No sooner our Facebook group starts to grow, than we find ourselves spending more and more time moderating it.
It was 5 years back when I was caught up in the same situation. I used to:
- Screen hundreds of profiles each day
- Approve/decline member requests
- Scrutinize each and every post to ensure there is no SPAM
- Manage content reported by members
All this coupled with planning the content strategy, posting content, measuring its impact, solving member queries, and so much more.
At the end of the day, I was left completely drained with little or no time to focus on anything else.
That’s when I began my hunt for a Facebook group moderator. Someone just as passionate as me, whom I can identify as an emerging leader, goes the extra mile to solve member queries, and most importantly, works hard to ensure everything is in place.
Fast forward to today, I have built a team of 70+ Facebook group moderators (a large number of them I haven’t met) for my community of moms (1.5 million members; engagement 1300%) that are managed in a completely decentralised manner.
The journey has been exhilarating and I certainly have learnt a lot.
With that experience, I can tell you identifying a good moderator is extremely difficult the first time. But, once you identify your first Facebook group moderator who you want to co-create with, you can continue to identify more and more co-creators.
Actually, it’s an easy to teach process, but hard to identify members who have the same values and passion. So, here I am, sharing all my learnings with you.
If you read this article till the end, you’ll learn:
- How to identify the right Facebook group moderator (My secret formula for it)
- What all can a moderator do in a Facebook group
- How to evaluate their work and what to do in case they’re not working efficiently
- How to reward them for an outstanding performance
Besides, I have also answered some frequently asked questions towards the end.
So, stay with me as I’ll now tell you how to identify the right moderator for your Facebook group.
These 3 traits in a person make him/her the best fit for the role of Facebook group moderator!
For years now, I have relied on these traits in a person when choosing a moderator for my Facebook group.
❤️Love: For the community cause and values, love facilitating connections, love creating impact, and helping members by answering or getting the right person to answer.
❤️Credibility: Have won immense trust of community members. It takes consistent efforts to build this hence, cannot be faked.
❤️Commitment: Towards community and member success.
I call it the LCC formula; It has helped me build such an amazing team of Facebook group moderators.
I have 25 different parenting communities and each one has a different group of people moderating it. For I don’t want to burden a single moderator with the responsibility of multiple groups.
At max, a moderator should be given to handle 2 groups and not more than that.
Here is the list of moderators for the Facebook group I recently started, Growth and Monetisation for Facebook Group Admins.
On the other hand, this is the list of moderators for Kids Nutrition and Recipes, one the largest parenting communities today that I started in 2015.
As you can see, I have appointed different moderators for different communities because managing a community is hard work. This way they are able to focus on the tasks at hand and give their best.
Besides, it is also easy to understand their efficiency. As it is, there are no exact methods to track it.
I’ll talk about this more as you read ahead. But first, let’s see what a moderator can do in a Facebook group.
Let your Facebook group moderator be responsible for these tasks in your community…
A moderator should ideally spend 4 hours in the Facebook group.
Their main responsibilities should include:
- Post approval
- Member approval (which should be done in a gap of 1 hour)
- Adding new members
- Solving member queries actively
- Responding to members timely
- Posting relevant information in the group
Now that you have defined their work, you must keep a tab on it too.
Here’s an amazing way to evaluate your moderator’s work!
When I onboarded the first few moderators for my parenting communities, I relied on the insights provided by Facebook to evaluate their work.
Under the Admin Activity tab of the Moderate Group section, I applied date filters and the name of the moderator I wanted to track results for.
But, all I could see was moderator activities like individual actions taken by her such as announcement creation/removal, post approval/rejection among others.
Thereafter, I realised there is no exact way to define a Facebook group moderator’s TAT (Turn Around Time) and efficiency.
But not anymore. My team at Convosight has worked relentlessly and put an end to this problem. They have come up with an awesome solution for it, i.e. the moderator impact dashboard.
It calculates the IMPACT SCORE of Facebook group moderators. It is the % of posts and comments made by moderators against the total number of posts and comments in the group.
Here’s a glimpse of the dashboard. It shows the individual contribution (number of posts and comments) made by 3 moderators in the group and calculates the impact score on the basis of it.
In the group shown above, the moderators have about 11% total contribution or impact score which is a healthy mix of posts and comments. However, you must keep in mind that:
- In early stages of your community, Post Contribution should be high
- In the growth stage, post and comments contribution should be similar
- In later stages, comments contribution should make up most of the impact score
Note: This feature is not yet rolled out on the Convosight platform. If you wish to access its Beta release, please feel free to sign up here. Our partnership team will get in touch with you super soon and you can let them know your requirements!
For those of you who would like to calculate the impact score on your own meanwhile, here’s the drill.
- Calculate Post Contribution percentage – Divide total posts done by moderator in 1 month/ Total posts in the group
- Calculate Comments contribution percentage – Comments contribution by moderator in a month/ Total comments in the group
You can easily find the data on total posts, comments, and the ones made by your moderator in the engagement tab and active members tab respectively.
