Good Community

Are you unknowingly undermining your community's moderation? Effective moderation is crucial for maintaining a healthy and safe online community. However, three common problems can sabotage the efforts of your community team: 1. Hesitation in taking action Impact: Delayed responses to inappropriate content and conduct can increase harm to the community, and make your community members feel unsafe. 2. Inconsistency or bias Impact: If moderators take action based on personal feeling or bias, or make inconsistent moderation decisions, this can erode trust in the moderation team. It can lead to accusations of unfairness and can result in complaints. 3. Inadequate preparation for new issues Impact: When moderators aren't sure how to deal with new issues, it creates vulnerabilities that troublemakers can exploit. This can cause harm or mistrust. Three solutions can strengthen your moderation: 1. Empower Your Moderators - Provide comprehensive training and ongoing peer support - Offer constructive feedback to build confidence 2. Ensure Consistency and Fairness - Establish clear guidelines and apply them uniformly - Lead by example, and create a culture of consistent moderation 3. Develop a Proactive Approach - Create a process for handling unexpected issues - Regularly review and update policies to address emerging challenges How is your moderation doing? Need expert guidance? With over a decade of experience in social media and online community moderation, Serena can help you to: - Develop robust moderation policies and practices - Train and support your moderation team - Know how to handle live or complex moderation issues - Create comprehensive moderator playbooks or manuals - Establish effective review and complaint processes Don't let moderation challenges undermine your community's potential. Contact Serena to discuss how to enhance your moderation strategies and create a thriving, safe online space. Find out more and contact Serena on LinkedIn or visit: https://lnkd.in/ep2wVSn5 #CMGR #CommunityManagers #OnlineModeration #Moderators #UGC #CommunityBuilding #ModerationTraining #TrustAndSafety

There's a mystery in the world of online community and social media and it started to bother me... We hear a lot about ROI, engagement, and platform and tools. But we don't hear about how to build safe and supportive online spaces, or how to mitigate the risks and challenges of being on the digital frontline. That's why I stepped away from 20 years of being an employee and started Good Community - to help people build ethical and effective communities, in a way that protects their wellbeing. Because how we build community matters. If we focus on growth hacking, perfecting engagement and finding the perfect tool (which doesn't exist by the way), we can run the risk of neglecting other important issues. For example: How do you create a culture of psychological safety? How do you (effectively) support members who are having a tough time? How do you future-proof your operations to handle any issue that comes your way? And how do you deal with the pressure of an 'always on' digital role? Which is why I decided to take a risk and walk away from a successful career in building and scaling online communities, and leading a tight-knit remote team. It all started when I was approached by an industry contact who asked me to train their team. They'd seen what I had achieved and wanted the same. My freelance journey began with a side project to help them out. Since then, I've trained community teams, provided insight and advice to improve community onboarding and moderation, helped to troubleshoot moderation challenges, facilitated teams to create their own community strategy and policy, and have shared insight at conferences and events. I don't have a million followers. I don't want a million dollar business. But I want to find the people who care about building community in a way that is safe AND sustainable. People who want to learn from me. Good Community is getting great feedback. But I have more capacity than I'd like, which means I'm seeking new clients. If this story has resonated with you, please share it. And if you'd like to talk about working with me, please get in touch. I don't currently own a Mystery Machine, but who knows what the future holds... Serena 'not got the legs for Daphne' Snoad #FreelanceLife #cmgr #OnlineCommunities

The verdict is in - moderation is considerably weaker on X/Twitter. The first transparency report since Elon Musk took over reveals: - a reduction in action on reports of hateful content - weakened policy on hate speech and reversal of policy on misinformation - an increased reliance on AI for moderation And it's worth noting that this is in the context of a steady drop in users and a significant reduction in Trust and Safety resource (policy and people). For organisations still using X/Twitter, this has already seen a shift in social media team behaviour and resourcing for the platform. For example: - restricting comments on content which could be controversial - increasing in-house or outsourced monitoring and moderation Moderation is never simple. It is heavily dependent on context, and involves contextual research, decision making, empathy and courage. And there can be challenges and risks including abuse, threats, complaints, and more. If you oversee social media teams, check in on your people regularly. And if you manage these channels, ensure you're getting the support you need. Our digital frontline teams (on social media and communities) are keeping their communities safe often in difficult circumstances. Sending solidarity your way. https://lnkd.in/gwnqFUqv #cmgr #CommunityManagement #TrustAndSafety #ContentModeration #TwitterIsDying

