NETTING IT OUT
Online community moderators are part customer service representative, part marketing professional, part teacher, and part psychologist. They reinforce community standards, taking every opportunity to educate members on good practices. They don’t censor comments (unless malicious, profane, etc.) or censure members for faux pas. They encourage participation and support problem solving. And they guide, rather than control, the exchange and flow of information and ideas.
This report discusses the best practices in moderating online communities, with a focus on the moderation of customer communities (those communities sponsored by businesses for those who purchase and use their products and services). It organizes best practices into three main areas: Setting the Ground Rules, Representing the Community to Your Business, and Managing the Community.
Following best practices can help move your community forward. The practices covered in this report have been developed from direct experience, from online and offline research, and from interviews with community moderators and executive stakeholders. They represent the best current approaches to leveraging technology, human resources, and strategic thinking to ensure that your community moderators are successful in managing the community and helping to reach your business goals.
Conclusion
Online community moderators have a tough job. It is detail oriented, but needs a big-picture perspective. It demands patience and hand holding, but also requires action and assertiveness. And it consists of, in part, routine administrative and technical tasks, but also provides a special opportunity to touch a great many people both inside and outside your organization.
To summarize:
- Moderators know that typed words do not carry the inflection and expression that spoken words do, so they communicate accordingly.
- Moderators know when to steer people to previously written information (such as guidelines, standards, and FAQs), and when to spell things out.
- Moderators know where the line is between a tangentially off-topic (but acceptable) thread, and a misdirected conversation heading for trouble.
- Moderators work both in the light of the community and behind the scenes.
- Moderators guide, steer, and nourish; they do not demand or control.
- Moderators know how to balance the needs of new community members (“newbies”) against those of established members.
- Moderators know that advocating for the community is in the best long-term interests of the company.
- Moderators are the community’s leaders; they are the buck-stops-here people.
This report continues...
To download and continue reading this report: http://www.psgroup.com/detail.aspx?ID=822.