Going viral: how I turned online bullying on its head to double my social media following

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Going viral: how I turned online bullying on its head to double my social media reach in ten days 

 

Last summer, I had a post on TikTok that went viral.  It was a jokey reply to a troll and I had no idea that I would go from, in the morning having around 56,000 likes(still blows my mind), to jump to 105,000 in a number of hours.  I joined TikTok in the summer of 2021-though it took me a little while to have the confidence to post, I was off sick from work and partly felt I was a bit old(at 39 on an app that as far as I was aware, was mainly used by teenagers -how wrong I was, in the most amazing way.)  I'd been getting bored of Facebook for a while.  Like many people, when I first started using Facebook in 2007, it was great to reconnect with friends I'd lost touch with as well as -let's face it, we've all done it -get a sneak peek into whether the cool girls from school were still flawless, check out mutual friend's holiday photos, but over time I realised there were certain types of people -I call them lurkers -who would never post but you just now they were gossiping about you.  Certain types of posts that I would make as a joke would filter back to certain people who clearly had no sense of humour.

Anyway, I've got sidetracked.  In the days that followed, and I realised eventually this was because it was the summer holidays, many teenagers started to follow me and comment on my posts.  Some were lovely but there was a whole undercurrent of, I'll call them Mean Girls.  Personally I've never seen the attraction in being bitchy to other girls, I didn't do it in school and I don't do it now.  The world is divided into two camps -people who raise others up and make them feel good about themselves, and those who criticise and try to drag them down.  I won't pretend I have always got this right.  At first I would reply to the comments but 1) there were so many of them it would have taken all day 2) the friends I'd made on TikTok, the genuinely lovely people were getting sidetracked when they didn't deserve it.

Next, people began making fake accounts of me, using my content, calling me a slut, it got to the point where I was scared to check my notifications because the comments were so nasty and hurtful.  We've seen similar recently with the Selena Gomez and Hayley Bieber situation.  After a while a few good friends gave me some really goood advice -don't reply to the trolls, they aren't worth your time. 

It's so simple but it's so right.  In 2018 when I went through the break up of a ten year relationship(this is relevant trust me,), I really found out who my friends were.  There were people I'd worked with years ago, who I eventually realised were clearly rubber necking as I admittedly had a bit of a public meltdown.  But -and this surprised me -a few of the super cool girls from school(they had never bullied me despite me being one of the outsiders when we were at schoool) private messaged me to see if I was ok.  They were really there for me when I needed someone to have my back, and I will always be grateful to them for that.

Because what it boils down to is, it doesn't matter who you are, what job you do, what your marital status is, what your bank balance is.  You're either a decent human or you're not.  It's that simple.  I realised that I had a huge opportunity, I had a platform that I could use to spread a message.  I'm a massive believer in Karma.  If my teenage following saw me snap back at people, if they saw me react to cruel words, rather than ignore them, what sort of example would that set them?  Not a good one.

Since then I've built my following to -at last count 286,000 likes on my main account, and  57,000 likes on my backup account and built up a really lovely community.  I don't post as much as I used to(been working on my books), I'm much more responsible with my content these days, I don't do nudity, I don't swear(much), and any mean comments get deleted, and the individual blocked.  I've realised the hard way that these people are not worth the airtime.



Stay safe out there honeys

xoxo

 

Reading: Queen Bees and Wannabes by Rosalind Wiseman

Watching: People's speeches on The Oscars Red Carpet

Beauty: The Inkey List Hydrating serum-magic in a bottle!

Food:Moroccan Spiced Shepherd's pie

Drink: Strong coffee

Travel: West Somerset in the next few weeks

Current obsession:Working on my 3 books

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