Trolling as a tool for community management

Fighting is a sign of life

The following is a very concise vision that I acquired during many years of communication with the community of multiplayer games - perhaps the most capricious, uncontrollable and interesting communities of all time of the World Wide Web.

It so happened that I felt the meaning of the phrase “Internet community” the hard way back in 2002 when I discovered the famous browser project “Fight Club”. Poor, even by the standards of that time, the gameplay was more than compensated by the fact that any action in the game led to a conflict of interests of users. And only then began the conversation. For this, people returned to the project again and again. And because the chat was the cornerstone, and the moderator "silent" - a very harsh punishment.

Now in this regard, nothing has changed. Communication on the Internet has moved from chat rooms to social networks and forums. And conflicts are still the generator of the much-needed and desired phenomenon. And the struggle in the community is a sign of his life, his pulse.

Trolls involuntarily and cheap Chinese fakes

Since even the most inexperienced user can visit the Wikipedia page and read what trolling is, everyone has a chance to become a troll. To do this, in the midst of discussion, it is enough just not to go beyond the limits of decency and write a well-argued and articulate post, putting the opponent in a logical impasse. Why is this statement true? Because no one likes to lose controversy. And the one who will be right too often will inevitably become the owner of the “green ticket”. And if the user often touches on topical issues and cuts the truth-uterus without embellishment, then he is guaranteed to earn the dislike of the majority. After all, the truth is usually ugly.
')
Modern users are accustomed to the trolls so that they feel the lack of troublemakers. Therefore, if they are not on your resource, users will invent them themselves and hang a green label on the blackest sheep in the herd. Or even a shepherd.

The irony is that many users are happy to call themselves trolls. At some point the word "troll" became prestigious. But do not worry; when silence calls itself by name, it will contradict its essence. So the vulgar and rude, primitive and narcissistic comrades, who are frankly proud that they are called trolls, are not dangerous, since they voluntarily take the position of half-rogue. And it is right.

Jedi will not pass

The community on the whole considers troll figures to be negative. Nevertheless, one should not lose sight of the fact that a negative figure is primarily a figure. What would be the "Star Wars" without such vivid representatives of the universal absolute evil like Darth Vader and Jabba Hut? The question is rhetorical.

Every time there is interesting content on the site, people will wait for the reaction of the local Vader. They know that as soon as he comes, a freak show will start, which will help them pass the hour or two of working time. And the behavior of such a troll will largely determine the attitude of the community to the content. After all, people on the Internet have always been eager to see, leaving the bread to feed the green their brothers.

The dark side of the force or the new era of community management

The Achilles heel of any community manager is corporate policy. With luck, this thing binds behind the hero of the front office with only one hand. In other cases, not only both hands are tied, but also the eyes, ears, and mouth are shut up. And the community manager, this layer between clients and the company, becomes completely useless, becoming like a bot broadcasting faceless and dreary messages to the masses, starting with the words “Dear users! We inform you that ... ".

In such situations, only one thing is good: many community managers do not interfere with the restrictions mentioned above, because they are armless, blind, deaf and cannot connect two words initially. But these will not be able to take advantage of the method described below. Therefore, we will continue to talk about those KMs who represent something, and who are seriously limited in their ability to influence their wards officially. For them, the only way to cope with other situations is to use the dark side of the force.

In fact, there is nothing fundamentally new about this. First of all, every sane community manager has alternative accounts. And secondly, Trout wrote about such a thing as an attack on himself. All we have to do is become a prominent troll of our own community. Become a black queen and one of the leaders of the community opinion. And where the manager will be forced to give up because of the rules of communication with customers or because he is a “mean administrator”, the troll will lead the masses behind him and will be able to direct the negative energy of popular anger in the right direction.

And then everything is like in the universe of Lucas: once having embarked on the Dark Path, your CM will hardly want to give up the advantages that it will receive. He will no longer need buttons, silence, and moderators recruited from the people - these comrades, on the contrary, will become a hindrance, because sharing with them an insider about the origin of a troll cannot be done at all (and if your volunteers can watch IP users, this function will need disable). Alas, moderators consider trolls to be direct competitors in pursuit of forum glory.

After all, the good old, good and evil policeman’s tactic only works when you control both policemen.

From theory to practice: why is it necessary to troll yourself

I worked in community management for two companies - in IT Territory in 2006 and more recently in Game Insight. And I did it according to the strategy described above. The main plus - no one can harm you more than you do. In addition, you and your battle trolls are not only content generators for the community, they are also an extra line of defense when unwanted users come to visit.

Remember: the user can always tell the community what the administration representative can never allow himself to say. And imagine what will happen if the community begins to promote the troll in the moderators or in the number of representatives of their interests? This I once achieved. What could be more useful than the phenomenon when people want to make an administrator under the cover of their confidant?

From theory to practice: why not troll yourself is dangerous

If you do not troll your own resource and your users, someone else does it. If this happens is organized, then everything can end very badly.

In my practice there was an indicative episode. In 2008, together with one friend, we joined forces and organized opposition to the administration of a certain project. The goal is to save the community from malpractice employees. The measures that were taken against us and our numerous supporters are bans and moderation of posts (an attempt to hide the problem). Countermeasures on our part - the creation of an independent resource, which published all the evidence of abuse collected. As a result, our activity was the last straw and overflowed the cup of patience top management. After the dismissal of the head of the support service, our campaign achieved its goals.

Now imagine what damage negative figures and opinion leaders can do and what risks to reputation they can pose if you, of course, do not control them. In this case, we fought for a just cause. But for the image of the company and a lie, and the truth can pose a comparable danger if this information is not presented to the community in the way you need it. Therefore, everything could be different if the place of the key negative figure was occupied by its own person.

Thank you for attention. See you online.