Content Moderation: An Overlooked Back Office Service That Can Change Your Brand Image
Trust is probably the biggest factor when it comes to brand selection. Especially in this modern-age of intense competition, trustworthiness of a product directly correlates with its success. However, if we go by the current trends, trust in brands has become quite fickle. So much so, that it forms with the delivery of a worthwhile commodity and fades rapidly at the first onset of product malfunction. There is no clear way to gauge customer loyalty, but only a handful of mediums (customer surveys, direct customer feedback etc.) that can indicate a particular inclination of a specific customer base. Given the current turbulent state of customer behavior, it becomes crucial to use innovative back office services like UGC (User Generated Content) moderation to gain insights about user preferences.
The Main Use of Content Moderation
For a long time content moderation has been used for what it directly implies – application of preset rules and guidelines to user-generated submissions that can be in the form of text, images and videos. It is a great way to weed out image-tarnishing remarks made by vengeful customers or illogical scribbling by trolls that swarm the Internet.
UGC Moderation: An Underutilized Back Office Support Tool
According to a survey, 50% of customers found UGC more trustworthy than other media types and 35% of customers believed that it was way more memorable than media promotions carried out by brands.
The primary reason for customers’ positive outlook towards UGC comes from the fact that it is believed to be completely organic in nature. People have a firm belief that a positive review comes from the heart for a good product and a negative review is a byproduct of customer frustration towards a bad product. Such is the mass appeal of UGC that a lot of people intuitively scroll through the comment sections before even looking at the product description. This unique effect produced by UGC is the primary reason behind its huge marketing potential. And, it is the same reason why it has so many advantages to offer for shaping a brand’s image:
- For bringing in more traffic – Nowadays, companies try their hardest to direct user traffic towards their websites. SEO and paid advertising on Google/Bing is quite popular amongst companies. However, innovative UGC moderation can also be utilized for the same purpose.
- A great way to increase traffic and improve your website’s ratings is by starting a contest that rewards users for sharing their product-usage experience. Not only it will bring in more traffic and engage users in conversation, it will also increase the awareness of your product amongst the users.
- Invaluable insights – There are many examples in history that show products created for specific tasks failing miserably, but later becoming popular because they were found to be useful in accomplishing other tasks. Do you know that bubble paper was actually designed as a wall-decoration piece? It would have failed miserably if not for the user feedback that conveyed to the manufacturer its usefulness as a protective packaging solution.
- You might not get a feedback as groundbreaking as the one associated with the bubble wrap, but if you can employ content moderation effectively; you will definitely get valuable insights that can help you change the fortune of your brand.
- Damage control – Just like money saved amounts to money earned, damage limitation is equal to promotion done. By employing a back office support team that has an eye for detail, you can nip a problem in the bud. The damage-controlling advantage of content moderation can be explained better with an example.
- Suppose you are a food delivery service provider. Recently, you come across certain videos on your company’s Twitter handle that show the food delivery guy of a company (like yours) eating the food in transit. Broadcast of such a video on your Twitter account can start a chain of conversation that would (most likely) not end in your favor. In this case, an intelligent and aware UGC moderator should be able to spot such a calamitous post and delete it before it becomes the match that starts a wildfire.
