Aside from knowing the difference between image and video content moderation, social media moderation, and text-based moderation, it is essential to have a good grasp of strategies when checking and reviewing user content.
Strategies are based on which type of moderation you are going to adapt and you can mix and match these practices to better suit your team. The importance of knowing these topics is for you to be able to safeguard your community from malicious content and keep your brand’s reputation while giving quality service.
All user posts, whether it be a photo, video, or text, has to pass through the guidelines set for a particular online community. Cleaning the platform of any bad content is a challenging feat that stresses out the people who take the said job. They constantly have to look at posts that either disturb the minds or incite joy in the hearts of their audience.
This is a step by step guide on what are the best practices for content review and moderation processes.
To start off, what is harmful content?
Harmful content is what made the technique of moderating, come to life. Online posts—whether in the form of video, text, or image—that constitute hate-speech, violence, racism, or nudity are immediately considered as sensitive. These matters make facilitating hard since social media sites uphold a broader range of freedom of speech and using it wisely is not second-nature to all users. Aside from these, duplicated content and blurred images are also a prime target of meticulous screening.
Now that the types of content that need filtering have been defined, the next area to be discussed are the different techniques when it comes to moderating.
Types of Content Moderation:
- Pre-Moderation
- Post-Moderation
- Reactive Moderation
- Distributed Moderation
- Automated Moderation
1. Pre-Moderation
When there is a delay in revealing your post online, it is being reviewed by moderators to protect the community. The team cross-checks the post with the guidelines and rules before allowing the public to see it. The pros of this kind of moderation is that it ensures the matter is safe for public viewing. However, there is a delay in posting which is not advisable for real-time data. This type is good for customers that prioritize the defence of their brand and its reputation.
2. Post-Moderation
The objective of this type of moderation is to make sure posts are seen immediately and evaluated later. It becomes the saving grace of time-sensitive content like news. However, it is a risky kind of moderation because the data is not screened before the audience sees it. The con is that subject matter posted could be dangerous or sensitive and could harm the community involved before it is red-tagged. The pros would be that it is time efficient, although this will still depend on the size of their audience since multiple content submissions will overpower the team.
3. Reactive Moderation
It is user-dependent—reactions are the staple for this type. It allows more engagement with your community since you partially put the screening of subject matter on them. Depending on the reactions a subject matter gets, the traffic goes higher and it can either harm or save your brand. It is also cost-friendly since the community regulates their own feed. This is good with loyal and solid customers who are meticulous in screening the content.
4. Distributed Moderation
Polls are the best friend of this type. Data is filtered through voting and is quite convenient due to the fact that you can get real-time results. A rating of content becomes the basis of what your brand will be showcasing. This is good for small businesses since they are just starting, have little resources and are outsourcing reactions to decide what is the target of their brand for their chosen community.
5. Automated Moderation
Compared to the four methods above, this type of moderation relies on tools to categorize content according to its appropriateness. The perk here is that you automatically filter out the harmful and useful matters with keywords with fewer hiccups in the process. Though without the proficiency of a human to judge, this automated moderation is still limited in terms of effectiveness.
These types of moderation methods help your brand:
- Protect reputation since sensitive content is censored.
- Allow you to engage more with your clients.
- Put more traffic on your page for better interactions.
- Optimize visibility online through search engines.
- Advertise with ease.
- Gain more loyal customers due to exposure.
Screening reactions, chats, videos is your best bet to ensure quality and safety for your brand. To sum up this step by step guide on content moderation, here are some tips and tricks to better utilize content moderation for your brand.
Strategies for Content Moderation:
- Maximize your Team
- Expand Reach of Moderators
- Set Clear Guidelines
- Keywords and Filters are your Best Friend
- Engage Engage Engage
- Mute the Spam
- Reward System for Contributions
1. Maximize your Team
Like any other set of people who are pursuing a goal, you, as a leader, must delegate tasks. Make sure there is a content manager and assign which moderator is to handle which social media platform, page, account, and community. This helps foster collaboration based on role similarity while also enabling the utilization of all the talents and abilities of the team.
2. Expand Reach of Moderators
Facilitating the posts that come in everyday should not be the only focus of the moderation team. Much attention should also be given to direct messages, comments, reports, and reviews of the community. Take the time to filter these forms of user content so that you increase engagement and help from people on the inside and appeal to them and their safety.
3. Set Clear Guidelines
Every page, game, and community created in social media has their set of rules that users are expected to adhere to. The guidelines are designed to protect their audience. From prohibiting the use of foul language to flagging the implication of racism by some posts, these are simple ways to help keep a healthy environment for your audience and preserve the reputation of the brand.
4. Keywords and Filters are your Best Friend
This is related to setting clear guidelines since having these specific words that help you categorize data from the appropriate and inappropriate gives you more leeway into how fast you can filter content and also how strong your defence is against malicious content.
5. Engage Engage Engage
Allowing your audience to help you decide what content they want through the reactions they give or the flagging of spam and indecent content allows you to build a strong bond with your community. This tactic also provides the audience the feel of getting noticed thus inciting their loyalty and also allowing your page to get more traffic that reaches a broader audience.
6. Mute the Spam
Have you ever received that annoying email or comment on your post about a random product or even a repeat of response on your direct messages? The best action to counter it is to mute them. The more you give spammers attention, the more they do their best to send these repeated messages and comments. Sanction them by banning them from the platform or community for a few days or mute them so that they would not do anymore damage to your page.
7. Reward System for Contributions
An incentive given always triggers feelings of happiness, especially when it comes to contributing ideas for the community to improve or suggest what kind of content they want to see. Giving privileges to top participants from your audience encourages them to interact with the page more and continuously do their part in creating a healthy environment for the community.
From knowing what harmful content is, to understanding the types of moderation methods, it is clear that content moderation is an important commodity especially now that people are living in a technological world. Brands need to stay alert and unrelenting to be able to serve target audiences and build a safe space for the customers.
This is the very reason why online moderation services are on the rise right now. The present is plagued with posts that consist of images and videos that need consistent screening just to protect not only the communities online, but the reputation of your brand as well. Thus, businesses also need to partner with reliable content moderation experts, like Chekkee. Their services include the highest level of protection against malicious content, an automated reporting system for content management, your choice in moderation guidelines, quality services for a wallet-friendly budget, and prompt responses.
Chekkee values your time and the safety of your customers with the talent of real-time moderators who have training in full defence against inappropriate, dangerous, abusive, and offensive content.
It is not easy to screen and censor posts by a team alone, outsourcing is also a good way to keep your team ready to fight against vile content with extra reinforcements.