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

Moderation: Protecting Your Brand in a Social World

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 planincluding moderation as a core component. Too often, moderation is mistakenly defined as simply policing sites to remove profanity and other unacceptable content. Instead, moderation canand should bemuch more. Moderations role in community solutions includes caring for both content and members externally and supporting the community strategy and goals internally.

Why Does Moderation Matter?

Moderation may sound more like a luxury than a necessity, but the bottom line is that you need to protect your brand identity and your image. Any time your company is associated with content that is generated and posted without your explicit control, you are exposing yourself to some amount of risk. Potential issues include libel, slander, copyright infringement, and release of private information. You also want to promote a positive image of your organization and your site. And ultimately, you want to gain something from the siteinsights, revenue, visibility, connections, etc.all of which are results that require some encouragement and direction on your part.

What is an online community?

A community by definition is a social group whose members are located in a specific place, share the same rules, and share common interests that they see as distinct in some way within society as a whole. When we bring people together online to share information, thoughts, and ideas, we are creating a virtual communitywhich needs the same

Defining Your Moderation Strategy

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.
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constructs in order to function properly.

Moderation: Protecting Your Brand in a Social World

Community Strategy
Behind every community, its 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 companys communications and content. It should also include how various properties and entities will interact. Once youve defined your communitys overall goals and objectives, you can develop a moderation strategy that will best support your needs. Examples include: The types of participation that youd like to foster within your community (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 promoted Anticipated or potential violations, and the appropriate action plans for addressing such violations (Examples: posting copyrighted material, engaging in aggressive personal attacks, marketing competing products) The importance of immediacy of content posts and real-time interactions What level of risk you are willing to take 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

Community Strategy
Tip Be sure that you review your community and moderation strategies periodically and update your goals and objectives as your needs change. Best Practice Do not treat your online community as a stand-alone entity. It should be part of your organizations larger communication/content plan.

2011 Mzinga, Inc.

Moderation: Protecting Your Brand in a Social World

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 communitys goals and objectives. When making your technology selection, consider: Ease of user interface for both your team and your members What can be automated (like word filters and alert flags) Member management flexibility Whether you can manage member privileges (banning, probationary measures, etc.) Reporting and tracking functionality Solution scalability Flexibility to integrate with other internal systems & tools Hosting, security, and system requirements Maintenance costs Whether this solution is a good fit with your community & moderation strategies If your technology decision has been made prior to the creation of your moderation strategy, you can work to match your strategy to the toolset that existsor you can look for supplemental tools or services to help you bridge any gaps.

Technology Considerations
Tip The best decision-makers will have an understanding of both the people and the technology sides of your endeavor. Tip Be realistic about the bandwidth of the team in charge of the community and choose tools that can help automate certain processes, like profanity filters and activity reports. Best Practice Set up (and review!) standard activity reports for your community.

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Moderation: Protecting Your Brand in a Social World

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 everyones 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 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 community atmosphere you are creating and outline your guidelines. Be thorough, but keep your terms simple and clear so that members will actually read and understand them. And remember your moderator has to enforce your terms. Give your moderator s a solid foundation from which to work. Be sure to include: Content Ownership Liability limits Indemnification

Ground Rules
Tip It can be useful to create a Code of Conduct to separate the legalese typically required in Terms and Conditions from the information on how you expect members to handle themselves. Posting an FAQ is also very helpful. Best Practice Anything you post should be as simple, readable, and friendly in tone as possible. Best Practice Post your Terms and Conditions in a prominent place on your site to make it easy for people to refer to the document as neededand so no one can say they couldnt find it!

Having the legal language in place in your Terms and Conditions is important to minimize liability, but it is also important to provide a Code of Conduct document that provides your guidelines in plain English. You may also find it helpful to integrate acceptance of your Term and Conditions and Code of Conduct into the overall registration process. This can be accomplished by requiring members to select checkboxes indicating that they have read both documents when they register their accounts.

2011 Mzinga, Inc.

Moderation: Protecting Your Brand in a Social World

Defining the Role of Your Moderators

Every community has its own special requirements; however, there is also a set of common needs. The moderators 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 Pointing new members to the Terms and Condition and/or Code of Conduct as a standard operating procedure will help the moderator with enforcement of those terms later. Best Practice Make sure that every new member receives a response to their posteven if that response is from the moderator. Receiving a response increases the odds that the person will return.

The Moderators Role in Engagement

Whether a community is new or established, moderators should welcome new members. That welcome can be as simple as a standardized email that thanks the person for joining, points to the 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. Engagement is especially important in a new community. In addition to welcoming new members, moderators help to create social proof and seed conversations: 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.

