What to Do When People Talk Trash About You

We’ve all been there. You find out from a friend that someone is talking trash about you. Not to your face, though. The knife is in your back. Marketers know it all too well — they wake up to social media storms that feel like uncontrollable fires.

The first job is to figure out the trash-talker’s motivation, then to do something about it. Individuals may have the luxury of ignoring such assaults, unless they rise to the level of damaging their professional and personal lives (see “Monica Lewinsky and Jon Ronson on the ‘Renaissance of Public Shaming’ ”).