Moderators of government social media pages know: engagement sounds great in theory, and certainly you want people to see and care about your organization’s social media content–but things can go south. It can be extra challenging to filter and respond to inbound comments, trolls, and the like. Between regulations and compliance, many government offices find themselves with questions about how to effectively manage moderation and engagement. Social Assurance for Government’s Ben Pankonin and October Social Media’s Lauren Fitzgerald got together for a free Q&A webinar addressing those questions directly. The goal? To help government social media teams get a handle on page and community management. Here’s a quick look of just some of the questions Ben and Lauren addressed.
How should government social media pages deal with trolls, scammers, and frequent flyers?
Ben and Lauren agree that it seems trolls and scammers are an inevitable reality for any social media page. Lauren recommended keeping a list of people trolling your accounts regularly (also known as “frequent flyers”). (By the way, Social Assurance for Government’s keyword feature makes it super easy to input these common offenders’ usernames as keywords so they automatically get flagged for instant notification and moderation follow-up.) As a next step, Lauren recommends being polite and addressing their concerns directly, while also keeping in mind that your response will be read by others. Sometimes a troll or frequent flier may be offering information that is not quite accurate, making it important for moderators to respond in a way that not only corrects the misinformation simply and politely, but signals to other followers that misinformation will not go un-addressed on your page.
How can government social media pages create content that doesn’t get trolled?
While it’s not necessarily possible to 100% ensure content won’t get trolled, there are some steps you can take. Lauren recommends building a strategy around content pillars that agitate and inform audiences, and also give space for positivity. This is the kind of content agencies and creative outfits like October Social Media work with clients on–especially those with small teams who need help organizing content around these types of strategic pillars. In addition to providing updates and educational information, she recommended sprinkling in positive highlights that are fundamentally less trollable. It’s also important to keep in mind that audiences aren’t always impressed by trolls’, and that other followers can tend to be understanding about the fact that people can be negative on social media. In short, negative feedback doesn’t always reflect poorly on a page or entity.
What should government pages be considering when it comes to social media policies?
In addition to putting together a downloadable template resource (a nice starting place for government offices and agencies looking to craft their own social media policies), Ben and Lauren had some suggestions about policy considerations during the webinar. Lauren suggested that policies live in multiple places–such as on the agency’s website (perhaps in terms and conditions or other privacy policies), and then also on the social platform/page itself. She recommended using concrete statements that have little room for interpretation, so that if an incident requires that a page moderator reference an official policy document, things are as clear as possible.
How should government social media pages handle comments that contain misinformation or disinformation?
Ben and Lauren noted that this can be common–it’s something many government social media managers are dealing with regularly. Lauren recommends, again, correcting misinformation directly and politely, knowing that other followers may see or engage with your responses. She recommends acknowledging the misinformation/disinformation, correcting it, and then pointing the commenter to a place where they can discuss the matter further (such as contact information) or find additional information. This provides a next step for the user and makes them feel addressed.
When, why, and how can government social media managers remove or hide comments?
This is certainly something to discuss with legal counsel–a suggestion echoed by Ben and Lauren as well as webinar attendees in the live chat feed during the presentation. When it comes to how, software platforms built for government social media can make it easy and cost-effective to automatically archive and report on content for state-level FOIA requests and the like. In terms of what gets deleted and hidden, this can move into concerns around the First Amendment. Ben and Lauren recommend proceeding with caution when it comes to deleting commentary on government social pages. If the comments are threatening in nature, that is typically an exception. As a general rule, it’s best to avoid deleting content and to consult legal on both preemptive policy buildouts, as well as individual questions that arise.
More Insights on Moderation
These are just a few highlights from the discussion on government social media community management and page moderation. To catch the whole webinar (i.e. watch it free, on-demand), use the button below.
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