Top 5 advantages to people-powered moderation

March 6 2010, 8:37am

Technology is booming in the social media space. It seems like every day there is a new platform or application that allows brands and publishers to monitor and moderate the content that makes its way onto their online communities and fan pages. I guess the only concern is - will they ever be enough? Society is always trying to reinvent the wheel, but let’s be honest the wheel still works. So why do we always have a need to over-complicate things. Or buy something that costs a lot more, that does the same thing as the original, and often is less effective. Technology will never replace humans. What this essentially means is while technology is constantly reinventing itself, real people don’t take as long to adjust and as an added bonus, they rarely require system upgrades. Certainly there is a place for technology in the world of moderation, however without the people to put that technology to use, or that content into context - how is anything really getting done? Here are five advantages to people-powered moderation: 1. Reliability 2. Accuracy 3. Experience 4. Flexibility 5. Scalability Over the past five years brands have moved further and further away from simply removing any user-generated content that is negative or contrary to brand reputation. Clients now prefer to engage consumers and open up the line of dialogue. “Everyday we escalate content to our clients so they can jump in and personally engage with customers online, says Jan Reischek, director of client services, social media with ICUC Moderation Services. “At the end of the day a person still needs to be involved. A computer can take out the trash but the human advantage is the ability to take context into consideration.”