Table of Contents
- Defining Content Moderation
- 5 Types of Content Moderation
- What are Content Moderators? What do they do?
- All About Content Moderation Outsourcing
In this modern age of information and technology, startups and small and medium businesses (SMEs) face a unique challenge. The digital world is in a continuous state of flux, and one of its compelling propellers is user-generated content. People today more often trust opinions shared online rather than information from institutions and companies. Myriad images, videos, and texts are daily shared, and with more customers utilising online platforms to communicate, startups and SMEs must find a way to keep tabs on the content that their platforms host. Furthermore, they must curate and moderate their content appropriately. It is highly crucial to maintain a trustworthy and safe environment for customers, monitor social influences on brand perception and comply with official regulations – in which content moderation is the most effective method for achieving all of that.
However, the content moderation process can be consuming as it requires a lot of time to screen each piece of online content, and it is costly to hire additional staff if you were to consider the training and other benefits of employing one. This is why outsourcing content moderators has become increasingly essential for startups and SMEs today. Seeking the help of a business process outsourcing (BPO) can be a cost-effective way to access specialised expertise and tools, increase efficiency, improve accuracy, obtain better scalability, and maintain a professional online presence while effectively managing customer interactions.
The Lead Enquiry, an excellent outsourcing marketplace, can help you further to connect to the most competent content moderators across the globe to make your seeking journey more accessible.
This blog post will discuss why outsourcing content moderators is essential for SMEs today. But, before that, we will also discuss necessary information about content moderation.
Read ahead.
Defining Content Moderation
Content moderation is screening inappropriate content that users post on a platform. The process involves the application of pre-set rules for monitoring content. The content gets flagged and removed if it doesn’t meet the guidelines. The reasons include hate speech, offensiveness, violence, nudity, copyright infringements, extremism, etc.
Content moderation aims to uphold the brand’s Trust and Safety program and ensure the platform is safe to use. Content moderation performs widely on social media, forums, marketplaces, dating apps and websites, and similar platforms.
5 Types of Content Moderation
Here are the primary types of content moderation processes that you can select from for your business.
Pre-Moderation
This is the most elaborate way to leverage content moderation. It entails reviewing every piece of content before it gets published on your platform. For example, when a user posts visual or text, the item is directed to the review queue. It only goes live only after a content moderator has finally authorised it.
While this is the safest way to eradicate harmful content, this process does not apply to the fast-paced online world as it is relatively slow. However, platforms that need a high level of security still use this moderation method. Usual examples are platforms for kids where the security of the users comes first.
Automated Moderation
Modern moderation depends on technology to make the process easier, safer, and quicker. For example, AI-powered algorithms access visuals and texts in a fraction of the time that particular someone needs to do that. Most of all, content moderators here don’t go through psychological traumas from analysing inappropriate content.
Regarding visuals, image recognition powered by AI tools provides a highly viable option for monitoring videos, live streams, and images. Such solutions determine inappropriate imagery and have diverse choices for controlling the types of sensitive visuals and threshold levels.
As for the text, automated moderation can screen for keywords that identify as problematic. More advanced software can pinpoint relationship analysis and conversational patterns too.
While tech-powered moderation has become more and more effective and precise, it cannot entirely obliterate human review, especially in more complicated situations. That’s why automated moderation still combines a mixture between technology and human moderation.
Post-Moderation
Post-moderation is the most typical way of content screening. It enables users to post their content whenever they want to, but all items to follow for moderation. If an item is flagged, it gets removed to safeguard the rest of the users.
Platforms strive to shorten review times, so harmful content stays online for only a short time. While post-moderation is not as safe as pre-moderation, it is still the preferred approach for many digital companies today.
Reactive Moderation
Reactive moderation includes relying on users to spot content they find improper, which goes against your platform’s rules. In several cases, it can be an effective solution.
Reactive moderation is common for a standalone method or post-moderation combination for best results. In the latter scenario, users can flag content even after passing your moderation processes so that you can obtain a double safety net.
You should be aware of its risks if you only use reactive moderation. Self-regulating platforms sound great, but they might result in an inappropriate or potentially harmful item remaining on the site for much longer than you intended, affecting your public image.
Distributed Moderation
The moderation type entirely relies on the online community to review and remove the content as necessary. Users execute a candid scoring system to rate whether content posted on the site is consistent with community standards. This method of internal control is rare because it deems significant challenges for brands regarding legal compliance and reputation.
What are Content Moderators? What do they do?
Content moderators play an essential role in ensuring a safe online experience and protecting a company’s reputation by ensuring that all user-generated content is appropriate and meets the company’s standards outlined in their terms of service or other guidelines. As such, it is vitally important to have an experienced team of professionals monitoring your user-generated content on an ongoing basis.
A content moderator’s job is to:
- Reply to client questions on your blogs, forums, and social media posts.
- Utilise software to monitor content for particular words or image types, then initiate human judgments about the content
- Spot if a user’s post meets the guidelines of the platform and the group
- Remove spam comments, offensive language, and offensive posts
- Protect your social media page’s users from harassment or inappropriate content
- Understanding client policies
- Conducting brand-building activities
- Promote a positive and strong community for your business
- Sustain the reputation of your company
The kind of user-posted content that content moderators review are the following:
- Blog comments
- Facebook posts and comments, including text, images, and videos.
- Forum posts
- Linked or shared articles in social media posts
- Instagram stories, text, and images
- YouTube videos
- Product or service reviews
All About Content Moderation Outsourcing
Outsourcing content moderation refers to the practice of assessing user-generated submissions, such as social media posts, videos, images, reviews, or forum discussions. Offshored content moderators from a BPO agency will then decide whether a specific submission can be used or not on that platform.
What are the Essential traits needed to succeed in a Content Moderator role?
