auto moderation Archives

Daily Herald brings vibrant, interactive communities to its digital property with Viafoura

Many publishers experience challenges with enticing their digital readers to elevate their relationship from casual reader to actively engaged subscriber. The Daily Herald is a publisher zealously conquering this challenge.

The Daily Herald, suburban Chicago’s largest daily newspaper, provides up-to-date breaking local and national news. While they did offer commenting to their readers via Facebook, those comments appeared on Facebook.com and not DailyHerald.com – depriving the Daily Herald of building a dialogue between their staff and their readers. By moving commenting to their property, the Daily Herald now offers a healthy and vibrant environment that facilitates community interaction.

Mark Stallings, Manager of Digital Operations at the Daily Herald, discloses “we conducted several exhaustive rounds of analysis during our search to find a replacement for our current commenting platform. We had a list of must-haves for any new commenting platform, and Viafoura was among a small group of vendors that met or exceeded our criteria. First and foremost, we wanted a vendor that placed commenting and social engagement at the core of their business. They needed to be well established, with a proven track record of delivering best-in-class solutions with the following features: reader personalization, strong moderation, simple user management, comprehensible reporting and analysis, and easy integration. After narrowing the list, we talked to other publishing company staff and industry groups to help us make the final decision.’

With Viafoura’s Conversations, Live Blogs, Community Chat, Auto-Moderation, and Full-Service Moderation, the Daily Herald will be increasing subscriber revenue, visitor’s time on site, the number of articles they read, and the number of times they return to engage with the content in a set interval.

Ensuring that the Daily Herald is successful and has an exceptional customer experience is Dalia Vainer, Viafoura’s Director of Customer Success. Dalia has the following comment regarding Viafoura’s newest partnership: “we’re excited that the Daily Herald has chosen Viafoura as its partner in community engagement! We’re looking forward to working together to create and grow a safe, moderated space that will provide peace of mind to internal teams and readers”.

From anonymous to first-party: How to turn visitors into registered users and subscribers

It’s an age-old problem for publishers. How do you get casual readers to become loyal subscribers? Let’s first consider how publications strayed from reader engagement to understand the answer to this question. Fastener interviewed Mark Zohar at Viafoura to learn more about the history of audience engagement in digital publishing.

The Outsourcing Stop-gap

Before the internet, the number of publications remained constrained by labor and paper costs, forcing subscriptions on a local level and limiting competition. Yahoo opened the web in 1995, and in 2004, Web 2.0, followed by smartphones in 2007, delivered instant gratification, community and interactivity online. Shortly thereafter, web publications began to outsource their customer service, feedback and commenting abilities, allowing third parties to determine their fate, popularity and ultimately their content through clicks, likes, reviews, tweets and TikToks.

Publishers began validating vanity interactions rather than synergy with their readers. At the time, this was logical. Bots, spam and guerilla postings by malcontents required constant monitoring. Customer Management Systems (CMS) were expensive and required teams of marketing and tech experts to administer. Social media was free (sort of — publishers paid by relinquishing control, privacy and data) and increasingly the preferred method of communication between the business world and its customers. The time and cost of managing engagement, “who needs it!” proffered conventional wisdom.

Opportunity Cost

The cost of relying on third parties — the loss of business and customer intelligence, control and interaction — became apparent as time passed. Third parties, including social media, understood more about an organization’s customers than they did. After all, these outside entities communicated with their customers, collected data, directed them, entertained, and serviced them. These entities engaged and profited from the publisher’s work.

Consider the following facts:

Engaged visitors stay longer, go deeper and generate 4x more advertising opportunities.
They are 2x more likely to click on an ad.
Viafoura’s engaged users are 51x more likely to register.
And registered visitors are 45x more likely to subscribe than casual visitors to your digital properties.

Publishers that engage their readers monetize their properties. Engaging digitally means communication, and communication begins with taking power back to parlay and maintaining control of the wealth of first-party data each exchange produces.

Because publishers outsourced engagement, the vast majority of their visitors remained anonymous, with only a minute percentage registering or subscribing. Publishers continued living in the eighties but are trying to do business in the twenty-twenties, relying on third-party research to understand their readers.

