When we talk about social media content moderation, we mean the process of moderating the content across various social media platforms like Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, etc. Any offensive, objectionable, or unsuitable content for people of all ages or groups is automatically removed before it becomes visible, let alone viral. Social media content moderators should pull down such content as soon as possible.
What is social media content moderation?
Social media content moderation involves the processes of screening, reviewing, and also filtering various social media content that is related to your business. This helps ensure that what you post or what others post on your social media pages is appropriate and remains in alignment with your branding, thereby enabling you to reach your business goals and objectives.
Types of Social Media Content Moderation
Here is a list of the types of social media content moderation.
User-only moderation
The user-only type of moderation is for the users to filter out any inappropriate content. It is for them to decide what is relevant and what is not. If a post is reported more than a specified number of times, it automatically gets hidden. This is practically one of the most cost-effective moderation techniques.
Automated moderation
User-generated content tools are used and implemented to moderate any user-generated content in this type of moderation. A set of rules are referred to decide whether to reject or keep the content or post.
Distributed moderation
In distributed moderation techniques, the online community members are encouraged to read and review the content that has been published. Then they can also discuss among themselves the content and whether or not it is in keeping with the guidelines and regulations. Next, they can vote to determine whether or not to keep the content online.
Reactive moderation
In this type of moderation, the user and reader have the right to report any inappropriate content. It involves active and direct participation of the audience to generate flags on any inappropriate content. This type of moderation can be carried out with both pre-moderation and post-moderation techniques. Whenever content is generated, a report button is automatically appended to the post so that the reader, audience, or user can click this button to alert the moderator of any inappropriate content.
Pre-moderation
First, the user submits his post on the social channel. This needs to be reviewed and analyzed by the moderator to understand whether the content is appropriate and in keeping with the objectives and goals, and the guidelines.
Post moderation
In this type of moderation, the user uploads and publishes their content. The post is then moderated by filtering out any inappropriate content on the viewer’s page.
Social Media Content Moderator Tools
Brands generally consider the various types of social media content moderation to employ particular social media content moderator tools so that the moderation process is more effective. These tools help moderate any user-generated content. Certain rules and guidelines help these social media content moderator tools to function more effectively.
Tips for choosing a social media content moderator tool
You need to choose the right social media content moderator tool. Make sure that the tool that you choose primarily focuses on:
- Social media moderation – built-in moderation tools
- Social media profile moderation – vague, incomprehensible, incredulous profiles
- Profanity filters – irrelevant or misguiding content
- Content motivation – posts, videos, reviews, blogs, etc.
How can social media content be moderated?
At the very outset, both publishers and commenters must understand that social media should be used only to promote respectful conversation instead of insults and rants. It must be a platform where civilized discussions, intelligent conversations, and thoughtful exchanges are promoted, rather than uncivil comments and uncouth behavior. The following can be used as guidelines to understand how to moderate social media content.
1. Get legal advice and share it with your staff
Since we hardly have access to any previous examples or instances, we hardly have any information on the technicalities or legalities connected to online commenting. Naturally, this may make it more difficult to explain discrimination, defamation, or other reasons, especially when commenters may have been trying to express their opinions matter-of-factly. Whoever is moderating your social media channels needs to be kept abreast with up-to-date knowledge of the ongoing situations and legalities.
An engaging discussion becomes more interesting only when differences in opinions are expressed plainly in a conversation. Without this factor, any social media platform would be bland and dull. At this point, you may want to switch off commenting on your social media channels. Please remember that the comments and conversations from your audience make your brand grow bigger and more popular. Always remember to keep the trolls away, of course. This is significant and you cannot miss out on this crucial tip.
2. Always give feedback and help educate your readers
When you delete a comment, which may not have been intentionally meant to offend anyone, it may confuse the commenter. Whenever you remove a comment, make sure to let the commenter know why their comment is being removed and provide them with the relevant guidelines and rules that you wish to implement and carry out across your social media channels.
Deleting or removing a comment without reason can create a negative idea about you, your brand, and your motive. So, make sure that the moderator can classify a reason to put up for the commenter to understand and have a drop-down menu with a list of reasons why a comment may be removed. Let the moderator choose the cause or the category to display for the commenter to read and understand.
3. Look for ways in which you can highlight the most valuable comments
When you want to highlight and showcase valuable comments, you first need to encourage your readers to like or dislike comments. Find ways to make the good words stand out and make them more visible. This can look like an excellent way to reward your commenters who have made worthwhile contributions to the discussion. Studies have shown that users spend over 15 hours a week just on Facebook itself.
And this duration is growing every year. When you encourage commenters to provide their valuable comments, you leverage a free resource that helps your brand grow. It is pretty astonishing to see that mobile users tend to spend more than 90% of the total time spent on social media. Imagine what this could mean for your brand. This is one of the top things to keep in mind.
4. Motivate and encourage your staff to participate in various conversations
When your staff participates in online conversations across your social media channels, the quality of discussion improves significantly. You will find an increased number of intelligent, entertaining, and engaging comments as well. Once that happens, many readers will come back to read more. You can also have your writers respond to criticism, highlight interesting points, guide the tone of the conversation, and even set up a barrier while giving direction to the entire discussion or exchange.
