Rob Marcus, Chat Moderators

Social media is an increasingly popular brand marketing tool for many large enterprises today. It provides a fantastic opportunity for businesses to connect with existing business partners and prospective clients.




Choose your social media platform carefully

Once you’ve settled on your objective, you’ll be well placed to choose which social media platform will suit you best; for example social networking profiles/comments, blogs, story comments, forums, chat rooms, picture galleries.

For example, Panasonic decided on a picture gallery and competition which suited their brand well, but the same initiative may not work as well for an organisation which is not associated with the photography market. It is deciding what works best for each individual organisation that can make or break a new social media initiative.

Rules are needed

It's essential that before a social media initiative is set up a stringent set of rules are agreed by the organisation and the moderators. Even though the moderators may be existing employees, it is not a given that they will understand exactly what the brand finds acceptable when it comes to content on their website. This will allow the moderators to make judgements which are fair and consistent and most importantly in line with the brands message. The moderation policy should be a written document, signed by all parties, illustrating the rules with examples of acceptable and unacceptable comments.

Continue to take interest post-launch

After all of the hard work which has gone in to planning and executing the new social media initiative you must stay close to it. The early days of any new venture are important and the same goes with social media.

It's important that cliques of troublesome users are not allowed to develop and keeping on top of submissions from the beginning can help. It's easy to get distracted after the initial launch but it's in the organisations interest to keep the momentum of moderations going in order to reap the real benefits of social media and avoid associated problems.

Nothing stays hidden for long

Even when your brand is doing everything right there will always be the odd person wanting to poke fun at it. This can quickly turn from a few light hearted comments to abusive and brand damaging material. This can encourage brands to shy away from introducing social media as it is deemed too risky.

Although engaging in social media does not mean having to publish the unrestrained rants of others, especially if they are directed at individual employees. A moderation team must quickly identify undesirable comments, without becoming a censor, while understanding that justifiable criticism of their brand must be allowed. Otherwise the integrity of the whole initiative can be compromised.

What are you prepared to share?

How prescriptive are you going to be about the content that you are happy to publish on behalf of your customers and prospects? In many cases, the tighter the brief the less attractive it will prove to your audience. You must promote free speech in order to keep your audience engaged and encourage them to return.

Any attempt you make to deny justifiable criticism will compromise the integrity of your social media initiative and at best your audience will think less of you, at worst they’ll leave. It's important though that you distinguish fairly and consistently between negative comments that you can ‘take on the chin’ or perhaps even own up to (and sometimes respond to), and negative comments that serve only to indulge their creator.

Implement a rigorous registration process

A rigorous registration process must be in put place for all new social media initiatives. This can help to identify and deal with troublesome users as well as simply monitoring the audience levels to see how successful it is becoming.

By building a database of email addresses of participants it makes it easier to market to them. You will now know which customers are interested in what and target them accordingly.

Choose appropriate software

Choose software that supports your budget and capabilities; perhaps hosted solutions for low budget activity and perhaps open-source based bespoke software for higher budgets and where you have access to technical competence. Also ensure that it supports your brand and follows the rules set.

Assess software not only from design and user interface perspectives, but also from data mining and moderation ones. This software can help your social media initiative run smoothly and take away some unnecessary risks.

Come down swiftly on trolls

Trolls, otherwise known as troublesome users, must be dealt with quickly and heavily. Troublesome users must not be given the opportunity to ruin the experience for other users or possibly land the brand in trouble by posting libellous comments. By appointing moderators this type of behaviour can be kept to a minimum.

Be aware of the legal implications

The case for moderating to prevent brand damage is simple – if you don’t want to be associated with inappropriate, offensive or potentially abusive material then moderation will seem like a relatively small price to pay. However, some brand owners are confused about the legal obligations of moderating a social networking initiative. Over the past few years I’ve seen some cases of negligence caused by brands not effectively managing user-generated content (UGC) – but whether they face prosecution or not is where the uncertainty lies.

For example, brands should not tolerate race hatred or discrimination, and must delete an item as soon as a complaint is made.

Keep the content fresh

In order to keep the audience engaged in social media, brands must regularly update the content and applications available. Users will only keep coming back if there is something interesting and new to keep their attention. By creating competitions, games, forums and comment pages which are regularly updated, an organisation can reach their audience in new ways and hopefully keep them coming back.