Moderation Protecting Your Brand In A Social World

Moderation: Protecting Your Brand in a Social World

Moderation:
Protecting Your Brand in a Social World.

Mzinga eBook
May 2011

Contact information:

Mzinga
T: 888.MZINGA.8
E: learnmore@mzinga.com
W: www.mzinga.com
T: @mzinga

Developed in collaboration with

© 2011 Mzinga, Inc. 1


Interactive and social media sites have become integral to the online presence of more and more
organizations as they work to keep their various constituents engaged with them and each other.
Businesses find themselves competing with busy schedules, competitors, and personal interests as
they try to capture and retain their constituents’ time and participation.

Ultimately, the organizations and communities that meet with success are those that have
invested in planning and executing a community strategy plan—including moderation as a core
component. Too often, moderation is mistakenly defined as simply policing sites to remove
profanity and other unacceptable content. Instead, moderation can—and should be—much more.
Moderation’s role in community solutions includes caring for both content and members
externally and supporting the community strategy and goals internally.

What is an online community?
Why Does Moderation Matter?
Moderation may sound more like a luxury than a necessity, but the bottom line is that you need to A community by definition is a social
protect your brand identity and your image. Any time your company is associated with content group whose members are located in a
that is generated and posted without your explicit control, you are exposing yourself to some specific place, share the same rules, and
amount of risk. Potential issues include libel, slander, copyright infringement, and release of
share common interests that they see as
private information.
distinct in some way within society as a
You also want to promote a positive image of your organization and your site. And ultimately, you whole. When we bring people together
want to gain something from the site—insights, revenue, visibility, connections, etc.—all of which
online to share information, thoughts,
are results that require some encouragement and direction on your part.
and ideas, we are creating a virtual
community—which needs the same
Defining Your Moderation Strategy constructs in order to function properly.

To effectively define the role of your moderators, you first need to establish a clear moderation
strategy. But even before you can identify your moderation strategy, you must have a clear vision
and execution plan for your overall online community strategy.



Community Strategy

Behind every community, it’s essential to have a strategy with clear and measurable goals and
objectives. When you create or review your strategy, try to involve all of the stakeholders in the
project, which will likely include a cross-section of departments or teams. Your strategy should
encompass how the community fits into the bigger picture of all of your company’s
communications and content. It should also include how various properties and entities will
interact.

Once you’ve defined your community’s overall goals and objectives, you can develop a moderation
strategy that will best support your needs. Examples include:

• The types of participation that you’d like to foster within your community Community Strategy
(i.e., survey responses, text posts, dynamic exchanges, video uploads, etc.)
• The content and topics that matter most to your audience, and should therefore be √ Tip
Be sure that you review your community
promoted and moderation strategies periodically
• Anticipated or potential violations, and the appropriate action plans for addressing such and update your goals and objectives as
violations (Examples: posting copyrighted material, engaging in aggressive personal attacks, your needs change.
marketing competing products)
Best Practice
• The importance of immediacy of content posts and real-time interactions Do not treat your online community as a
stand-alone entity. It should be part of
• What level of risk you are willing to take your organization’s larger
communication/content plan.
• The escalation paths for unforeseen or emergency situations

• The amount of coverage you need (24x7, peak traffic hours, daily) based on all of the above



Technology Considerations
Your moderation strategy and technology selection will have an impact upon each other. If you
are in the planning stages of your community, take the time to define your requirements, research
your options, and make the investment in a community platform and toolset that will meet your
needs.

You should include your legal team and other stakeholders in the requirements-gathering phase to
ensure that their needs are identified and then met. Your solution should be stable and flexible
enough to grow and change with you over time, and it should provide reporting that aligns with
your community’s goals and objectives.

When making your technology selection, consider:

• Ease of user interface for both your team and your members Technology Considerations
• What can be automated (like word filters and alert flags)
√ Tip
• Member management flexibility The best decision-makers will have an
• Whether you can manage member privileges (banning, probationary measures, etc.) understanding of both the people and
• Reporting and tracking functionality the technology sides of your endeavor.

