LM Module 7.2: Moderate and Support Engagement

Welcome to module 7.2 in the roadmap to building digital communities for social change: moderate and support engagement.

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Purpose

This module is focused on moderation and engagement and is aimed at moderators and staff involved in community engagement who have a preexisting knowledge of rights- and evidence-based Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) and who want to broaden their expertise in moderating and supporting engagement in an online digital community.

In module 7 of the roadmap, you focus on both content creation (7.1) and moderation (7.2). While these two elements are both key to building engaged digital communities, the foundation of such a community is the Love Matters’ Pleasure Approach which ensures that the content and moderation are sex-positive, aspirational and open-minded. This module will look at the Love Matters’ approach to moderation and supporting engagement to build and maintain inclusive online SRHR communities. To support these two pillars of moderation and engagement, it is essential to build a more technical understanding on how to share content with an audience. Therefore, the module will cover how to make use of SEO & SEM strategies.

Finally, since moderators are repeatedly exposed to emotional online content particularly in relation to more sensitive SRH topics and discussions, they may experience ethical difficulties and moral anguish over these emotive conversations with users. Therefore the last section of the module provides guidance on coping mechanisms for stress and emotional trauma that can be experienced by moderators working in SRHR and tools to gain understanding of personal stress-triggers and introduces some self-care practices to offer support in daily working practices

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Learning Goals

After completing this module, you will be able to:

• Apply online (community) moderation strategies to reach your objectives
• Understand how to create and sustain inclusive online communities by creating community guidelines
• Understand how to measure moderation for its effectiveness
• Categorise the quality of the comments to an article, question, or other comment in a discussion
• Be aware of the 6 steps and 20 tools of online campaigning
• Understand how and when (other) online and offline activities can support engagement by applying smart targeting
• Understand the ways in which search engines work and the key aspects to SEM (Search Engine Marketing) strategies: SEO (Search Engine Optimisation), and PPC (Pay-Per-Click)
• Be aware of personal stress factors, triggers, tools and practices to build coping mechanisms to relieve stress

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Learning Journal Reflection

• How is moderation relevant to your SRHR community?
• How is an upcoming campaign or project benefitting from increased online engagement?
• How can you apply what you will learn back at work?

There are many three-letter acronyms in this unit. To keep track of the different terms, create a glossary for yourself as an easy reference point. It will come in use as you complete the activities. If you get a little lost, click here for a glossary that can help you find definitions for confusing terms.