How anonymous users become subscribers

Leading readers through the subscriber journey is relatively painless with the right tools. The Viafoura Digital Experience Platform (DXP) provides the interactivity and immediacy of social media while maintaining control on the publisher’s property of the data, opportunities and experience.

Viafoura’s DXP anonymous-to-subscriber strategy involves four levels: Engagement Suite, Personalization, Moderation, and Data.

Engagement suite

Creating loyal subscribers from anonymous readers begins with on-site engagement on publishers’ owned and operated digital properties. Readers who feel listened to return more often and dive deeper into your publication. Viafoura deploys various solutions to make readers feel at home, including social sharing, chat, Q&As and conversations. And then there is the ultimate VIP ticket, the live blogging platform coupled with Viafoura’s Conversations. Together or solo, each creates an immersive experience between a publication and its reader community, resulting in an average 600 percent lift in subscriptions.

Personalization

Nobody wants to be an unknown number when engaging with a publication. Therefore, personalization is the next step in making anonymous readers cherished subscribers. Personalization includes capturing and using more than a person’s name. It means having options that craft an experience unique to each reader, including alerts, notifications, follow options, recommendations, and curated feeds. Readers feel like family when content is personalized to their needs, likes and wants. It is a mesmerizing experience that keeps them coming back. Viafoura’s DPX puts personalization under the publisher’s control.

Moderation

Without comment moderation, the trolls take over, and suddenly a pleasant interaction becomes a toxic mix of vitriol, hurting the publication and the user experience. On average, a publisher will lose 80 percent of its anonymous readers due to a hostile environment. However, well-moderated engagement increases registrations and subscriptions by an average of 400 percent within six months. Viafoura’s DXP uses multiple strategies to streamline moderation and reduce the number of people needed to keep it going by customizing parameters to each publication’s policies across all properties and social media. Artificial intelligence combined with human expertise and easy-to-read dashboards take on the trolls and temper the tantrums to ensure engagement on its client’s publications remains civil, pleasurable and informative.

Data

Data is worth more than gold in the digital world. It determines content, direction, strategy, partners, advertising, marketing, corporate expenditures, budgets, pricing, new products and investments—data is behind every informed decision. Yet many publishers give away their primary data by outsourcing engagement. Controlling all aspects of the publishing ecosystem delivers unprecedented intelligence that allows a publication to improve its content, better service its readers and strategically plan for the future. Viafoura’s DXP delivers far more than the 83 average metrics. Its digital engagement platform provides over 200 data points, vital information that elevates customer experience, value, and loyalty, which translates to subscribers.

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Viafoura’s unique approach boosts on-site engagement, increasing user registrations and subscriptions. Additionally, it produces internet gold, the ultra-valuable first-party data that creates unique personas and insights exclusive to the publication. Detailed information permits publishers to fine-tune their content, increasing its value to their readers while simultaneously lifting advertising revenues and engagement. Happy readers become loyal readers. Loyal readers become subscribers—leading us back to the original question. How do digital publishers turn visitors into registered users and subscribers while improving their publications? They invest in engagement tools, and Viafoura’s DXP is the leader.

Digiday Media and Viafoura – a next level partnership with fresh content formats, engagement opportunities, and analytics upgrades

Digiday Media is a publisher known for its frank perspectives across its media brands which include Digiday, Glossy, Modern Retail and WorkLife. Their unapologetic dedication to delivering work that prioritizes ‘honesty over spin’ and ‘quality over quantity’ has won them awards, accolades, and an audience of loyal subscribers who come to them for the truth.

As a global authority on tech and its impact on media, Digiday Media is keenly aware of the importance of providing an engaging and rewarding digital experience for loyal users. In order to enhance the experience for Glossy+ members, they’ve adopted a number of Viafoura’s solutions on Glossy.co, a space where users are craving deeper engagement experiences.

“We’re so pleased to be helping Digiday Media offer new and exclusive content formats and engagement experiences to Glossy+ members.” says Mark Zohar, President & COO at Viafoura, “As a longtime partner, we’ve seen firsthand how the smart folks at Digiday Media continue to improve the experience for its audiences, and we’re proud that Viafoura is now an active contributor to that strategy.”