• Solution scalability √ Tip
• Flexibility to integrate with other internal systems & tools Be realistic about the bandwidth of the
team in charge of the community and
• Hosting, security, and system requirements choose tools that can help automate
• Maintenance costs certain processes, like profanity filters
and activity reports.
• Whether this solution is a good fit with your community & moderation strategies
Best Practice
If your technology decision has been made prior to the creation of your moderation strategy, you
Set up (and review!) standard activity
can work to match your strategy to the toolset that exists—or you can look for supplemental tools reports for your community.
or services to help you bridge any gaps.



Establishing Ground Rules
With your strategy and technology in place, you can create the terms of use and outline the
conduct guidelines for your participants. Your Terms and Conditions are a legal agreement
between the community owners (you) and the members and serve to protect everyone’s rights.
Since this is a legal document, a lawyer should create or, at minimum, review your terms and
conditions. This documentation is the foundation and reference for your moderation team.

Make your Terms and Conditions simple, clear, and accessible.

Your Terms and Conditions and Code of Conduct should protect you and your community Ground Rules
members. Take the time to create a solid document that really helps people to understand what
their responsibilities and limitations are as participants. Make sure you specify the type of √ Tip
It can be useful to create a Code of
community atmosphere you are creating and outline your guidelines. Be thorough, but keep your
Conduct to separate the legalese
terms simple and clear so that members will actually read and understand them. And remember— typically required in Terms and
your moderator has to enforce your terms. Give your moderator s a solid foundation from which to Conditions from the information on how
work. Be sure to include: you expect members to handle
themselves. Posting an FAQ is also very
• Content Ownership helpful.

• Liability limits Best Practice
• Indemnification Anything you post should be as simple,
readable, and friendly in tone as possible.
Having the legal language in place in your Terms and Conditions is important to minimize liability,
Best Practice
but it is also important to provide a Code of Conduct document that provides your guidelines in Post your Terms and Conditions in a
plain English. prominent place on your site to make it
easy for people to refer to the document
You may also find it helpful to integrate acceptance of your Term and Conditions and Code of as needed—and so no one can say they
Conduct into the overall registration process. This can be accomplished by requiring members to couldn’t find it!
select checkboxes indicating that they have read both documents when they register their
accounts.



Defining the Role of Your Moderators
Every community has its own special requirements; however, there is also a set of common needs.
The moderator’s role, with respect to interacting with community members, can be segmented
into three main categories:

1. Engagement – welcoming new members and encouraging continued participation from
existing members.

2. Facilitation – providing conversation support and answering members’ questions.

3. Trusted Content – making sure that content posted to the site is appropriate, Terms and
Conditions are enforced, and that members feel safe in the community. Engagement

√ Tip
The Moderator’s Role in Engagement Pointing new members to the Terms
and Condition and/or Code of Conduct
as a standard operating procedure will
Whether a community is new or established, moderators should welcome new members. That
help the moderator with enforcement of
welcome can be as simple as a standardized email that thanks the person for joining, points to the those terms later.
Terms and/or Code of Conduct, and suggests ways in which to participate more fully in the
community. If more bandwidth is available, a personal response from the moderator is ideal, since
it can show the new member that their contribution is valued and appreciated. Best Practice
Make sure that every new member
Engagement is especially important in a new community. In addition to welcoming new members, receives a response to their post—even
if that response is from the moderator.
moderators help to create social proof and seed conversations:
Receiving a response increases the odds
that the person will return.
• Creating Social Proof. We all look for social cues about how to act in new settings and
situations. This is as true online as it is in person. A street musician might put a few dollars in
an open instrument case to suggest that people leave tips, and a sitcom might overlay a
laugh track. Similarly, the moderator might create a profile, post a video, link to an article, or
take other actions to provide constructive examples for the community.



• Seeding Conversations. Until a community reaches critical mass, the moderator often plays
a primary role in starting conversation threads or keeping existing threads going. Posing a
question is one of the best ways to spark activity. When possible, give members some
context for an answer by providing some background information or even giving your
opinion or answer to that question. Linking to videos or articles around a topic might also
interest people to take a look and weigh in.

