User-generated content can create positive brand recognition, build trust and loyalty, and help businesses develop a more authentic connection with their customers. However, UGC also poses risks and requires careful monitoring to avoid harmful, offensive, or misleading information.
Any online platform that showcases UGC needs a robust, scalable content moderation process. This includes chat rooms, feeds, forums, review sites, and photosharing platforms.
Human moderators
Human moderators are essential to any online community, as they keep content that advances the brand and jettison content that could damage it. They also understand the impact that UGC can have on their audience and the best ways to leverage it.
The simplest way to moderate UGC is through pre-moderation, where all user-submitted content is screened by a person or an automated tool before it goes live on a platform. This method offers the highest level of control, but it can be expensive and time-consuming.
It also exposes humans to triggering content, which can compromise their psychological well-being. To avoid this, companies should use AI-based filtering to reduce the amount of triggering content they have to review. They should also create keyword or phrase blacklists to identify inappropriate content more quickly. Additionally, they should use translation features to ensure that users from different countries can communicate in their native language. This will help them recognize relevant internet slang and nuances that may be missed by algorithms.
Automated moderation
While user-generated content (UGC) is an excellent marketing tool, it’s also important to protect your users from inappropriate material. If your business isn’t careful, one ill-advised post could damage your reputation and harm your users.
To avoid this risk, consider a pre-scanning process for UGC before it goes live. This ensures that all content meets company guidelines. However, it can cause delays in posting. At WebPurify, we recommend a hybrid approach that uses both human and automated scanning to speed up message review.
The best way to moderate UGC is to have a team of trained professionals on staff. These experts are able to keep the content that advances your brand and jettison the content that damages it. They also understand how to best use your online community, which is critical to its success.
Pre-moderation
UGC-based marketing allows brands to create a connection with their followers by sharing product experiences. However, this type of content must be moderated to avoid legal and branding issues. This moderation process can be done manually by allowing community members to vote on submissions and to report them if they are inappropriate. However, this method is expensive and labor-intensive.
Whether the UGC is in the form of images, text, video, or audio, it must be monitored and approved to ensure that it doesn’t violate any of your company’s policies. Otherwise, your business could be accused of promoting harmful content or spreading disinformation.
It is crucial that businesses have a scalable UGC content moderation system in place. This will allow them to keep UGC that advances the brand and jettison anything that can harm it. This is why it’s important to use moderation tools that can detect offensive language and other red flags, including slang words and internet terminology.
Post-moderation
Post-moderation is the process of moderating content after it has been submitted. This method is often used for community forums and social media websites. It can help protect brands from explicit content that may be posted by users, such as hateful comments or erotic photos and videos.
This moderation technique allows community members to flag inappropriate content as they encounter it on the site or platform. This is typically done through a reporting button, which alerts the administrators or moderator team to review and, if necessary, remove the content.
The advantage of using post-moderation is that it avoids the possibility of offensive content being visible on a website in real time. However, it does require human moderators to scan all the text, images and video submitted by users. At WebPurify, we use a hybrid system of pre-scanning and live human moderation for UGC. This ensures that we get the best results and keep our clients protected from any legal ramifications.