Interested in working with Serena? She has availability and is seeking new projects from the end of September 2024. Find out more below 👇

If you've met me (Serena) in person, you probably met me at an event. A meetup, an unconference, a workshop, or an online gathering. And it may have been an event I organised when leading Modbods or CMX London. Because events matter, and they matter even more when they're organised with intention, integrity and skill. When I think of true masters of events Valentina Ruffoni comes to mind, and I've personally learned a lot from her. We also share a love of pie, so it was an easy decision to support The PIE Network (People in Events). Looking forward to sharing and learning with other event professionals. If you're interested in unlocking the power of excellent events, get involved!

When is the last time you took a digital detox? You don't have to toss your phone in acid and head into the desert for a year - a digital detox can be as simple as an afternoon doing something outdoors with your devices at home. Community professionals are notoriously 'always on' and as a result, can run the risk of being always online. This can impact our mental and physical health resulting in poor sleep, eye strain, headaches, and increased stress in absorbing excessive amounts of information (including rolling news). It can also increase the temptation to check in on work accounts, or check emails... Taking time away from technology can make a difference to our health. Here are some ideas if you'd like to test a digital detox: 1. Leave your devices at home and head to a nearby park with a coffee. 2. Intentionally head out (somewhere known/safe) and turn your phone off. 3. Chat to a friend and hold each other accountable to digital detox. 4. Take a whole afternoon off and pledge to not look at any screens. 5. Put together a menu of offline activities that bring you joy and work through them on annual leave or PTO days. The online world will still be there when you return from a digital detox, and your wellbeing will benefit. Shall we commit to one afternoon of digital detox a month? What do you say? #DigitalWellbeing #DigitalDetox #WellbeingAtWork

Community isn't just about words. Our actions matter. The environment we enter when we join a community matters. The ethos we create in how we come together matters. Community isn't just 'build it and they will come'. It isn't just 'post it and they will respond'. It involves intentional and ongoing actions to welcome, engage, support, contain, ask, answer, moderate, and set standards. If you stepped into a pub and there were three fights breaking out, or a fire in the corner, you'd hot foot it out of there. If you joined a club and you weren't welcomed, weren't included and were treated badly, you'd leave. But if you saw a local community group fixing damaged fences or planting flowers, setting up open libraries, and giving away spare produce, you'd feel reassured. What we're witnessing online in large centralised networks and offline in our communities is the macro scale version of the quote below. We show who we are in how we treat other people. #cmgr #CommunityManagers #CompassionMatters

Thinking of all the social media and community managers dealing with the fallout of this global IT shortage. Dealing with angry, stressed and frightened people is difficult for many reasons. Understanding why this happens and how to respond is important. When people are in crisis this can impact social media and community managers in a few ways - We can experience abuse or threats, feel a disproportionate sense of duty to rescue others, or absorb other people's emotions. This can impact our mental health and sense of safety. Here are some helpful principles to remember, today or during another time of crisis: You can only do what is in your remit. You can't rescue and fix everyone and everything. Your community's emotions aren't personal. It's not about you. Don't absorb it. You are not your job. #DigitalFrontline #cmgr #communitymanagement #communitymanagers #wellbeingatwork

This, plus making these comments about online communities, online meetups and online friendships. I've built and led online communities for health and care organisations precisely because they are more inclusive and accessible. Carers, patients, parents and people juggling work and life often don't have the luxury of time and money to get to in person events. Online communication breaks down barriers of space and time. But it should be done with a thoughtful and careful hand. If you'd like to find out more about what this looks like in practice, please feel free to get in touch.

Write for everyone. Communicate with everyone in mind. Consider how your message will come across (including to people using screen readers). Great advice here from RNIB. Top line - use emoji sparingly!