How your content strategy can help tame your trolls

Abusing council or government staff on social media is truly disgusting and cowardly. It is the last refuge of the scoundrel, and it needs to stop.

But as much as we’d like the trolls to pack their grimy bags and head permanently back to the underside of their miserable little bridges, that’s seriously unlikely to happen.

So instead, it pays to focus on what we can influence, rather than what we can’t.

And while most public sector organisations are pretty good at creating and policing their moderation policies, many also share way too much content that plays into the hands of the trolls - and for little gain.

In fact, by not having a clear, focused content strategy, councils and government departments can unwittingly create unhelpful impressions that reinforce negative stereotypes among their audiences.

Does this mean they deserve what they get? Of course not. No one does. But it can mean they’re leaving a key arrow out of their quiver when it comes to fighting trolls online, and that’s a crying shame.

It starts with content strategy

In general, the bulk of the abuse we see on public sector social media is in response to content we have posted.

The problem is, councils and government departments tend to do silly and divisive things, and chances are we will have to communicate those things via our channels, which is largely out of our control as communicators.

What is in our control, however, is the strategic picture we develop and execute based on what we want our audiences to see OVERALL. Which means there is plenty of opportunity to balance up content that reflects the silly, divisive decisions or actions of our organisation, with much more planned, proactive content which showcases the capabilities.

This may be as simple as regularly and consistently posting about all the wonderful, popular services we offer and that we know people appreciate.

It could be content that includes helpful ways to use our organisation’s services, or which showcases our people. It could be any number of things, depending on our unique strategic opportunities.

The main thing is that if we aren’t being deliberate with our content - as many public sector organisations aren’t - then the balance can get out of whack, and we can end up sharing an inordinate amount of controversial content not truly reflective of our situation or capabilities.

Which only serves to strengthen the position of the trolls, while weakening our own.

Take control of your narrative

If we look through our social media posts, what story do they tell? What conclusions would someone draw about us from skimming back through our content?

Unfortunately, because a lot of public sector socials are extremely reactive, there is very little proactive storytelling going on. This means that those organisations are not in control of their narrative.

Instead, the narrative is simply the culmination of the work the various business units have been up to, with the result being a mixture of news, updates, closures, outages, and other changes.

If this sounds like you, your narrative (as far as your audience is concerned) might be that you are constantly fixing broken things, spending money on new things, or apologising for disruption. Is that want you want?

If you post on your main channels every time there’s a road closure or water outage that affects a small number of households, it might seem like there are constant problems happening right across your district or city. Is that fair?

If you’re not extremely careful, over time your social media can create a skewed impression of your organisation, with your posts overly reflecting a narrow range of unhelpful themes rather than the bulk of the BAU work you do.

In fact, this is how media outlets go about creating ‘crises’ - by focusing an inordinate amount of attention on relatively minor problems.

Cultivate your advocates

As well as regularly posting proactive content, there are huge opportunities in community care.

For example, all councils have their fans - the people who understand the policies and help defend and explain them to others on their channels. Those beautiful people are like gold dust.

But they also don’t come about by accident - we can help develop and encourage advocates by consistently interacting with our audiences in a helpful and human way.

If we just post and run, without putting in the effort to talk person-to-person with those who comment and ask genuine questions, we’re likely missing a huge opportunity.

Developing advocates takes time, but if we prioritise and invest in it, they will be there when we need them. They can take pressure off us by responding to comments from trolls in ways we will never be able to as communications professionals. They can be more blunt and direct, which can then embolden our more moderate advocates to also speak up in our defence.

If in doubt, err on the side of safety

Finally, I really want to stress that the safety of our people always comes first.

Which means we might need to make some big calls from time to time that will upset people inside and outside our organisation.

Such calls might include occasionally turning off comments, turning down content requests, or even leaving our channels unattended for a day or longer.

It might mean wrapping several consultations into one post (to concentrate the negative commentary), avoiding controversial subjects at the end of the day or before the weekend, or simply posting a lot less for a couple of weeks - anything to take the pressure off the people on the front line.

And while we’re at it, we can provide some resilience or mental health first aid training, ensure regular holidays, and be strict around not messaging each other after hours unless in an emergency.

Be deliberate

Like with anything, we generally have two options on how to proceed.

We can do a bunch of stuff and hope for the best. Or we can make a choice to formally prioritise a set of consistent and complementary actions to achieve a defined goal.

By choosing the latter strategic approach, we will be much more likely to achieve whatever it is we set out to in relation to limiting abuse and tackling our trolls. Rather than simply hoping that nasty people will somehow become nice.

Got any questions or comments? Email me at seamus@seamus.nz