The Moderator’s Role in Facilitation
(Conversation Support)
It should be easy for members to find and contact the moderator with questions or problems.
These inquiries could be technical in nature, such as questions about supported web browsers or
the mechanics of the community site, or they may focus on conversations, content, and sources. Facilitation
Regardless of the question topic, the moderator is typically the frontline support interface for
members. Moderators aren’t expected to know all the answers, but they should know where to √ Tip
Try to find out why someone is making
find them. a request before taking action. For
example, if a member asks to be
Conversation support also comes in the form of assisting members who might be having trouble removed from the community, check to
staying within the guidelines of site conduct. This crosses over into trusted content and see if there is an issue that can be
enforcement, but we are including it in this section since the goal is to help people create posts resolved rather than losing them.
that are constructive.

In rare cases, moderators may need to remove disruptive posts. Reasons for such an action can Best Practice
Set and adhere to a service level
include copyright infringement, inclusion of personal information, inappropriate language, and
agreement (SLA) for responding to
inadvertent release of confidential company news. Your members need to know that you value inquiries. Response times can vary by
their posts, so you should always let a member know when and why their post was removed. type of submission. For example, you
might address a violation report within
Moderators can also add great value to the community by helping to tease out interesting points 30 minutes and a general question about
within posts. At times, posts with great ideas can be overlooked, either due to a great deal of the site within 4 hours.
posting activity or simply because the post was vague or unclear. In both instances, a skilled
moderator can bring the ideas to the forefront at the opportune time.



Tagging also falls within the facilitation role. If your community platform enables content tagging,
it is worth your time investment to set up the key words. Members can tag key words in their own
posts, and moderators can add the tags as well. Tagging will help you and your members to better
search content over time to find topics of interest.

The Moderator’s Role in Trusted Content
(Creating a Safe Environment)
For a community to thrive, members need to feel comfortable when they are there. The guidelines
and standards for behavior should be clearly outlined in the Terms and Conditions and/or the Code
Trusted Content
of Conduct. It is the moderator’s responsibility to watch over the community and make sure that
members are meeting those standards. √ Tip
Set up profanity filters to flag posts for
There are a few options for reviewing posts to your community, including: review so your moderator can focus on
posts that require attention rather than
• Pre-moderation: scanning everything for offending words.
Content is reviewed prior to appearing live on the public community space.
√ Tip
• Post-moderation: Create separate review queues for
Content goes directly to the live site and is reviewed after it is posted. profanity and other filter flags to make it
easy for the moderator to review.
The choice you make will depend on how much risk you can bear, which is determined by factors
that include the regulations of your industry, market guidelines, and member demographics (for Best Practice
example, sites for children require careful content review). There are pros and cons to both Include your community members in the
monitoring process, allowing them to
moderation methods.
feel some ownership. Self-monitoring
within a community becomes a necessity
With the appropriate tools, some of the monitoring can be performed effectively and efficiently when volume reaches a critical mass.
using filters. Word filters can flag offending language and shift a post into a queue for moderator Make it clear and easy for members to
review. report violations and suspicious activity.



An experienced moderator will also be able to intervene when a member is approaching a
violation and provide some guidance to steer that member in the right direction. Moderators
should monitor interactions to look for suspect patterns of communications, or messaging that
sounds threatening in any way. It is very important to know the proper escalation path when
confronted with a violation or a worrisome post.

In the end, consistency is key. Whichever moderation approach you choose, and whatever your
conduct guidelines are, it is critical to act consistently. You need to treat all members equally and
all instances of similar infractions the same way. This is especially important when the moderation
role is shared by multiple people. Your community is paying attention to what you do. You need
your members to trust not only the community, but the moderator as well.

Reporting
The Moderator’s Role in Reporting
(Ensuring Steady Communication) Best Practice
In addition to keeping your community
Ultimately, the moderator, in conjunction with your Community Manager, is responsible for the safe, sound and thriving, moderation can
flow of information between the company and the community. One of the most important parts of provide valuable insight into your
that process is reporting—tracking trends and issues, kudos, and complaints. community. Reporting and analysis
should be performed regularly on
The types of activity and trends that should be tracked include: community activity, including levels of
disruption, posting quality, hot topics,
 Frequency of new posts recommendations, etc.
 Subjects users are talking about, also called "Hot Topics"
 Amount of disruption, in the form of warnings issued, posts that had to be deleted or
escalated for a decision about whether they should stay up, etc. (For effective tracking, cut
and paste individual posts into the report.)
 Benchmarks, such as users beginning to defend each other or help solve each other's
problems
 User quotes that can be used to drive traffic to the forum
 Effectiveness of advertising campaigns



