Businesses can no longer afford to opt-out of social media. They need to be part of the conversation, otherwise they risk letting their competitors gain an edge. Brands fostering a dialog with users are pulling ahead of the pack - Coke is great example of a brand that “gets it” as demonstrated by the conversations it’s having with more than 26 million fans on Facebook and more than 260,000 followers on Twitter.

But user generated content is not always friendly or kind to businesses. For example, if a location-based social media application displays tips and offers for places near by, that might be fine for users (and the places near by), but it’s not great for the place the user is in when they get that tip. If a brand or venue can’t stick it’s head in the sand, the concept of “Venue Safe” social media becomes a critical requirement if they’re planning a DOOH investment.

The three critical components of Venue Safe social media are: Filters, Moderation and Venue Messages.

Filters
Simplistically, content filters have a configurable database of undesirable words, banned users, and competitors that a venue/brand does not want to see on their screens. But, however smart filters are, they can’t be relied on to remove ALL troublesome content (e.g. the message “The beer is warm” would be difficult for a system to recognize as negative).

Moderation (and Zap)
Moderation software can be used to intercept messages before they get to a screen(s). Good moderation software should be able to accommodate multiple screens, multiple streams (i.e. from Foursquare, text messages, Twitter, Photos etc) - and support multiple web-based moderators for high volume events/campaigns. Moderation is not expensive, especially when amortized into the cost of events/campaigns, but it can slow down a real-time experience - if only by a few seconds.

To accommodate the shortfalls of time-consuming moderation (and the limitations of computer filtering), an enterprise system should also include a real-time override. At LocaModa, we enable mobile moderation via a “Zap” command that an authenticated user can send from their cell phone. Zap can delete any message (containing a specific word/user), or an entire screen - instantly.

Venue Messages
A truly Venue Safe system, combines filters, moderation AND venue messaging, to create a balanced display of user generated content and venue content. Venue messaging can be used to replace some or all user tips, for example a bar might display “Try our half-price buffet this week-end.” However, with such features, it is important that a venue does not abuse it’s share of the voice. The blend of user and venue messages must still result in an authentic mix of engaging content. If the venue replaced every message with “this place rocks” the audience will soon work out that the place probably sucks.

In summary - to be Venue Safe, a DOOH system needs the combination of filters, moderation and venue messaging.

While there might be a few use-cases where all three components of a Venue Safe system are not required, we are yet to discover a scenario when all are not needed sooner or later. Pro systems need these robust features to deal with the real world, in real time, every time.

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