The team at Glossy is using Viafoura’s digital experience platform to enhance the Glossy+ member experience by giving them exclusive access to new content formats and engagement opportunities. Using Viafoura’s Conversations, paying members will soon be able to take part in real-time discussions during Ask Me Anything events. These events, along with Conversations on traditional content formats, provide new opportunities for engagement, which can be carefully managed with the support of Viafoura’s Automated Moderation. On the back-end, Digiday Media will leverage the rich first-party data and insights uncovered through Viafoura’s Audience Insights to enhance its audience-first content development strategies.

“We chose Viafoura because it’s the best solution for our current needs and there are plenty of additional features for us to grow into as we evolve the user experience,” says Aaron Gottlieb, EVP, Product & Platform Strategy at Digiday Media. He continues, “Viafoura’s digital experience platform adds another layer of value and utility for paying members and will help us build and own the direct relationship with them on our platforms.”

After rolling out the new Glossy+ member experience, Digiday Media will be implementing Viafoura on additional properties, including Digiday and Modern Retail.

Skip The Toll: How To Deal With Tech Savvy Trolls

It’s the year 2022 and people now turn to devices for human connection. The internet has never been more social and with that constantly growing traffic comes a bounty of wonderful moments of connection… And an all time high population of trolls.Internet trolling is defined as ‘malicious online behavior’ characterized by aggressive or deliberate provocation of others. While this behavior may (debatably) be cathartic for the person trolling communities in anonymity, their presence significantly deteriorates the health and safety of a digital space, and thus its usability.

Publishers big and small suffer equally at the hands of trolls. They’re tech savvy, almost always anonymous, and with an abundance of time on their hands to spread toxicity, they’re a force to be reckoned with. What’s worse? They’re here to stay.

In lieu of surrendering, here are a few troll tactics to look out for and what you can do to skip the toll and protect your peace.

Multiple Accounts

Trolls are obsessive, petulant and persistent. If you’re suddenly up against a horde of trolls, keep in mind it may just be one person, on a mission, using many accounts. Trolls have the time and the tech to overwhelm spaces, dodge bans, and sully the hard earned good vibes of your community. How do I solve it? – Once you’re familiar with a troll’s behaviour, you can spot them in the wild (disguised as a new user) as they start fights or encourage incendiary opinions. These repeat offenders leave hints that point to their identity. Armed with your community tools and data, look out for similar names, emails, avatars, or IP addresses linked to existing bans. Check, confirm and then ban them as many times as it takes.

Hate Speech and Vulgarity

Trolls need attention and offensive language is an easy way to get it. In 2019, approximately a third of the posts that Viafoura moderators came across contained hate speech and/or vulgarity. That’s almost 83 million attempts at being nasty for no reason, so we can at least give trolls credit for being dedicated to their craft… But not good credit, to be sure. How do I solve it? – A ‘banned-word list’ can help limit this particular tactic but some trolls may use a tactic called ‘masking’. Trolls will mask banned words with symbols, vertical spelling, periods, etc. to throw off a simple banned-word list. If you’re not sure what to look for, trust – 0nce u se.e 1t, y0u c4n’t uns33 1t. A more sophisticated, natural language processing AI, like Viafoura’s, can spot masked words and block them with over 90% accuracy.

Bonus tip: Many service providers claim to have AI or automatic moderation, but don’t actually leverage natural language processing or machine learning to understand variations of words and sentence structures. Check in with your moderation provider to make sure your tool can learn as moderators approve or block comments, further training the algorithm, which should be customized to your guidelines.

Serial Flagging

User to user moderation can be a valuable safety tool but it also has the potential for abuse. Some trolls will use the ‘flagging’ feature to silence or frustrate innocent users. In some cases, the serial flagging may even result in an unfair ban for people that have not violated any guidelines. If a user flags often and most of the content they flag does not violate community guidelines, you may have a troll on your hands.How do I solve it? – Use your data and work with your community. Consider this incentive to be involved with your community and get to know who your positive contributors are. Asking trusted users for their insights and experiences with the suspected troll will help you recognize false-flag reporters on the spot.