 Responsiveness of users to changes in site content
 Assessments of the quality of posts (users staying on topic, intelligent and lively
contributions, sharing of knowledge, etc.)
 Requests for action by a user, such as a question or complaint about content on the site
that the host cannot answer
 Affinity between business and member goals; identification of areas in which the two can
be made closer
 Recommendations for areas where the website can be improved
 Identification of members who are a positive influence and what they are saying

Summary
Keeping in Compliance with
Moderation can make or break an online community. Good moderation will keep members Applicable Internet Law
interested and engaged. Great moderation will connect the community with your website, brand,
There are laws in place for certain
and overall strategy. That’s the good news. The bad news is that poor moderation, or a lack of
industries (e.g., Financial Services) and
moderation, can put you at risk for damage to your brand and reputation—or even leave you
audiences (e.g., children). For example,
vulnerable to litigation for copyright infringement or safety violations. To ensure success, you
sites with minors as members must
should be purposeful when you create your strategy, select your technology, and staff your
comply with the Child Online Privacy
moderators.
Protection Act (COPPA). You need to
Not only do moderators play a pivotal role within the day-to-day running of your community, but make sure that you know what standards
they are also a key voice on your team that develops communication and content strategy. The and laws apply to your community.
moderator can act as both your organization’s voice out to the community and the voice of the
community back in to your organization.

Nothing replaces first-hand experience when it comes to moderation. An experienced moderator
can sense when a thread or conversation has taken a wrong turn, can identify when language or
activity is nearing violation, and knows how to guide participants to become better more
productive members. It is not uncommon to find that the most cost-effective way to fill the role is
outsourcing.



Mzinga Moderation Services
Mzinga provides professional moderation services that can deliver both staffing and reporting to meet your
specific needs. The professional moderation team provides a full array of tools and support to help clients About Mzinga
efficiently and effectively manage community content anywhere that people interact on your site. Mzinga is the leading provider of on-
demand social software solutions for
Mzinga’s moderation services go beyond simply maintaining order in your community. The Mzinga team can
marketing, customer experience, and
also help define your moderation strategy, provide front-line member support, accelerate community
employee productivity. The world’s
adoption by seeding new and existing discussions, and stimulate conversations around relevant topics.
leading brands choose Mzinga for our
broad range of scalable social media and
By working in partnership with clients, Mzinga helps create safe and welcoming environments in which
learning technologies, in-depth
members’ contributions meet business policies and remain true to the clients’ brands.
moderation solutions, and expertise in
A robust proprietary moderation toolset helps automate the processes of identifying, filtering, and resolving successfully delivering solutions that
content that is not in line with set standards. Mzinga is also adept at providing services for clients who use solve business challenges. With 15,000
third-party community software platforms and homegrown solutions. communities under management,
Mzinga services more than 2.5 billion
As experts in providing information on the interactions that take place within communities, Mzinga monthly page requests from 40 million
generates specialized reports—daily, weekly, monthly—or analytic documents that help understand what is unique visitors in 160 countries
important to community members, and what they have done on the website that is associated with your worldwide.
business. Reports can be customized to client-specific requests.

With a global team of experienced moderators, Mzinga is able to address specific needs and schedule ----------------------------------------------------
requirements around the clock, 365 days a year, and offers multilingual services—including English, German,
To learn more, contact us:
French, Spanish, Japanese, and many other languages. Mzinga is flexible and scalable, and can support both
short-term and long-term needs, whether it is coverage for a steady schedule, or additional coverage for a • www.mzinga.com
special event.
• LearnMore@Mzinga.com
Mzinga regards moderation differently than any other company, viewing each individual community • 888.MZINGA.8 (888.694.6428)
member as intrinsic to the well-being of the community in general. Mzinga works hard to ensure that
members stay members and that they are actively engaged in the community.


Moderation Protecting Your Brand In A Social World

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