The team at Social AF have recently celebrated our one year anniversary of working with the incredible team at Safe Haven for Donkeys.
In case you aren’t aware of their wonderful work, Safe Haven for Donkeys helps the thousands of working donkeys in Israel, Egypt, Gaza and the Palestinian Territories (the West Bank). They have a sanctuary in Israel, a rescue centre in Arrana, and run three mobile clinics each month. You can find out more about them here.
They originally connected with Social AF as they were looking to outsource social media moderation of their Facebook page, so the team could regain some work-life balance. Here are some things we’ve observed during this past year of working together:
The engagement Safe Haven for Donkeys receives from their supporters can be frequent, intense and largely super positive. Sometimes they receive critical engagement as well, and their content is engaged with across many different countries, and in different languages.
They receive a lot of questions and concerns about the health of the donkeys featured in posts and without a steady moderation presence, these high-volumes could quite understandably overwhelm a small team.
One of the things that surprised us most when we first started moderating Safe Haven for Donkeys was the level of spam. This was most commonly in the form of either people soliciting friendships, sites pretending to sell donkeys/support donkey welfare, and there was also some pornography.
Social AF were able to reduce this significantly by adding key words to the filters and also restricting the ability to add weblinks/videos to comments.
Due to the high-volumes and frequency of general comments, we often adapt our moderation approach to react to comments instead of always replying.
This ensures we are balancing the most appropriate moderation technique against the needs and budgets of the charity.
One thing which has been particularly helpful in this instance is the ‘sad’ reaction. We often apply a sad reaction when people make comments such as “This shouldn’t be happening” or “Awful that people abuse animals in such a way”. Sometimes it’s better to show your support for a statement instead of getting involved in back and forth when no question is asked.
The reality is that some people in the Middle East rely on animals for some tasks. Cars can be costly to run and maintain, and even if vehicles were able to be utilised, there are some areas where they just wouldn’t work. For example in high grounds or brick kilns.
On the flip side, there are a lot of supporters who make many comments on new content in very quick succession. It’s useful to be able to apply a ‘laughing’ reaction, ‘caring’ reaction or a simply a ‘like’ to 40% and then making a direct reply to the other 60% of comments.
There can be an ignorance around the roles animals play in farming and building in other countries. This can escalate quickly and can be a difficult thing to manage online.
It’s important key messages are shared with supporters so they can understand the complexities of the situation and Safe Haven’s mission. This also helps protect Safe Haven’s reputation.
One of Social AF’s goals is to become an extension of any team we work with. We were acutely aware that the small team at Safe Haven for Donkeys were working overtime on a regular basis, and were struggling to switch off from work.
We can’t tell you how great it is to have meetings with partners who are just full of gratitude for our input. It means so much to us to hear about the positive impact we’ve made and we hope to continue working with the amazing team for many years to come.
Social Media Officer, Melanie Thorpe said: “ I’m just always so impressed by the team. When you read Social AF’s work, you would never know that their moderators don’t work directly with Safe Haven.
It’s meant so much to not only get my weekends back, but also know that our supporters are receiving the love that they deserve. I feel so confident leaving our socials on the weekend and have 100% faith in the team.”
If you would like to talk to Social AF about how our team can support your social media moderation and elevate your impact, please get in touch. We’d love to hear from you.