Dealing with trolls isn’t always easy and it’s never a fun experience. Unfortunately, they are here to stay and if left unchecked they can turn your digital space into a tumultuous community rife with conflict – definitely not something you want associated with your brand. By equipping ourselves with the proper knowledge, tools and awareness, we can keep trolls at bay and use those same moderating methods to prevent toxic user behaviour from developing even without trolls fuelling the flames.

To learn more about Viafoura’s suite of moderation tools visit https://viafoura.com/content-moderation/.

Does your moderation team have the tools to spot the troll?

As any moderator knows, trolling is more than just a nuisance.

According to Leigh Adams, director of moderation services at Viafoura, ‘trolls become the vocal minority, and can quickly overtake and drown out more relevant conversation.’ When toxic behavior goes unchecked, it can lead forums in a direction that actively harms your brand. Are your moderators equipped to effectively identify and eliminate bad behavior before it causes long-term damage? Here are five important tools they’ll need.

Community Guidelines

The first step to building a safe online community is to create strong community guidelines that are clear, easy to find, and comprehensive. These serve as the first line of defense for would-be trolls.

What should guidelines contain? Experts recommend a no-tolerance policy for personal attacks, obscene, libelous, or defamatory content, and anything abusive or profane. After that, guidelines should be customized to fit your platform.

When a user behaves badly, community guidelines can help your moderators make an informed decision to flag or ban them. They also provide justification, should a banned user file a complaint. This helps to protect your moderators, which in turn helps them do their jobs with confidence.

Know the Signs

Tolls can be sorted into one of two categories; Single account and multiple account. Both types can be identified quickly and easily if moderators know what to look for. Ensure your moderation team knows how to access user data and search for warning signs.

Single account trolls are users who cross the line, whether they know it or not. They can be identified by volume and typically boast a high number of flags, disables, or comments. They can be redeemed, and often amend behavior with a warning or a single ban.Multi-account trolls will return repeatedly under different aliases. They’re typically seeking attention and often leave hints about their identity in order to reignite toxic conversations. Moderators should look at new accounts for telltale signs of a returning troll. They will often have a high disable rate, similar name, avatar image, or IP address to a previously banned account. Some trolls are so eager for attention, they may even post ‘I’m back’ or ‘I was banned’.

Banning

When all warnings have failed to stop bad behavior, moderators should be empowered to ban problematic users. Bans help uphold your community guidelines and make a better space for the well-behaved users that wish to enjoy the platform.

There are several kinds of bans; incremental, ghost bans, and permanent bans. Moderators can increase their level of control by understanding the best use scenario for each type of ban.

An incremental ban is used as a stop-gap or a warning to make sure first-time offenders are given room for improvement. Ghost bans allow the troll to continue posting, but they remove the comment from the general feed. Permanent bans are just that: permanent. Bans are a powerful tool. Empower your moderators to use them. Provided they are using it accurately, the confidence to ban users will save time and mental fortitude.

AI Tools

One of the best tools you can give your human moderation team is an AI system that will identify the majority of obvious toxicity, reduce their moderation scope and allow them to focus on more nuanced situations.

There are a number of intelligent moderation options available, but not all systems are made equal. Many services use a ‘banned word’ list that won’t catch the majority of contextual issues or ‘masking’ violations. Instead, choose a service with natural language processing or machine learning. These systems allow the AI to adapt as moderators approve or block comments, customizing the algorithm to your platform.

According to the Viafoura report ‘Everyone Is A Troll’, communities with advanced moderation software have been proven to see growth; 62% more user likes, 35% more comments per user, and 34% more replies per user.

Support for your moderation team

Your moderation team does the essential but difficult job of guarding your community against incoming hostility. Creating an efficient, positive, and healthy work environment will help them avoid burnout and maintain positivity.

The first and most important aspect of a healthy workplace is open communication. Set up a channel (like Slack or Google Meets) and encourage your moderators to reach out for help. This will help your team remain neutral, identify each other’s unconscious bias and ensure knowledge can be shared.

