Social media is one of the great tools that I needed to start my own ERISA practice. While my Twitter handle can attract some interaction with non-retirement folks, I’m always mindful of what I post and how I handle myself. One thing I’ve never done is troll people in the retirement plan business over their comments. It would make me look bad, and reflect poorly on me.

I will say with the 13 years I’ve been online on LinkedIn with my own firm, I have had maybe two trolls. One was a guy who wasn’t in the 401(k) plan business who said that people like me and James Holland were selling fear for our services because we were for fee transparency. The other was a small, local third-party administrator (TPA) who seemed to have an issue with almost everything I’d post. I’m not talking about basic disagreements over opinion, I’m talking about someone trying to engage me in some sort of social media fight.

I see fewer of these fights these days and I’m glad for that because it means fewer providers disrespecting themselves by posting comments that make them look bad.