eModeration releases white paper: 'Moderation in Social Networks'

After what feels like an inordinately long labour (mostly because Facebook kept on changing), we’re proud to give birth to our latest white paper: ‘Moderation in Social Networks’ - free to download from our website.

Marketing to consumers on social networks is a fast-growing area for brands, who now want to “fish where the fishes are” as Coca-Cola’s recent social media strategy put it.   The aim of this guide is to arm brands and agencies with the knowledge they need to deal with user-generated content on social network pages.

We’ve been moderating an increasing number of Facebook, Bebo, MySpace and YouTube pages and channels on behalf of agencies and brands, and, to be honest, it’s not as simple as it might at first appear.

To start with, social networks (and we deal in our white paper with the ‘big four’: MySpace, Bebo, Facebook and YouTube) were not primarily designed as marketing tools: the rules that govern them are not clear, and the rapidly-evolving nature of the platforms makes it difficult to keep abreast of the latest developments. There is little or no consistency between the processes of the major social networks and this can be a minefield for brands.

The paper, written by eModeration’s CEO, Tamara Littleton, guides brands through the following issues:

• The status quo: is content safe on social networks? This includes a brief look at some of the complex legal issues surrounding the responsibility for areas including users’ safety and defamation.
  
• Who is responsible for keeping users safe? This lays out what brands should know about what the big four networks are doing to ensure safety on their sites.
  
• What is the risk to a brand? This section takes brands through the potential risks and pitfalls of a social network campaign (focusing on user safety and brand reputation).
  
• The rules on social networks. Each of the big four social networks has a different set of rules and processes to follow when engaging with users. This section gives a detailed breakdown of what each of the four sites does and doesn’t allow; and a guide to best practice for brands on moderating content on each.
  
• Should a brand moderate a third-party site? This is the big question for many brands. This section of the paper lays out questions brands should ask themselves, such as how far it knows (and trusts) its audience; what the risk might be to a brand’s reputation of being associated with negative content; and how to protect users.
  
• Can brands stop people saying negative things about them? There is a very clear difference between moderation and censorship. Brands must be prepared to take negative comments on the chin, but they don’t have to put up with abusive posts.
  
• What should a brand look for when moderating content? The obvious areas are bullying, abuse or illegal content. But there are other, less obvious pitfalls such as avatar images, swear-words in user names, harassment messages, spam and off-topic posts.

Keeping it updated:  We’re not pretending that this is an exhaustive guide, and we know that changes are likely to happen which will make it out-of-date quite quickly.  That’s why we’re going to ask for your help to keep it updated, so it will remain a valuable resource for brands and agencies.  Please add comment below or email me at tia@emoderation.com with any updates or edits, and we’ll revise it periodically.

Thanks in advance, and we hope Moderation in Social Networks proves useful to you – let us know!