A content moderator is responsible for ensuring that all content – texts, images, articles, videos, and other multimedia files – posted on any online platform is fit for general public consumption.
To keep a secure space online, a content moderator needs to have the following traits:
Multi-platform savviness
Online competition is intense. This is why many corporations now leverage multiple channels for their marketing strategies. A content moderator must be well-versed in the various platforms available to the public to be effective. Being adept at which content works best for one – and which does not – will help a company gain recognition quickly in an online community.
Online community experience
There are so many communities online, so much that a word can easily mistranslate. As a result, what might be okay for one group may be offensive for another. Experience in various online communities can help build better judgement for moderators, especially if they were to manage several platforms with diverse audiences.
Language expertise
For review sites and eCommerce, testimonials can significantly affect a company’s reputation. It can also make or break a prospective consumer’s decision to buy or not.
Organisations shipping worldwide need multilingual moderators that can review diverse communities effectively. They can check the comments written in a foreign language and understand their context without breaking a sweat.
Other skills that a Content Moderator must possess:
- Screening knowledge
- Analytical skills
- Integrity
- Curiosity
- Patience
- Good Communication skills
Why is Outsourcing Content Moderators Essential for SMEs Today?
The cost burden of employing in-house content moderators
Even when most companies understand the need to moderate user-generated content, many are still unsure whether to recruit in-house staff. Now, consider the average salary and other perks you will have to offer to an onboarding content moderator – not something small businesses and startups can afford.
This is one of the primary reasons why most businesses outsource online content moderation. After all, they can find skilled and qualified people from BPO outsourcing companies with a fraction of the cost of hiring an entire team of internal moderators. So why spend more when you can get the job done for much less?
Moreover, this is especially advantageous if you’re looking for individuals with expertise in a specific area, such as brand reputation or legal compliance. For instance, suppose you’re operating a social media platform. In that case, you’ll need moderators adept in relevant laws such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). When you outsource content moderation from a BPO provider, you can access a team of experts with the specialised skills and experience to manage your specific needs without the associated costs of hiring and training in-house staff.
A time-consuming responsibility for the internal staff
Although you might think your platform is safe from scams, remember that these things can be everywhere, especially now. Statistics show that almost 60% of clients worldwide have experienced online fraud at some point. Other statistics state that over 75% of people have faced scams on a site and have never returned to it.
The reality is you have to constantly look for online scams, fraud, fake reviews and online harassment in the long run to ensure the total safety of your spaces. However, it’s highly time-taking since these things are getting more challenging to catch and identify due to the amount of sophistication. That said, if you let your internal team do it, your staff might need more time to focus on their other crucial responsibilities than content moderation outsourcing.
Scalability
One of the massive problems organisations face in terms of content moderation is scalability. As the volume of user-generated content escalates, it will take time to carry on with the demand for moderation.
However, suppose you outsource your content moderation to a BPO specialist firm. This will enable you to scale up or down as needed, ensuring you have the resources to handle even the most perplexing moderation challenges.
For example, even if there’s a high-traffic event (e.g. major sporting or political event), you won’t need to worry about staffing since content moderation is taken care of in real-time.
No hassle of training and buying the necessary resources
With outsourcing, you can be free from all the duties of grounding new content moderators. Getting the right people for the role takes work, particularly when you need them immediately. From onboarding, training, performance feedback and monitoring, you will really need more time to obtain a team of well-versed moderators.
Therefore, instead of handling numerous tasks for your business, you can simply hire or partner with an experienced BPO company for your social media content moderation and let them do what you require. This way, you can concentrate on the other core aspects of your business.
In addition to that, these third-party firms already possess the workforce, smooth procedures and innovative software they need before they begin rendering any company solution. This is one of the best perks of outsourcing the role – you can save more time and resources since you won’t be dealing with the hassle of getting a new office space and hiring and coaching new team members to supervise the tasks related to content moderation.
The added efficiency of an outsourced team
Additional pros of having user-generated content on a website include better Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), brand exposure to newer markets and engaging your present followers. Moreover, it enables you to ponder and consider high end-processes (e.g. utilising user-generated content in your overall marketing tactics) while leaving the tasks to your outsourced team to handle with content moderation.
With outsourcing, you will be able to manage the best of both worlds – obtaining all the advantages of reaching out to your audiences without the distress of getting hit by the negative effect of it.
Improved user experience
Outsourcing content moderation plays a crucial role in enhancing the user experience for consumers. It assures that user-generated content is appropriate, safe, respectful, and relevant to the audience. Companies can prevent the spread of inappropriate or harmful content that can negatively impact the user experience like cyberbullying and hate speech. This helps formulate an engaging and positive user environment, boosting engagement and loyalty.
Boosted adaptability and flexibility
Another benefit of outsourcing a content moderator from a BPO service provider is boosting your adaptability and flexibility. Adapting to evolving moderation needs or new technologies can be difficult with an in-house team. With offshoring, you can work with a group of professionals constantly updated with the latest techniques and tools, ensuring that your moderated content is efficient and effective.
Conclusion
In hindsight, outsourcing content moderation is essential for startups and SMEs today. It is a cost-effective and efficient way to ensure that all online content meets the company’s standards of professionalism and accuracy and adheres to the latest regulations. With an experienced team of external moderators, businesses can maintain their online presence without investing in expensive, extensive staffing or resources. Indeed, outsourcing content moderation increases visibility, promotes brand loyalty and trust with customers and ensures that companies can rapidly respond to changing trends in digital media and stay ahead of the competition.
The Lead Enquiry believes content moderators are vital to your business system. Our vetted BPO provider partners can help you build better customer relationships by filtering inappropriate content. They can also maintain a positive and healthy environment on your platforms. Contact us today.
