Making Your Forum More Social Part II Being a Social Administrator I want to preface this article by stating I realize not all administrators are actively involved in their forums and there is nothing wrong with that. I strongly suggest, if this is the case with your site, to assign someone as a Social Administrator to be the face of the site. You dont need to be a social butterfly to be a good social administrator. Im the perfect example. Im the most cynical misanthropic SOB you could know. But much like Brad Paisleys song Online Im so much cooler online. You also do not need to be the touchy feely overly empathetic person. What you do need is someone to be the face of your site. It is very important for you as the administrator to either be this person or assign this person that you know will keep the site going in the direction you want it to rather than someone assuming this responsibility. Weve probably all seen a forum where the leaders are not the dominate personalities of a forum and a member takes over that roll which can lead to the forum taking a different direction than the administrator wanted and can often times lead to the demise of the site. A Social Administrator must be active and approachable in your forum. Use your personality to get people there and build a loyalty to you. Being active and personally connected to your members builds that loyalty from members so your site will be the one they want to go to and want to tell their friends about. One of the things I find frustrating is when I go to a forum and dont know who is running it. It just seems so impersonal and the antithesis of what a forum should be. To be the Social Administrator you need to lead your forum in posts, or at least be among the top posters if the other top posters seem to be on the same page. The Social Administrator will be a clever wordsmith and understand words have meanings. While we cannot hear tone for sarcasm, humor, scorn and the like in written words we can convey that feeling by the words we use. A great example is notion and idea. Both words have essentially the same meaning but in many contexts notion takes on a more negative tone and idea a more positive one. You also dont need to use $10 words, just the correct words. Readers build a profile of who they think the person is based on not only what they write, but how they write it. The Social Administrator will portray them self as fair, friendly, knowledgeable and involved. You want your members to gravitate towards this person whether they agree with them or not. Your Social Administrator is also going to be the one to actively welcome newbies either through a welcome thread or directly through email or PM when they register. When the Social Administrator contacts these people they should let them know that they are there for them if they ever have any questions. It doesnt matter if your Social Administrator is different from your Technical Administrator. If thats the case just have the social admin pass the word. Moderation of threads and posts can be a sticky situation. In the umpiring world we have the phrase OOO for Overly Officious Official. These are umpires who look for things to call rather than letting the game play out and applying the rules as needed. Now you may be thinking, How does this have anything to do with being a Social Administrator? It does because the way you moderate your forum sets the tone for the members as to what will and will not be accepted. Too strict makes things not much fun because either people will become weary of being moderated and not express their true thoughts and feelings or they will begin to feel oppressed and leave. Too lenient it becomes the wild wild west with full flame wars, endless bickering and also an environment which causes good people to leave and folks youd rather not have to join. So you need to find a happy medium. Obviously the true spam posts are a no brainer. The art of moderating posts comes in that grey area where it could be a friendly jab in the ribs having a little fun at the expense of a member or it could be a full force body blow knocking the wind out of the member. A lot of what determines the difference is not only how the target reacts, but how the members of the community react as well. In these grey areas I recommend making a mental or even a user note of the situation, who is involved and how you perceived the post; chances are many of you members perceived it the same way. Then sit back just a little bit and see what happens. Dont ignore it, because then it could blow up at a moments notice and youll be thinking I coulda, woulda, shoulda. But once you determine things are heading in a direction you dont want, dont wait to the point where there has been an additional 10-15 heated exchanges to act. See what the next few posts are like and then act swiftly. Same applies for the person who posts something completely off topic. Unless you feel it has a better place in your forum, just let it be, you members may likely pass it by. Once you have established yourself as the social administrator you may be able to preempt some of these moderations because you will get a better feel as to who the players are. You may know there are a few people who like to trade harmless jabs at each other like brothers do and let things go, but you may know there is a member with particularly thin skin who will become upset at the first negative word. Identifying and handling these situations is something your Social Administrator will have to be able to do. Now comes the tough part. Contact all of those involved when a thread or post heads the wrong direction and needs to be moderated. Most of us have conflict avoidance programmed into our psyche somewhere (BTW - umpires dont suffer from this affliction) and we dont want to do this. I tend to think of it as a matter of respect to the members involved. Send an email or PM and let them know whats going on, but dont take sides. A PM can look something like this: Be brief, bright and relevant in your explanation. The more you drag it out the more likely youll get a rebuttal from the person. Keep track of who is involved in items which need to be moderated. If need be remind them, If a trend is developing then get rid of them. Im not a fan of temporary bans or rescinding a ban which has been issued, because more likely than not when they come back and be on a short clock before you get rid of them again. I do believe by communicating with them it can diffuse some of the passive aggressive behavior like, well they deleted that post, Ill give them something to delete. This is another example of where contacting the member directly can help the situation. I believe that ultimately people want to do the right thing and honestly may not know where the line between acceptable and unacceptable behavior is; especially since it can vary so much from one forum to the next. Let them know where the line is and I believe most people will respect the line. Another thing that contacting the members directly through PMs or emails does is takes the conversation off the board. These discussions can sometimes get heated and ugly. Your other members dont need to see this. By initiating the conversation off the board they will most likely respond in the same manner as they were initially contacted. Social Administrators will also play the role of chief cheerleader for the members. You members will post some of their accomplishments a little atta boy goes a long way in building a solid rapport with your members. Remember as an administrator some people will see you as an expert in your niche and therefore your pat on the back especially in public via the forum will give them a sense of pride. Also, members may post some situations they are in or have been involved in. By the very nature of a forum many people will jump in and give their opinion on the situation how they handled it and of course what they would have done better. These threads are blood in the water for the sharks we know as trolls. The Social Administrator plays a vital role in these situations. Even if you and everybody else seems to think the person completely butchered the situation, a good Social Administrator will chime in and not necessarily come to the persons rescue, but redirect the conversation to where it can be a more positive experience for everybody. A simple, I think we can agree this wasnt an ideal situation, but . And turn it into a learning experience or example. Just a few posts like this by the Social Administrator really set the tone and can stop some of the flaming even before it starts. Having a great environment plays a huge part in turning those visitors/lurkers into members. You as the Social Administrator, or in assigning a Social Administrator, are choosing to take a proactive role in molding the environment of your forum.
I like the ideas here of having a social admin but I think all of it occurs naturally with forums with more than one admin, one is usually more social and liked by members than the other and thus becomes the social admin. Will there be a part 3 to this? I must admit, I am not much of a social admin at all, I think I would be with a different niche say if I was to run a webmaster forum or something where I really am needed to chime in and help. Nice article!
