In today's digital era, having a strong and positive online presence is essential for businesses to thrive. As a result, businesses must moderate user-generated content to ensure that online comments, posts, and videos reflect their values and do not negatively affect customers' perceptions of the brand. Content moderation is no longer optional but necessary for building digital trust and safety.
However, with numerous content moderation service providers in the market, selecting a vendor to outsource this responsibility can be a daunting task. Several factors must be considered to ensure your chosen partner understands your brand's values, target audience, and niche.
This article provides a step-by-step guide to selecting an outsourcing partner for content moderation services. This process will help improve your online reputation and engage more effectively with your audience.
Why Outsource Content Moderation Services?
Content moderation can be done in three ways: outsourcing to an external partner, building an in-house team or utilizing a hybrid approach. Although all three methods have their merits, content moderation outsourcing remains the most ideal for many businesses around the world. Partnering with a specialist outsourcing company delivers significant advantages, such as industry expertise, advanced technology, and economical efficiency within a flexible structure.
Here is a chart of the pros and cons of each approach, highlighting why outsourcing emerges as a winning choice:
| Pros | Cons | |
|---|---|---|
| In-House | Better SOC Controls: In-house teams enforce and adhere to SOC measures within the organization. Tighter Communications: Communication lines are direct and quick within the same organization, streamlining task execution. Faster Dissemination: Businesses can relay information or instructions to their in-house teams faster. | Higher Costs, Investments, and Efforts: Recruiting, training, and retaining in-house personnel require significant investment. Talent Management: Attracting and retaining a skilled workforce within the same organization poses a difficult challenge. Inflexible Structure: Scaling operations based volumes and needs can be less fluid and more time-consuming with in-house teams. |
| Outsource | Drive Cost Efficiencies: Outsourcing saves costs related to hiring and training an in-house team. Better Geographical Spread of Resources: By outsourcing, businesses secure access to a global team, ensuring moderation coverage across different time zones. Industry Expertise, Innovation, and Thought Leadership: Outsourcing companies bring specialized knowledge and innovative strategies to the moderation process. | Management Effort: Businesses must still manage the outsourcing relationship and monitor the content moderation company’s performance. Looser SOC Controls: Ensuring compliance with Service Organization Control measures can be more complex due to operational differences and lack of direct control. Operating Governance: Businesses need a robust governance structure to ensure that their outsourcing partner aligns with their objectives, guidelines, and standards. |
| Hybrid | Effective Joint Governing Structure: A hybrid setup combines the strengths of both in-house and outsourced teams. Teamwork Between Competing Vendors: Collaboration and shared expertise flourish when multiple moderation outsourcing companies are involved. Shared Risk and Rewards: In-house and outsourced teams share the benefits of content moderation. Proactive Innovation: This model encourages vendors to adopt innovative, transformative moderation approaches. | Managing Multiple Vendor Relationships: The management of partnerships with outsourcing and internal teams adds a layer of complexity to the process. Intellectual Property Focus: Intellectual property issues can be risky in a hybrid model due to multiple vendors' involvement. |
3 Steps in Selecting a Content Moderation Company
With plenty of content moderation companies to choose from, it becomes difficult to select the right one. After all, your chosen partner will be responsible for your platform and brand. This is why it is important to collaborate with an outsourcing provider that follows content moderation best practices and aligns best with your business values, objectives, and requirements.
Follow these three simple steps to guide you toward making an informed, suitable decision.
Step 1: Understand your requirements
Identify your moderation needs by categorizing and quantifying the type of services you require. Whether it's social media or chat moderation, understanding these needs will streamline the moderating process, help articulate your requirements to potential outsourcing partners, and ensure that the selected service aligns well with your goals.
Here are suggested questions to help you list down your criteria:
- What type of content are you working with?
- This could be user-generated content like comments, transaction-related content, or prompts and outputs from interactive web features. This information will help potential partners understand the scope and complexity of your project.
- How much content do you need moderating?
- Estimate the volume of content that needs to be monitored, such as the number of posts, chats, or transactions in a given period. This will allow vendors to assess their capacity to meet your moderation needs and could influence cost and turnaround time negotiations.
- Is special domain knowledge needed to moderate content?
- Evaluate whether your content requires moderators with specialized expertise in healthcare or legal industries. It ensures your potential partner has the experts to handle industry-specific content accurately.
- What is the objective of content moderation?
- Set your goal, whether that’s to improve your brand’s online image, facilitate healthier customer interactions, or comply with regulations. Your potential partner can tailor their services to achieve your goals.
Step 2: Research potential vendors
The pool of content moderation outsourcing providers is vast, offering a range of options from remote crowdsourcing companies that use a globally distributed workforce to traditional business process outsourcing firms that operate with a dedicated team of professionals. However, not every company may be the right fit for your particular needs.
Researching and comparing vendors helps you make an informed decision in selecting the right moderating partner to meet best your project goals, timelines, and other specific requirements. This process allows you to compare pricing, services, and track record among the best content moderation companies, ensuring you find a partner to provide the most value for your business.
Here are the factors you should consider when selecting a company to outsource:
- Employee Wellness:
- This could be user-generated content like comments, transaction-related content, or prompts and outputs from interactive web features. This information will help potential partners understand the scope and complexity of your project.
- Technology:
- Find out if the vendor has the right tools to handle your content. Advanced tools, such as an artificial intelligence-powered content moderation platform, can improve the accuracy and efficiency of work.
- Quality:
- Consider the provider’s commitment to high-quality services by inquiring about their processes and standards. Consistent, high-quality moderation helps maintain your brand’s reputation.
- Experience:
- Verify if the vendor has worked on similar projects before. A proven track record will give you a reasonable estimate of their expertise and capability.
- Data Security:
- Inquire about the security protocols and measures that the vendor has in place to ensure the safety of your business's sensitive information and user data. Any reputable moderation company should prioritize responsible data handling and protection.
- Ethical Considerations:
- Examine how the vendor sources data and treats employees. Ethical practices align with your brand values and help avoid reputational risk.
Step 3: Request a Proof-of-Concept
After shortlisting potential vendors, ask for a proof-of-concept that would serve as a trial run before committing to a long-term partnership. Consider this step as a test drive before buying a car—it can give you a peek into your potential partnership and inform your decision.
A pilot project allows you to examine vendors’ capabilities on a small scale, which may include moderating a batch of content on a specific platform for a set period of time. With a pilot, you can observe how they handle real situations and challenges, how quickly they adapt to your specific requirements, and how efficiently they can execute the task. It would demonstrate the efficiency, accuracy, and overall competency of the vendors’ moderation services.
In addition, a proof-of-concept offers invaluable insights into a potential business relationship, expectations, and performance standards. You can share feedback that outsourcing companies can use to align their processes with your business needs.
Outsource Content Moderation With Us
If you are searching for the best content moderation company to help maintain your brand reputation online, look no further than TaskUs!
We combine the power of advanced technologies with human expertise, offering supercharged content moderation services. Our two-step process includes using AI to scan and moderate large volumes of content quickly and then deploying human experts to address "gray areas" that require a personal touch.
Recently, we helped an online platform with over a billion global users improve their automated content moderation detection models. Our work, which involves classifying online content violations, resulted in an 82% accuracy score, less than 60 seconds of Average Handle Time, and a 92% quality score.
Let Us work together to build an immaculate online presence for your brand and secure a digital space for your users.
