5 benefits of outsourcing social media moderation

When it comes to marketing for brands and businesses, visibility is key. A strong social media presence can help you to attract customers, gather feedback, build and maintain customer loyalty. 

Being active on social media is essential for brands

With millions of active monthly users around the world and its high-reach potential, social media is a powerful way for businesses to reach a large number of potential customers. Those that aren't active on social platforms are missing a trick. 

Social media is a place for your brand to show its personality and values. It also sparks instant reactions from your online community about what they do and don't like about your product, brand or content.

Comment sections of social media pages hold a wealth of information on buyer preferences. But things get tricky when you take a closer look. Amongst the positive feedback and constructive criticism, there are toxic comments aimed at both your brand and other users.

Whether it's bots and spam polluting your page or hateful comments, toxicity can have a lasting and damaging impact on your brand image. It can also negatively affect engagement rate and the experience of people visiting your profile. Ultimately, it can deter them from buying from your brand.

That's why social media moderation using a powerful, automated solution able to cope with a high volume of comments and remove them instantly, is essential for your business.

5 benefits of outsourcing social media moderation 

1. Better ROI on social media spend

Keeping a consistent online presence takes time, money and effort; but it's worth it. The end goal? Persuade potential customers to take action, interact with posts and ultimately, purchase from you. To achieve this, businesses need to make sure their feed is regularly updated and aesthetically pleasing. They also need to make sure that the comment section is free from toxicity.

That's where social media moderation comes in.

A comment section can be a real gold mine for your brand. Or, it can be incredibly damaging. For brands invest in sponsored social media posts, how you manage comments will directly impact your ROI.

Advertisers now are more wary than ever of the brands they choose to associate with. The community and comments that your content attracts affects not only your brand reputation, but theirs as well. Having a comment section that is free from toxicity helps make your business more attractive to advertisers.

The people that engage with your page also deserve a place where they can interact with your brand in a healthy, authentic way. For this reason, social media moderation using a purpose-designed solution which is fast, accurate and scalable is vital.

2. Improved community engagement

Creating and posting content is useless if no one interacts with it. Outsourcing social media moderation will ensure that your followers have a safe, genuine and inclusive space to interact with your brand and each other. They are also more likely to return. 

And as we already know, a comment section free from toxic messages will expand your reach, attract more followers and boost engagement.

Being able to see what your followers are commenting on and how they feel about certain topics, quickly and easily with a moderation tool, also gives you the ability to improve the quality and nature of your posts. 

Bodyguard’s moderation solution gives you the option to label comments under classifications such as 'customer request' and 'complaints', so that it's easier to filter and respond to these comments, away from your social media pages, too. 

In short, better quality content and a non-toxic environment will lead to better engagement.

3. An authentic audience that's invested in your brand

More and more, scam, fraud and bot-generated comments plague comment sections. The sheer number of these undesirable messages means they can overtake comment sections and in many cases, make it to the top comments. Using a social media moderation solution means that you can get rid of these, in real time, for the sake of a more attractive comment section. It also shows your commitment to protecting your community.

Many of these undesirable comments look 'official' in nature, and can appear as if they came from your account. No brand wants to be accused or associated with such scams; but because there are so many, manually removing these comments can be difficult and too time-consuming to perform in-house.

So having the right content moderation tool which removes these messages automatically is a must.

The benefits are many. Your social media managers can focus on other tasks which bring value, rather than spending hours manually removing undesirable and toxic comments. Your community feels protected from scams and fraudulent messages from fake accounts; and you can easily filter and recognise the comments that are valuable to you.

4. Anticipate and stop social media crises before they start

Taking moderation a step further, being able to anticipate whether a post will generate lots of toxicity is the future. As well as providing real-time round-the-clock moderation, Bodyguard makes this possible through our new Post Scoring feature. 

Having this information can help you decide what content you should or shouldn’t post, and to anticipate intense reactions to certain content.

How does it work? 

Users can copy and paste their proposed content into the text box within the Bodyguard dashboard. A predicted toxicity score is automatically generated based on the content of the post. This score lets users see the potential reaction, and how much toxicity, a specific post will provoke in your community.

Being able to plan ahead and anticipate audience response is a game changer, but so is being able to deal with crises efficiently. Bodyguard regularly provides users with a detailed analytics report so that you can analyse activity on any platform that is moderated, during a given time, and be better prepared to handle future situations. 

5. Moderation analytics and community insights to guide your content strategy

Automated content moderation generates valuable data which doesn't have to go to waste. 

With the Bodyguard dashboard and analytics report, you can get to know your community even better by comparing the content and platforms which get the most toxic reactions. With this information, you can take steps to turn this around and create a more respectful community. 

For example, users can see exactly how many hateful comments were removed from a post, and on which platform, according to the comment type or by individual post. 

Users can also analyse the evolution of reactions to content, and see which particular post or event caused an increase in engagement.

The data collected enables our users to plan and share more of the content that sparks a positive reaction, keeping engagement high and the momentum going. Maintaining such a dynamic comment section will again increase brand attractiveness to both online audiences and advertisers.

Businesses simply can't afford not to moderate User Generated Content 

Brands need social media to help them thrive, but doing so without prioritising content moderation can have many negative effects on brand image. 

Outsourcing social media moderation and using the right solution is a powerful tool and 'a must' for all businesses and brands. 

​​Every brand's communication strategy should include the development and nurturing of social media, and their online following. By moderating content, brands can enhance engagement, tailor content to their audience, and ensure that any potential hazards and crises are dealt with in the best way possible.

Next steps

Want to learn more about how Bodyguard’s moderation solution can help you moderate your content and improve your community engagement? Send us a message.