong. We can’t be mentally strong all the time.

If I were you, I would meet with your backup person at least once a month to go over what you’re doing and why. You don’t have to go full out with everything. Just give them enough so that they are knowledgeable about what is going on. And take the time to update them on what is happening with social media as a whole. Keep them updated just enough that they could take over temporarily with as few bumps as possible.

Crisis plan

This should be a part of your crisis plan. There should be a clear plan of how this is communicated and to whom. Then put the steps together you would take in the many different ways this could go down.

And include in this plan a mental health check with you. Have it with someone you trust within the organization so you can figure out if it is safe and smart to have you continue to do the social media. This shouldn’t be about whether you’re good at your job. It should solely be whether you’re capable of it in your current mental state at this point in time. And honestly, I would pick someone who would help guide me to the correct decision on this rather than someone who would make the decision for me. I just think I’d react better if I took myself off the account temporarily rather than someone taking me off the account.

Mental health plan

And speaking of mental health, I think it’s really important to know what works for you when it comes to your mental health. It’s even more important to have all of those tools available to you when something like this happens. And those small tools will likely help you in this case. But we also need the big guns.

If you’re in therapy, have the best way to contact your therapist in an emergency available. If you don’t, make sure you have someone readily available who you can just rant at. It’s obviously important that this is a person who doesn’t gossip and who won’t try to fix the situation. They should only be there for listening and support.

Make a plan to fit frequent breaks into your schedule. If you have stepped away from handling the social media, that is obviously a bit easier. If you haven’t, this is another moment where you can lean on your backup person. Let them know that you may just need their help with taking breaks. It will make you stronger for those moments when someone takes a particularly bad swipe at you or the organization. You’ll be more likely to remember that this whole thing is about them, not you.

Prepare some easy win posts

Fully re-entering social media for your organization after something like this can be hard. So having some posts at the ready just for these circumstances can make it a little easier.

What kind of posts should you have? They should make your fans happy and noncontroversial. This is basically anything you might lean on in the case you need a little boost for engagement. Write these posts out when you are not in the middle of a troll attack so your mental state doesn’t affect them. And then they can be ready to go when you need them.

Update these posts at least every few months. You likely will have tiny changes to how you do posts that will make these posts a little outdated. And what your audience responds to in a positive manner will likely change. Keeping these posts updated will make sure you have to do minimal editing when you have to deploy them. The less you have to think when you are not at your strongest, the better.

In the end, you really can’t fully prepare for a troll who is trying to make you feel as bad about yourself as they feel about themselves. But taking a few precautions could go a long way towards getting you over it quickly when it does happen.

How have you prepared for a troll attack?