Now, if your moderators’ impact score is not satisfactory, it means they are not managing their responsibilities well.
What to do if your Facebook group moderators are not working efficiently?
I have been in this uncomfortable zone myself. A few years back, I found that a few of my existing moderators were no more motivated to put in the efforts they usually did.
So, I approached them individually and had a word with them to figure out the cause behind it. Each of them had separate reasons for such conduct and I’ve shared them below with you.
Pain Point of Moderator 1: She didn’t want to approve requests on a daily basis as screening hundreds of profiles each day was getting tedious.
How I addressed it: I divided the same work amongst different moderators of that group. Everyday a different moderator was responsible for approving/rejecting member requests.
This way the first moderator did not have to do the heavy lifting all alone. Besides, I even asked her about the other tasks she’s good at and assigned her those. Since then, she has been happily posting around 5 posts/each day in the group and has been even more dedicated.
Pain Point of Moderator 2: This was an active member turned moderator recently. Although I had given her a good hour long training, somehow she struggled to complete the tasks I had assigned.
How I addressed it: As I talked to her, I realised she hesitated to approach me time and again. So, I decided to guide her at every stage for a few days, be it screening profiles, approving posts or responding to member queries. I constantly motivated her, and gave her constructive feedback. It is this empowerment that helped her manage things all by herself.
That’s when I learnt that no matter how capable a person is, he/she might need some hand holding in the beginning to get the hang of things and get comfortable. So, make sure to trust them at that time and soon they’ll drive results you haven’t even imagined!
Pain Point of Moderator 3. She was an active member in the group and had voluntarily approached me for taking up this responsibility out of sheer passion. After a few months, she was expecting some sort of remuneration for it.
How I addressed it: I happily offered her an amount that was in my budget then. From that point on, I made sure to reward my hard-working moderators with products I received as part of brand campaigns and other such profits.
If you are facing any of these issues, you have a solution for them now.
In case there’s anything else that’s stopping your Facebook group moderators from putting in the hard work and effort they used to, please be all ears. Let them open up. Because there’s nothing that can’t be worked out if both sides are willing.
However, if issues still persist, you must keep an eye out for new moderators. Look at the active members list of your group (the ones who are consistently in the top 5% contributors), monitor the quality of engagement, and give them the opportunity to become your Facebook group moderators.
In fact, you should foster a culture where more and more leaders/ moderators are identified. It’s like creating a binary tree where every person identifies 2 more people like them, trains them and the tree keeps growing.
Lastly, when you decide to remove your existing moderators, I would recommend you to take their feedback in the exit interview as I did myself. It makes them feel valued and moderators admire your effort to strengthen the relationship.
After all, it’s the understanding and affection that keeps an admin and moderator binded. 🙂
Akansha Bansal, the admin of Parenting Mom Style believes understanding between the admin and moderator goes a long way. Check out our recent blog to know what more she has to say.
What’s the best way to reward your Facebook Group moderators?
It’s always a good idea to share your group’s benefits with your active moderators, whether it is in cash or kind.
If you have voluntary moderators who are playing an active role in your community’s management, then consider paying them, especially if you manage to earn a sustainable income from your group.
On the other hand, do make sure to share the gifts / promotional products that you receive from brands on the successful conduct of campaigns with your moderators.
Doing so makes them feel valued and rewarded for their passion, dedication, and hardwork. Consequently, they are motivated to give their best in the coming times too!
Check out what other community admins had to say on this when one of them popped up this question in our Facebook group.
So, now that you have all the knowledge in the world about Facebook group moderators and what moderators can do in your Facebook group, I’ll answer some frequently asked questions.
How to add a moderator to your Facebook group?
To make someone a moderator in your Facebook group, you just need to:
- Open your group and click on ‘members’ on the left
- The list of members will open
- Choose the member you want to make moderator of your Facebook group
- Click on the three dots beside that members’ name
- Select ‘make moderator’ and click on ‘send invite’
- Post this, an invitation will be sent to that member and he/she may accept or decline it.
Can a moderator post in a Facebook group?
Yes, just like an admin, a Facebook group moderator can also post in the community.
How many moderators can you have in a Facebook group?
You can have as many Facebook group moderators as you wish to. But make sure you do not go overboard and add way too many moderators, even if you have a million members.
That’s about it.
Let me know about your newly appointed Facebook group moderator(s) in the comments below. Or if you’d like to add something, please feel free to do that too.
Also, if you wish to gain more valuable insights on community management and community building, feel free to join my community, Growth and Monetisation for Facebook Group Admins where hundreds of community admins like you are constantly discussing such stuff and inspiring each other along the way. 🙂
CEO and Co-Founder at Convosight. On a mission to enable Facebook group admins become Community Entrepreneurs.
Mommie to a 6 year old and Mommie-in-Chief of Baby Destination, the largest Parenting community in India.
It’s all about the journey.