This post continues my glance at NAB’s opportunity drawings. Coming from tonight’s Creative Showcase presentation I took home a good dose of moderation-mantra: Stop the Pre! Do the Post! Move your online campaigning from pre- to post-moderation. Amnesia’s Iain McDonald presented Smirnoff Experience’s Secret Party campaign which proves the value of guiding rather than controlling a campaign from within a social network (in this instance a facebook group).
Potential party goers went into the group with an expectation of instant interactivity, free commenting and constant replies, and were served accordingly by the brand and their peers. GPS gaming, videos and social interactions were all tightly interwoven. All the while, users were behaving responsibly, and dealing with eachother in appropriate ways. Successful ticket hunters were proudly showing off their trophies and one example of self moderation included the online crowd petitioning ebay to take down (unfair?) party ticket auctions.
To me the evidence is clear that offering a social group interesting stuff always needs a post moderation approach (of comments, posts, interactions) to be successful. It is something we have approached similarly on Toohey’s For The Love Of Beer campaign.
I reckon it is something that instinctively everyone (even a lawyer) knows: write something, see your own post, respond to banter, pass it on… all of this relies on instant gratification to be rewarding and keep momentum. Users see it happen and work beautifully on most of the web, on a daily basis and especially in social networks. So they don’t tolerate legal bottlenecks and content wormholes. Who would seriously and continuously bother if every contribution goes into moderation first?