Moderating Your Online Community Guidebook

7/31/2019 Moderating Your Online Community Guidebook

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MZINGA l #1 IN ON-DEMAND SOCIAL SOFTWARE l MZINGA.COM 1

Moderating

Your Online Community

Best Practices Guidebook

Presented by Mzinga, Inc.

April 2012


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What is Moderation?

Actively monitoring &facilitating online content

and conversations


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Moderation strategies, usageguidelines, trend reports

Suggest areas of improvements &reporting on the concerns of yourcommunity

Observe daily interactions

Encourage participation,proactively seeding content

Act on abusive behavior, removeposts & flag members accounts

How Does Moderation Work?

Forum messages Blog comments

Photos

Video & audio

Live chat & more.

Applies to anyUser-GeneratedContent (UGC)

Ensures a safe,welcoming

environment

Defines keyobjectives& measureprogress


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The Value of Community Moderation

Moderation will assist

in building a safe &

inviting environment

Reinforces commitment Addressing objectionable content shows a

vested interest in the community

Reduces risks Maintain brand compliance & credibility

Limits liabilities & infringements

Additional customer service function Answering questions with a trusted voice

Facilitating and addressing escalations

Measure success Define key objectives and measure progress

Assess moderation strategies, usageguidelines, trends and key issues


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Now, lets review some

common best practices


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Best Practices: Membership

Publish terms of use & community rules

Members should agree to terms during registration

Terms of Use are a contractwhat is and is notallowed

Community rules should be easy to read andunderstand

Require registration when possible

Copyrights Libel

Corporate secrets (insider trading)



Next, lets talk about

defining your moderation

strategy



3 Big Questions

Internal orOutsourced?

Automatedor Manual?

Pre or PostModeration?



Pre-Moderation

Submitted content reviewedBEFORE being posted

Advantages

No risk of inappropriatecontent

Disadvantages

Does not facilitateinteractions orcommunication

Higher investment required

Commonly used for sensitive subject matter, such as healthissues and childrens sites

Pre-Moderation

Queue

Online Community



Post-Moderation

Submitted content postedWITHOUT advance review

Advantages

Increases interactivity &liveliness

Better user experience

Lower investment required

Disadvantages

Risk of inappropriatecontent

Post-Moderation

Queue

Online Community



What about the tools?

Automated vs. Manual

Moderation



Automated Moderation:Filters & Watch Words

Filters

Define list of unacceptable words

Determine how you want to apply constraintsaround member use

Watch Words

Define additional terms that need watching

Determine how you want to be alerted to postedwatch words



Automated Moderation: Crowdsource It

Encourage and leverage your

community members to assist

Enable violation reporting on alltypes of UGC

Only remove content that is inviolation

Provide clearly visible methodsfor submitting violations

Allow guest reporting, or forcemembers to log in



Manual Moderation: Content Management

Allow members tobuild their community

They will takeownership if youprovide the tools

and empower them

If the subject matteris relevant, it willgrow organically

Allow open feedbackand discussion

Be prepared forcriticism andnegative comments

Allow champions orevangelists todefend youractions/project

Expect competitorconversations

Easiest andquickest way togain insight into

your communityand business

Direct feedback



Manual Moderation: Member Management

Talk tomembers

Empower &restrict

members

Ban members

Reach out offline

Try to come to anunderstanding on issues

Select brand champions

Remove privileges ifneeded

Member name banning

IP banning



Internal vs. Outsourced Moderation

Objectively

observe & takeappropriate action

Free up internal

staff time for

program

development

Emotions caninterfere with

rational decisions

Reduces the overtonethat big-brother is

always watching

You can be viewed as

an active participantrather than as theenforcer

Why hire a3rd party to

enforcerules &

policies?



Additional Resources

Mzinga eBookModeration: Protecting Your Brandin a Social World

Interactive and social media sites havebecome integral to the online

presence of more and moreorganizations. Ultimately, theorganizations and communities thatmeet with success are those that haveinvested in planning and executing acommunity strategy planincludingmoderation as a core component.

Additional questions?

Contact us

[email protected]
http://mzinga.com/communities/resources.asp?pagen=26http://mzinga.com/communities/resources.asp?pagen=26http://mzinga.com/communities/resources.asp?pagen=26http://mzinga.com/communities/resources.asp?pagen=26http://mzinga.com/communities/resources.asp?pagen=26


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Thank you!

Moderating Your Online Community Guidebook

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