For every freelance blogger, social media can be Pandora’s box.

There’s the good:

• The ability to send pitches and letters of introduction at warp speed
• Instant access to bucketloads of research
• The potential to connect with clients, readers, and other writers worldwide

BUT…

There’s also the bad. Come on. You know what I’m talking about. The video where you’re dancing drunk on a table singing an off-key version of Adele’s “Rolling in the Deep.” The quickie post you passionately wrote, didn’t proofread, but still pressed publish.

Then there’s the ugly. Personal information — social security numbers or credit reports — leaked to the masses. Off-color comments trolls made about your writing or business that haunt the first page of Google.

And worst of all: the shiver-worthy nude photos and sex videos uploaded to the cybersphere by vengeful ex-lovers. (Let’s all hope that never happens to us.)

Worried your negative search results will have your clients pushing the escape key? Don’t fret.

Pull out your virtual shovel, roll up your sleeves, google or bing yourself, and follow these seven steps to bury your social media skeletons — and polish your online reputation. 

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If you’re a blogger, at some point you’ve probably gone toe-to-toe with an Internet troll — “a person whose sole purpose in life is to seek out people to argue with….over extremely trivial issues.”

If you haven’t had this delightful experience yet, you will sooner or later. Technology is maturing faster than we are, so Internet trolls have become a fact of life.

When my first article was published at xoJane, e-gremlins called me a jobless, spoiled, trust-fund baby. I was pegged as a psychotic, shitty writer, who’s only ever written sub-par, self-published novels and articles.

The comments made my stomach knot like a mall pretzel. I sobbed. One minute, I wanted to crawl back into my mother’s uterus. The next, I wanted to fight — to scratch my way out of the trolls’ black and white pit of negativity. I read the soul-sucking comments over and over for six hours.

I decided I wasn’t prepared for a war with faceless, nameless, word-wielding trolls, who relentlessly stalked me on my social media profiles. So I decided to play nice, which resulted in some of the trolls feeling bad for their comments and one admitting that her reading comprehension was poor.

But Stephen King says, “If you intend to write as truthfully as you can, your days as a member of polite society are numbered.”

We all know that trolls aren’t polite. They spew smoke and hurl fire. Their words leave you blistered, red, and peeling, but as you slowly heal, your skin becomes tougher and your scars fade.

My cyber-bullying experience taught me valuable coping skills. Now I can mentally clobber any troll that comes my way, and you can too. 

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Blowing up a relationship — it’s every blogger’s worst nightmare, and a few months ago, it almost happened to me.

My only steady client sent me a fuming email. She demanded her money back because she claimed I had plagiarized, which was “unethical and… unacceptable.” The worst part: she said, “[I] can no longer accept your article submissions.”

I wasn’t originally given the chance to do a rewrite or explain my side of the story.

I was completely side-swiped.

After all, I’d done an interview with a popular wedding planner on Facebook. I had even sent my editor the transcript, and according to a free online plagiarism checker, my article had 0% non-unique content. (By the way, a 2014 study from Texas Tech found that plagiarism checkers often produce false positives, especially when jargon or “topic phrases” are used. Those checkers can also provide incorrect source links, and score papers inconsistently.)

It turns out I did plagiarize by accident. I’d copied quotes from something I’d read online and inserted them into my piece without proper attribution, so why did my client write this glowing testimonial less than a month later?

Cherese exudes personality in her writing, she consistently expresses innovative tips in a way that our readers love. Cherese has the ability to interview industry experts and summarize their knowledge using language that is easy to understand. Cherese shows incredible professionalism, is always open to feedback and works hard to ensure her posts meet our needs.”

I turned my rocky working relationship around, and you can too.

First of all, take a deep breath. Breathe in. Breathe out.

Are you calm? If not, hide your laptop, phone, or tablet. Yes, I’m serious! Go for a walk, scream into a pillow, eat a pint of Ben & Jerry’s (and cry into it), or get down on your knees and say a prayer.

Then pull up your britches and… 

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