Protecting your marketing and social media team from Moderation Trauma

How do you manage the growth of social media toxicity if you are the one in the hot seat? Well, the answer is simple, with difficulty. It’s not just the workload but the content that social media managers are having to wade through to protect brand reputation and communities.

According to a report by Ditch the Label, online abuse has increased by 20% since the start of the pandemic. EU Commission research puts it at 40%. 1 in 5 people are victims, and 2 in 5 people witness it each year. More and more individuals are taking a break from social media or maybe not engaging as much as they used to. So what does this mean for those working in social media and content moderation?

Social media is waiting for no-one. Hootsuite’s latest Digital Overview Global 2022 report shows that year on year, social media users grew by 10% to 424m people. Growth is a good thing and offers brands several opportunities to grow social media commerce revenue, but with this growth comes responsibility to protect communities from toxic content.

Today, regular breaks for social media teams are common but not everywhere, rotating the team is a tactic put in place to improve staff well-being. Social Media Managers want to deal with the creative side not the negativity, that’s why many decide to get into the job.

In December 2021, the BBC reported that a former employee of Tik Tok, Candie Frazier, was suing her employer due to the breakdown in her mental health from being exposed to constant graphic content that has resulted in ‘significant psychological trauma’, including depression and anxiety.

Being exposed regularly to toxic and hateful content has been proven to deteriorate people’s mental health. Brands increasingly have a duty of care to protect staff in their working environment, but often this doesn’t seem to always extend into the world of social media. By not having the tools in place to protect social media staff, brands are leaving themselves exposed to legal action.

Social Media Managers are also spending up to 75% of their time moderating unwanted content. Pretty inefficient and costly all round wouldn’t you say?

By having the right tools and tech in place, Social Media Managers can spend more time engaging their audience on the good stuff in a safe environment that protects them from damaging experiences. Better online engagement results in higher revenues, so it really is a win, win for all involved.

This is why we created Arwen, to make social media social again. If you would like to understand more on how Arwen can help your social media teams, please get in touch to request a demo here.