Support your moderation team further by keeping the workload transparent and providing access to frequent breaks. Rest can be productive, and when you’re dealing with constant negativity, essential.

At Viafoura, we believe that well-prepared moderators make for strong healthy communities. How many of these tools do your moderators employ? Equip your team with a complete range of moderation strategies and they can build a community that feels safe, supports your brand, and grows along with your platform.

These Three Actions Will Save Staff Time and Effort in the Newsroom

For many newsrooms, the past few months have been a battlefield as resources strained under the pressure of tightened budgets and significant global events.

News organizations that have survived until now have adapted their processes to overcome the hurdles of working remotely, a higher demand for news and reduced staff. Moving forward, newsrooms will need to continue to embrace time-saving strategies to boost workplace efficiency.

“There’s been a lot of conversation about what a return to normal looks like,” says Jon Laurence, the supervising executive producer at AJ+. “And actually just as I don’t think that society is going to return to the old normal, I think that’s true of the press as well… the workflow changes that we’ve made… are just more efficient in some cases.”

Media companies can greatly reduce the time and effort they invest in various everyday tasks to focus on higher-value work. To accomplish this, all they need to do is put a few simple strategies into action.

Explore three ways media companies can save their newsrooms time and energy below.

Automating Comment Moderation

Perhaps one of the largest lessons media companies have discovered this year is that audience engagement is everything when it comes to building sustainable reader revenue. And commenting tools that are properly moderated are key to developing engaged, loyal community members.

However, effective comment moderation often requires a massive amount of attention, time and training from staff.

That’s where machine-based automation comes in.

Newsrooms can enlist the help of moderation engines, equipped with artificial intelligence and machine learning qualities, to manage toxic comments. Instead of relying on staff to manually skim comment threads, automatic moderation systems can instantly identify and block incivility from the moment a user tries to publish a comment.

This means that machine automation in the newsroom, like automated comment moderation, has the power to free up time for journalists and editors.

Just be sure to select a moderation system that can detect all 6.5 million variations of each toxic word, understand local language and support your community guidelines.

Concerned that automating comment moderation will threaten employee jobs?

Rather than eliminating the need for staff, Francesco Marconi, a journalism professor at Columbia University, explains that machines “will in fact reorient editors and journalists towards value-added content.”

Outsourcing Moderation on Your Social Spaces

Although machines are capable of detecting most forms of toxicity in social spaces, humans are still needed to train any intelligent algorithm and manage trolls. Together, the combination of automatic and human moderation can keep your community protected from spam and offensive content.

But that doesn’t mean you have to overwhelm your staff with moderation responsibilities. You can transfer the burden of human moderation to a highly trained third-party provider. As a result, newsroom staff will have more time to establish strong connections with digital visitors.

“[Outsourcing moderation can save] yourself time and resources that can be better spent engaging directly with your users,“ explains Leigh Adams, director of moderation at Viafoura, in a recent webinar. “Making sure that you’re highlighting [your most active users’] content [and] featuring their comments… allows your readership to feel like they’re part of the ecosystem and feel valued.”

Consider making the most of third-party moderation by outsourcing the heavy lifting for your owned and operated properties as well as your social media accounts.

Pulling Content Ideas Directly From the Community

Journalists and editors understand that pitching content ideas is an art form. Coming up with original, relevant ideas that resonate with audience members time and time again can be a painstaking process for newsroom staff.

To take some of the guesswork out of the content-creation process, news companies are finding content inspiration directly from their communities. More specifically, media organizations have started to produce high-performing content by asking community members about their information needs.

Not only can leveraging content ideas from the community save staff time researching topics to pitch, but it can also help to secure strong relationships with readers.

Anna Nirmala, vice president of the American Journalism Project, emphasizes that, in the coming months, “[it] will be understood that having a relevant and trusted brand is linked to building relationships and engaging with the community.”

Ultimately, asking your readers what they’re interested in reading about — whether that be through social tools, surveys or another method of communication — will save staff time and energy while paving the way for highly trusted and engaging content.

By reducing time-consuming tasks in the newsroom, staff can spend more time creating positive user experiences that matter to visitors.