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Moderation: Protecting Your Brand in a Social World

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 Moderators 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. Regardless of the question topic, the moderator is typically the frontline support interface for members. Moderators arent expected to know all the answers, but they should know where to find them. Conversation support also comes in the form of assisting members who might be having trouble staying within the guidelines of site conduct. This crosses over into trusted content and enforcement, but we are including it in this section since the goal is to help people create posts that are constructive. In rare cases, moderators may need to remove disruptive posts. Reasons for such an action can include copyright infringement, inclusion of personal information, inappropriate language, and inadvertent release of confidential company news. Your members need to know that you value their posts, so you should always let a member know when and why their post was removed. Moderators can also add great value to the community by helping to tease out interesting points within posts. At times, posts with great ideas can be overlooked, either due to a great deal of 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.
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Facilitation
Tip Try to find out why someone is making a request before taking action. For example, if a member asks to be removed from the community, check to see if there is an issue that can be resolved rather than losing them. Best Practice Set and adhere to a service level agreement (SLA) for responding to inquiries. Response times can vary by type of submission. For example, you might address a violation report within 30 minutes and a general question about the site within 4 hours.

Moderation: Protecting Your Brand in a Social World

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 Moderators 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 of Conduct. It is the moderators responsibility to watch over the community and make sure that members are meeting those standards. There are a few options for reviewing posts to your community, including: Pre-moderation: Content is reviewed prior to appearing live on the public community space. Post-moderation: Content goes directly to the live site and is reviewed after it is posted.

Trusted Content
Tip Set up profanity filters to flag posts for review so your moderator can focus on posts that require attention rather than scanning everything for offending words. Tip Create separate review queues for profanity and other filter flags to make it easy for the moderator to review. Best Practice Include your community members in the monitoring process, allowing them to feel some ownership. Self-monitoring within a community becomes a necessity when volume reaches a critical mass. Make it clear and easy for members to report violations and suspicious activity.

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 example, sites for children require careful content review). There are pros and cons to both moderation methods. With the appropriate tools, some of the monitoring can be performed effectively and efficiently using filters. Word filters can flag offending language and shift a post into a queue for moderator review.

2011 Mzinga, Inc.

Moderation: Protecting Your Brand in a Social World

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.

The Moderators Role in Reporting (Ensuring Steady Communication)

Ultimately, the moderator, in conjunction with your Community Manager, is responsible for the flow of information between the company and the community. One of the most important parts of that process is reportingtracking trends and issues, kudos, and complaints. The types of activity and trends that should be tracked include: Frequency of new posts 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
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Reporting
Best Practice In addition to keeping your community safe, sound and thriving, moderation can provide valuable insight into your community. Reporting and analysis should be performed regularly on community activity, including levels of disruption, posting quality, hot topics, recommendations, etc.

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Moderation: Protecting Your Brand in a Social World

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
Moderation can make or break an online community. Good moderation will keep members interested and engaged. Great moderation will connect the community with your website, brand, and overall strategy. Thats the good news. The bad news is that poor moderation, or a lack of moderation, can put you at risk for damage to your brand and reputationor even leave you vulnerable to litigation for copyright infringement or safety violations. To ensure success, you should be purposeful when you create your strategy, select your technology, and staff your moderators. Not only do moderators play a pivotal role within the day-to-day running of your community, but they are also a key voice on your team that develops communication and content strategy. The moderator can act as both your organizations 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.

Keeping in Compliance with Applicable Internet Law

There are laws in place for certain industries (e.g., Financial Services) and audiences (e.g., children). For example, sites with minors as members must comply with the Child Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). You need to make sure that you know what standards and laws apply to your community.

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Moderation: Protecting Your Brand in a Social World

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 efficiently and effectively manage community content anywhere that people interact on your site. Mzingas moderation services go beyond simply maintaining order in your community. The Mzinga team can also help define your moderation strategy, provide front-line member support, accelerate community adoption by seeding new and existing discussions, and stimulate conversations around relevant topics. By working in partnership with clients, Mzinga helps create safe and welcoming environments in which members contributions meet business policies and remain true to the clients brands. A robust proprietary moderation toolset helps automate the processes of identifying, filtering, and resolving content that is not in line with set standards. Mzinga is also adept at providing services for clients who use third-party community software platforms and homegrown solutions. As experts in providing information on the interactions that take place within communities, Mzinga generates specialized reportsdaily, weekly, monthlyor analytic documents that help understand what is important to community members, and what they have done on the website that is associated with your 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 servicesincluding English, German, 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 special event. Mzinga regards moderation differently than any other company, viewing each individual community 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.

About Mzinga
Mzinga is the leading provider of ondemand social software solutions for marketing, customer experience, and employee productivity. The worlds leading brands choose Mzinga for our broad range of scalable social media and learning technologies, in-depth moderation solutions, and expertise in successfully delivering solutions that solve business challenges. With 15,000 communities under management, Mzinga services more than 2.5 billion monthly page requests from 40 million unique visitors in 160 countries worldwide. ----------------------------------------------------

To learn more, contact us: www.mzinga.com LearnMore@Mzinga.com 888.MZINGA.8 (888.694.6428)

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