5 Content Moderation Types to Protect Your Brand

The drastic domination of the digital era on the norms retail framework has significantly heightened the power of word-of-mouth to a whole new level. Today, the impact of a single word predetermines your business’ success and failure. That is why, as the business owner, it is your core goal to deliver the finest products and services to make the best out of your supporters’ feedback. It is also a good way to leverage your success. 

Modernization and technological advancements of the business timeline also comes with the emergence of individuals with one goal in mind: to deliver harmful, illegal, and damaging content that pose various threats to your brand’s image.

The freedom to post anything on various internet platforms in this globally accessible landscape has paved the way for individuals to execute such hostile practices. Failure to devise effective countermeasures to keep your online presence safe from spammers and scammers leads to various pitfalls that can cost your loyal customers and supporters.

Fortunately, there are several solutions that are proven effective in alleviating such threats on the internet. One of these solutions is content moderation. The key role of content moderators is to implement guidelines and policies on a particular online platform to protect it against posts that are deemed abusive, offensive, and unnecessary to the public’s eye. Also, content moderation works best in monitoring different content posted by subscribers and followers. From screening between posts that are suitable for your platform’s wellness or not, it improves your brand’s reputation.

Now that you have acquainted yourself with what content moderation can do for your business, it also pays to know the types of moderation methods available as options. Each method has its distinct strengths and weaknesses.

Here are the five types of content moderation that you can take advantage of for long-term protection against negative user-generated content.

1. Pre-Moderation

Here, a user’s post undergoes a series of intensive reviews and approval by the content moderator before it gets visible to the public eye.

One notable strength of pre-moderating is security. It offers the highest level among other types of content moderation because moderators can quickly get rid of any unnecessary texts, images or videos before it gets live on your platform.

On the contrary, pre-moderation has a distinct drawback. Since posts are being scrutinized before it becomes visible online, threads and discussions are abruptly cut off or paused, thus, creating a sluggish flow of interaction between users.

Pre-moderation works best in highly sensitive platforms that encourage stronger community protection such as celebrity fan bases, dating sites, and web portals for underage audiences as this helps diminish the risks of controversies that a malicious UGC may deliver.

2. Post-Moderation

As its name implies, post-moderation is the direct counterpart of pre-moderation as the content review process takes action after the content is posted.

Since posting without pre-approval is allowed, members can seamlessly interact with each other in real-time, making threads and discussions last longer, effectively improving traffic gain on your website.

But as convenient as it looks, post-moderation also has its disadvantage. The freedom to post anything without pre-reviewing enables users to post harmful content that causes conflicts between users. Constant misunderstandings and arguments between forum or social media group members can affect the overall wellness of your online community and website.

Post moderation works best for social media because it allows more fluid interactions between your page followers which leaves a huge impact on your online presence. The only catch is that content moderators should act fast in monitoring and getting rid of posts deemed harmful before it causes further damage.

3. Reactive Moderation

With the operative word being ‘reactive’, this method solely relies on members’ judgment on a particular post. Reactive moderation enables followers and members to moderate and get rid of posts deemed harmful and unsuitable to be viewed in public. They can do this by clicking on call-to-action buttons available on the platform. It is usually represented by a flag icon (🏳️).

Albeit audience involvement is also instrumental in policing harmful and inappropriate user posts, reactive moderation is not as efficient on its own. It works best with pre-moderation and post-moderation as it improves your platform’s overall security and helps moderators keep pace whenever they miss a post that requires checking.

4. Distributed Moderation

Distributed moderation opens a more interactive atmosphere between community members and the administrators. The process implements polls when dealing with a particular post.

The poll is the determining factor of whether a post should be viewed by the audience or deleted completely from the platform, particularly if the post under scrutiny failed to abide by the platform’s rules and regulations.

However, despite drawing its strength from crowdsourcing for a more interactive avenue for members, distributed moderation offers the least level of security. It highly depends on self-moderation, which takes a significant amount of time before it takes full effect.

It is best to use this in conjunction with the other moderation techniques to make the most of this type of moderation method.

5. Automated Moderation

This type of moderation method includes the use of digital tools that automates the entire moderation process, hence its name. Unlike the first four techniques, automated moderation does not rely on a human operator to work. Instead, its algorithm is programmed to monitor and handle predetermined harmful content. The software is geared to omit, replace, or ban any post that fails to meet the standards of its content filter. Its features can also trace a particular user’s IP address if they are classified as abusive and prevent them from returning to the platform.

However, since it is solely machine-operated, it falls short of a deeper understanding that only a real human moderator can do. Additionally, some individuals are tricky enough to bypass any content filter in place using more advanced and refined ways.

Protect Your Brand With Content Moderation

The influence of word-of-mouth is so powerful that it determines your business’s success and failure. That is why it is important to consistently monitor and handle content that can possibly cause lasting damage to your brand. Indeed, knowing the advantages of content review and moderation process fuels your first step in battling harmful content. But it is still essential to have in-depth knowledge of the different types of content moderation that you can use at your disposal. You must know which works best for your business to leverage your protection against varying scenarios that you may encounter as your digital journey pushes forward.

Are you still having difficulties with where to start? New Media Services might be able to help you. New Media Services offers an all-inclusive content moderation service that works best to dynamic circumstances. As one of the leading Australian-based BPO companies, New Media Services’ all-inclusive sets of skills are tailor-built to help various SME’s reach their core goals in the market by consistently assisting them in their outsourced areas.

Contact us today, and we will be more than happy to make assessments.