Community management

Understand best practice for engaging with your social media community.

Social media is not a one-way broadcast tool, but a platform for authentic, two-way conversations. If you’re publishing content, you need to moderate all comments and respond to legitimate comments.

As an account owner, your agency is likely to be considered the publisher (for the purposes of defamation) of comments left on your posts by third parties, and so you could be exposed to liability in defamation because of those comments. You may also be exposed to liability in contexts other than defamation. 

To reduce the risk of exposing your agency to liability, you should ensure you follow the steps in this section.

On this page

Establish community guidelines  

To ensure you can moderate your community effectively and maintain a safe space, you should have community guidelines in place. These guidelines must be accessible to anyone who visits your account profile. 

Some platforms provide a section for you to share your community guidelines. If this section doesn’t exist, provide a link to your community guidelines somewhere on your profile page. 

As a team, decide which of the following approaches you will use for community management:  

  • Active moderation: Engaging with comments whenever the opportunity presents. This could also include engaging with third-party conversations found through social listening that don’t @mention you. Best practice community management is via active moderation.  
  • Passive moderation: Only engaging with comments that are genuine or questions. This may include engaging in third-party conversations that @mention you. 
  • Hands off moderation: Disabling comments and messaging completely.  

Depending on available resources, your team may decide to use a combination of these approaches as necessary. For example, using active moderation during business hours and hands off moderation when moderators aren’t available. 

Your community guidelines should cover:  

  • the department or agency that manages the account 
  • your approach to community management (active/passive/hands off) 
  • hours that you monitor the account and expected response times  
  • an explanation that the account is apolitical   
  • acceptable conduct on the account (for example, no swearing, no bullying, no defaming, etc)  
  • what will happen if someone breaches the guidelines (for example, hiding comments, blocking, temporary suspension, banning, etc.)  
  • how to get in contact with the department or agency 
  • when the guidelines were last updated. 

Example

NSW Government Facebook community guidelines may be used as a template.  

NSW Government LinkedIn community guidelines may be used as a template.


Actively monitor your channels 

  • Establish a frequency that you will check your channels. As a guide:
    • high-visibility, high-risk and high-traffic accounts should check-in multiple times a day to minimise risk
    • customer-service-based channels should respond to inbound queries as quickly as possible
    • smaller, slower accounts might only need to be checked once every couple of days.
  • If you use a social media management tool to respond to comments, make sure you regularly check your page natively so nothing gets missed.
  • Rely on your community guidelines to support you if you need to: 
    • hide or delete comments where they are in breach (instead of deleting) 
    • block repeat offenders as a last resort (this is recommended only in extreme cases).
  • Use a strong profanity filter, where possible, so swearing doesn’t appear in comments on/replies to your posts. If you’d like a copy of the NSW Government Facebook profanity filter list, contact The NSW Government Social Media Team via this contact form.
  • Respond to as many reasonable queries as possible, even those that don’t directly tag your account (you can find these using social listening).

Respond to a social media crisis 

A social media crisis refers to activity on social media that has the potential to cause physical, psychological, financial or reputational damage to an individual or organisation, including your agency. A crisis may involve one or more of the following incidents: 

  • A community member threatening harm to themselves or others 
  • A community member disclosing and/or encouraging illegal activity 
  • Defamatory comments about an individual/s on content your account has posted 
  • A significant surge in conversations about a program, service, event or personnel belonging to your agency 
  • Misuse of your agency’s intellectual property on social media. 

When facing a potential crisis, consider taking the following actions:  

  • If you believe that a person engaging with your account is a danger to themselves or others, contact the NSW Police.   
  • Remove and report content or comments that are bullying, defamatory or dangerous to the community.  
  • If removing allegedly defamatory content, keep a record of what was posted and consider seeking advice from your legal team.   
  • If asked to delete content you believe doesn’t need to be, work with the stakeholder to help them understand your approach to community management.   
  • Seek advice and assistance from your legal team and subject matter experts (including your media team), where appropriate.

Put the customer first

Customers today expect more secure, transparent, accessible, and responsive services from government. 

On social media, you should:

  • answer legitimate queries transparently 
  • use plain English
  • tailor responses to individual queries (as opposed to linking off to websites where customers need to read through the information to find their answer)
  • make sure everything you post is accessible.

Consider developing an escalation matrix to help your team understand how to manage difficult enquiries. 

Download escalation guideline matrix (DOCX 348.14KB)


Engage in-language experts  

People from diverse backgrounds should have the same access to the NSW Government as everyone else. For in-language posts that are published for culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) audiences, it’s critical that appropriate in-language experts are used to translate comments and provide a response in the same language. You may choose to use an external agency for this purpose. It is important that comments are left on and responded to, as they would be for English posts.   


Allocate sufficient resources 

Allocate dedicated resources to monitor your channels, including comment moderation, social listening, and community management. 

If dedicated resources aren't available and community comments present a high risk, consider hiring a (carefully vetted) external agency to monitor comments.  

If your account is targeted to children, there may be specific legal or regulatory requirements. You may need to employ moderators who:

  • have a Working With Children Check or National Police Check
  • are trained to identify suspicious behaviour (for example, grooming or other predatory behaviour). 

The Office of the eSafety Commissioner website provides guidelines on social media platforms or websites that may be directed towards children. Check with your department’s legal team if you think this is relevant to you.


Remove posts and users that breach policies  

In line with your community management guidelines: 

  • remove posts or comments that breach your guidelines or are defamatory 
  • report posts or comments that breach the platform’s policies to the platform 
  • block or ban users who post threatening, discriminatory, offensive or defamatory comments. Keep a record (including screenshots where relevant) of those you have warned and those you have banned, including the comments that lead to the ban.  

Report unofficial or fake NSW Government accounts to the platform and escalate to your manager. If nothing is actioned by the platform contact the NSW Government Social Media team.


Posting sensitive content

Generally, avoiding posting content because it may receive negative responses is not recommended. The community is welcome to share their views and have robust discussions. However, if your agency is planning on publishing content that is likely to attract potentially defamatory comments (for example, when mentioning or depicting an individual/individuals), you should consider taking additional measures to reduce the risk of attracting potentially defamatory comments. This may include allowing for additional temporary moderation resourcing or selecting placements where community engagement is not public (for example, 'stories'). 

If you choose to post something that is likely to elicit strong responses because it is an emotive issue or a sensitive/divisive topic: 

  • word the post carefully and with sensitivity to the subject matter
  • test the post with customers (for example, A/B test two dark posts on Facebook to learn which wording/imagery works better)
  • sense-check the post through your normal approvals process, including with subject matter experts
  • anticipate what questions users will ask and draft answers to frequently asked questions (FAQs) ahead of posting
  • seek approval from your legal, policy or media team, if in doubt
  • know who you need to contact in the event an issue arises that requires escalating
  • know when it’s time to pause (for example, during times of crisis, like bushfires, consider pausing non-essential social media activity, as being active might be viewed as insensitive)
  • allow people to have their say, even if they’re critical of the NSW Government. Don’t censor unfavourable comments unless they breach the community guidelines. 

Managing communities in Web3 

Web3 (also known as Web 3.0) refers to internet services built using blockchain, 3D graphics and AI. Although in its infancy, brands are already using Web3 tools to deliver customer-centric services and build authentic relationships with their communities. 

The NSW Government Social Media team will share advice relating to best practice management of Web3 tools and services as it emerges. If you’re considering establishing a presence for your agency in the Web3 space, the same community management principles as outlined on this page apply. If you’d like to discuss your agency’s approach to Web3, please get in touch via our contact form.

Guidance from platforms

Check community management guidance for each platform.

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