5. Always try working with a community manager to watch over your conversations
When you know that someone is there keeping an eye on all your social media platforms and channels, you can rest assured that it will create a massive impact on your business, especially if you have a substantial online presence. The community manager could be someone from within your organization itself, you, or someone you choose to hire, perhaps even a specialist in this field.
The community manager will ensure that a high standard of conversation is maintained across your social media channels. They will also ensure that your audience is inspired and encouraged to share comments and views since they will help you realize your brand’s objectives.
6. Make sure to publish guidelines or commanders to refer to
When you publish guidelines for your commenters to follow, they help make others understand the kind of environment that you wish your website to create for your audience. Mention clearly that no offensive language is to be used. And also mention other such criteria that needs to be maintained. These guidelines and rules are the first steps to ensuring excellent and robust moderation.
You can avail of the keyword filter system that many social media platforms offer. This will help you ban specific keywords and offensive words from being used anywhere in the discussion. Make your guidelines for commenters straightforward to understand, and make sure every procedure is absolute to the point and short and crisp.
Why is social media content moderation important?
Although social media is a great channel to build your brand and attract prospects and potential customers, the reviews and comments that your audience posts across your channels play a significant role in making or breaking your brand image. This is why social media content moderation plays an important role. Some reasons why social media content moderation is essential:
1. Increased social purchasing through quality content
A truly remarkable and engaging way to showcase your brand’s products and services is through user-generated content that is authentic and regarded by your audience to be more credible and reliable. When you filter this content to improve your customers’ shopping experience across your social media channels, you will be able to ensure far better sales and more significant revenue to reach your offers.
You can always convert or transform this user-generated content that you have moderated into more shoppable and sellable content. This is a great way to encourage your existing and potential customers’ emotions, which will also influence their decision to purchase your product or service. In this way, you also ensure that your customers and audience are more drawn toward your brand and development, providing better conversions and sales, not to mention an increase in revenue.
2. Utilise user-generated content to your advantage
User-generated content can help your brand get sample customer reviews and a lot of feedback for your product or service. Once you moderate the content, you can engage your potential customers as an audience and can even give them various attractive offers.
If this content is displayed across various physical sites like hotel lobbies, retail stores, etc., it creates a kind of authenticity for your brand. Such authenticity further improves your brand’s credibility and reliability. Naturally, your existing customers and prospects will begin to trust your brand even more, thereby increasing your sales and revenues.
Your brand can use this user-generated content via digital signages and electronic display boards across digital screens. This will help your brand build a long-term, strong, and trusting relationship with your users, audience, and customers. Such activities will finally lead to significantly higher conversion rates and highly improved sales and revenue for your brand. This cannot be avoided at all and has to be taken into consideration.
3. Create moderated social walls to engage your audience
Once you moderate the content on your social media channel, your brand can sieve out the appropriate content. Whatever is left is considered inappropriate and a detriment to your brand and its growth, something you can do away with. This method helps your brand display only relevant, appropriate, and approved content so that your brand image stays appropriate.
You can use this content on your social walls or even on various digital screens during radio special events or locations. This will further boost your audience’s spirits with more enthusiasm, thereby drawing them closer to your brand.
4. User-generated content rights management through filtering
Creators of content for a brand require the latter to get the rights from the former. This allows the brand to repurpose and reuse the content to become more engaging for its audience and users. Social media moderation can be beneficial out here.
A tool like Taggbox allows you to filter content that you acquire from a single user or even an influencer and use the filtered content in line with your brand’s objectives. Once you decide which content you wish to use, you can ask the influencer or user for the right to use the content across your entire social media channels and your website. You may then use this content to promote your brand. And you can even attribute this snippet or content to the user or influencer to make it even more authentic. And to top it all, there is no legal worry for you at all.
5. Use social media widgets to increase a website’s traffic
Social media is mostly about highly engaging, interesting, and compelling user-generated content. Your brand can ensure more vibrancy and better website content to showcase your brand’s authenticity.
When your website and brand have a massive following across social media channels, there will be an increase in inappropriate content coming from some users. Social media moderation helps brands like yours filter out these inappropriate posts before they are embedded on your website or social media channel. While widgets can increase the traffic to your website and social media channels, aggregating inappropriate content can make your brand’s entire presence on the Internet more engaging and exciting for your audience. Widgets might help in increasing traffic overnight, and that is always a plus.
Why and How Social Media Content Moderation is Beneficial to Business Owners
Social media content has become one of the best ways to promote a business in today’s day and age, and no matter what you try, there is simply nothing called content that is perfect. It is essential to moderate content regularly and try to put out very relevant content that can easily appeal to your target customer base. Social media content moderation is necessary to help create a portfolio and enhance your web presence.
Business owners should use moderation to help crack better deals with micro and macro influencers and generate new content channels. This shows more brand involvement with its customers and enhances the sense of belonging within the brand community. This is why you need a company like Socinova, which can regularly do the work for you. We are experts at social media content management and a name that you can trust.
From the detailed discussion that we have gone through all this while, we hope you’ve got a glimpse of what social media content moderation is all about and how you can moderate your social media content.
If you have any questions or suggestions, you’re welcome to post them in the comments below!
