Are you really trying to tap into or create a sense of community with your brand? One way to tell others what exactly they can expect from your brand as you engage with people online is to come up with guidelines or policies. You want your digital spaces to be places your target audience feels comfortable coming to.
This means that if you won’t allow comments with profanities to remain, then you can be very clear about that when enumerating the conditions. On the other hand, if you know you want people to be free to express themselves however they choose and the content in the community may not be for everyone, you can use your guidelines to warn people that saucy posts will not be deleted.
It is also a useful tool for your employees. When you’re participating in the space it helps keep the brand consistent in what you post or delete from other users when possible.
Here is an example of a set of community guidelines I might make if I were the publication company ProPublica: Community Guidelines & