It is perhaps a reasonable assumption that if you are reading this
online article, you are connected to the internet. Though it is not a logical extension, it is perhaps also to be assumed that if you have some familiarity with the internet, you have heard of Facebook, if not actually used it. Of course, the chances are high that you have used it because 60% of the world’s population uses it.
It is also common knowledge that it takes all sorts to make up this world. Social media platforms like Facebook, that promote open communication and sharing, often find themselves to be sitting ducks when a person chooses to post offensive or malicious content on the platform and struggle to cope with it through various types of moderation processes.
Thankfully, such people are in a minority, but they exist. Despite the existence of platform policies that define what can be posted and what cannot be, they either choose to pretend otherwise, or interpret guidelines to their own narrow advantage, or have plainly mischievous intent. Whatever be the reason, once posted, the content becomes widely available.
We know that Facebook spends a fortune in tracking such content and taking action against the content as well as its perpetrators, through initiatives like Facebook comment moderation. Though content can be posted in any media format, such as audio, image, video or text, text is a fairly significant proportion of the content that is being posted and, much of it in the form of comments, it perhaps follows, that comments constitute a significant part of the offending content that needs monitoring and removal.
As a service provider, it is an advantage being born at such a time, as modern practices and technologies become a part of your DNA from birth, obviating the need to make an effort to learn about them. oWorkers, an
eight-year-old BPO company, is proud to be selected as one of the top three providers of data related services in the world.
Facebook for companies
The popularity of social media platforms has let to a lot of companies rushing to them in an effort to engage with their current and prospective customers, and talking up their products and brands. Though designed to facilitate communication and interaction between people, beginning with university students in the US, social media platforms, like all technologies, have kept evolving and pivoting. Being private businesses, their eventual goal is revenue and profits, towards which end they will steer the business when opportunity knocks.
As adoption by individuals spiralled, companies also started beating a path to the doors of these platforms in an effort to engage with the users. After all, for most companies, eventual customers are individuals. So, if they can be found in droves around social media platforms, that is where companies must go too.
Platforms also evolved to create spaces and opportunities for companies to create a presence on their platform and drive discussions that they wanted to drive which, unsurprisingly, is mostly around their brand and products. Users who are favorably disposed towards the brand will become the early participants driving the conversation. Most brands hope that this would lead to a much larger set of users being driven to their social media pages and properties which eventually results in conversions and revenue realization.
It works in the manner of back-scratching between Facebook and these companies. Just like companies seek to benefit from the traffic on the platform, the traffic these companies are able to drive to their groups and communities on the platform, also adds to the adoption of that platform, so why not?
Facebook comment moderation becomes as much, perhaps even more, of a requirement for these companies that create their own space and promote conversation about their products and brand. It reflects their voice and brand and consequently business and must be managed. Not only from malicious content and comments posted by users, but also from spam and abuse. This keeps the brand’s fans safe and presents a wholesome view to the external world.
Over the years, recognizing the role moderation can play in promoting healthy interaction on the platform as well as in groups and communities, Facebook, apart from the moderation it carries out on its own, also creates and makes available tools to the administrators of groups and communities on Facebook also that they can do the same in their space and can perform Facebook comment moderation from a simple interface.
Increasing adoption of social media platforms by individuals also creates a deeper pool of talent required to handle new-age services like moderation. This further augments the capacity of oWorkers to hire the best talent based on its position as a preferred employer. From the candidates that queue up for a job at oWorkers, we are able to hire the best and deploy them to projects most suited to their skills and aptitude, which we assess based on the series of IQ and EQ tests done at the time of hiring.
Types of comments
While on the subject of comment moderation, it is perhaps useful to understand the channels through which comments can be generated on a Facebook page.
Organic comments
Being a social media platform, Facebook is designed to promote unfettered communication and sharing. They can do so on a Facebook page too. That is, after all, the basic purpose and design of the platform. This content is also available to all users.
As an administrator of the page, if you are one, you will receive information as and when a new comment is posted by a user. You also have the power to turn off the default capability that users have of posting on your page, if you so desire.
It helps to have a multilingual capability that oWorkers possesses as a result of its multicultural and multi-ethnic talent pool. It can handle moderation in over 22 languages, as comments can emanate from anywhere in the world in any language.
Comments on posts
The purpose of a Facebook page for a business being to promote its brand and products, it often posts content that serves this purpose. It also serves as an invitation to visitors to the page and fans of the brand to leave their thoughts and comments on it, and even share it further, as a way of pushing the communication forward.
While spam comments automatically get hidden (while still being visible to the poster and page administrators), admins have the option of turning on profanity filters for their pages. Of course, it needs to be understood that Facebook comment moderation through such automated solutions will have limitations. It may be able to weed out the obvious ones but, without the ability to create a context, borderline cases may be incorrectly handled.
The ability to attract talent gives the ability of hiring for short-term peaks to oWorkers. When client projects experience unplanned spikes in volume, as can happen with comments, we can hire up to a hundred additional people within 48 hours. This means the client saves money, as they do not need to keep buffer resources available.
Activity on advertisements
Many companies advertise on Facebook. On account of the detailed profile of users that is available to Facebook, many companies find that they are able to reach their target segment of customers much better through Facebook advertising than through traditional media, which is usually a scatter-gun exercise, liberally spraying content in the hope of catching a few relevant ones.
Users can leave their footprint on these advertising messages as well, in the form of comments. As these comments do not form a part of the feed received by the administrators of activity on their page, as this is considered to be advertising activity and not activity on their page, they are often much less managed than comments on their posts.
With employed staff, as opposed to freelancers and contractors, as some of our competitors seem to prefer, oWorkers is well placed to move people around. It also enables people to grow within the company, creating a reliable pool of supervisory resources.
Reviews
Users also leave reviews for the brand, including a rating on a 5-point scale.
These reviews and ratings are of great value to the company as they, at least the complimentary ones, are proof to the world that people without an interest in the brand (users) have reviewed the product and rated it highly.
This section can also get reviews that are not complimentary. That is par for the course. The company needs to be able to detect it and handle it efficiently and effectively so that it can become a turnaround or service recovery story. Some companies try to remove or reduce the negative comments. This leaves the page with a sanitised look and may appear artificial to users. So, caution needs to be exercised in how far you go with your Facebook comment moderation.
Talking of reviews, oWorkers gets reviewed by its staff, both past and present, on platforms like Glassdoor. We are proud to say that our scores have consistently been above 4.65 on a scale of 5.
Direct Messages
Facebook users can also send direct messages to the company; something like an email. The company’s alacrity in responding can earn for it the ‘very responsive to messages’ label on its profile. It may not result in customer conversions or additional revenue, but it certainly would add up towards the wholesomeness of the company’s profile.
The leadership team of oWorkers comes with hands-on experience in the industry of over 20 years. They are able to provide guidance where required.
Benefits of Facebook comment moderation
It must be remembered that moderation is used in its widest possible meaning and is not limited to ‘shooting from the hip’ and killing content found to be offensive, as some people seem to believe. In its wider version, moderation essentially refers to the act of tracking and managing the user activity taking place on your web properties.
There are several benefits that could accrue to the brand as a result:
Influences revenue
Buyers look for authentic information about a product they wish to buy from unbiased sources who do not have any interest in the sale of the product. Facebook comments and reviews on the company’s page are a great source of such information for prospective buyers, even as the company leverages its social media presence to make itself visible to a larger universe. As these comments may not always be complimentary, they need to be closely monitored.
Source of information from the marketplace
A survey was used by organizations not too long back to get information from the ground and the marketplace about consumer preferences as well as other developments in the marketplace. Of course, it could be supplemented through other means like representatives directly interacting with different stakeholders. While it collected a lot of information, it was believed that a survey was an artificial setting where respondents were asked to imagine situations and respond. Hence, it might not be natural or accurate.
Interaction on social media, however, is completely natural. It happens when the consumer wants it to happen, in the heat of the moment, to post a review, respond to a comment or anything else. Hence, it is seen as the most realistic representation of the marketplace and consumer sentiments.
Elimination of malicious content
This is the narrow definition of moderation that many people go by. However, this could also be one of the greatest benefits arising out of moderation, with its ability to identify and remove offensive content and keep the wholesomeness of the site intact, enabling target customers to continue using it without worry.
Channel for quick resolution to customer issues
With a device in their hands at most times, and social media accounts almost permanently logged in, for many people it becomes the easiest way to access and communicate with a company, rather than having to look up a phone number or email ID. Even if they were not initially set up for handling customer service, perforce, they are having to deal with comments that can only be classified as customer service. Through moderation, companies get a chance to intercept such issues of customers, resolve and respond to them, and convert possibly disgruntled customers into happy ones.
With its technology pedigree, GDPR compliance and ISO (27001:2013 & 9001:2015) certification, oWorkers provides a combination of human and technology solutions for handling moderation needs of its global clients. 85% of our clients are technology companies, with several unicorn marketplaces being among them. We also have deep partnerships with technology companies that enable us to leverage the latest technologies for client needs.
Good practices for Facebook comment moderation
Be even handed – Do not take sides. Try to ensure that similar issues get similar responses or treatment. If the company has a policy of responding to all comments, don’t pick and choose.
Respond quickly – Turnaround times, if published, should be adhered to. Speed of response will always be a parameter customers will judge you on. By default, the faster the better.
Go beyond a bot – Many companies deploy automated response and chat solutions. They have their value and customers understand that. When the time comes for a human response, respond like one, with emotion, personalization and care; not as a bot. Incorrect (not inappropriate) language may also be fine as long as it means there is a caring human sending it out.
Take the bull by its horns – Shying away from sensitive issues will not make them go away. Whether it is a customer issue, or inappropriate content, or spam, the earlier you address it the better it is for everyone in the community. If difficult issues are raised in an open forum, they need to be answered in the same open forum.
Use your judgment – What starts as a comment does not need to finish as a comment. Many situations are better handled out of the public glare. If you need to share sensitive information, like personal particulars, it should be a direct interaction between the company and the customer/ user. A long explanation with links and attachments is perhaps better done as an email exchange. The comments forum is to enable the customer to initiate a request/ issue/ requirement. It is up to you how you conclude it.
Partner with oWorkers for best results
Our clients vouch for our capability and note savings of almost 80% after outsourcing to us. They also find the ‘choice’ we are able to offer in pricing, between per unit of output or per unit of input, with the client allowed to pick the one they prefer, to be unique.
Our three centers, located in three of the most sought-after geographies in the world, offer compelling turnaround times, driven by time zone differences as well as their 24×7 operations.
We work with people from the weaker sections of society. Each new project enables us to employ a few more, train them and equip them to be a part of the global digital economy.
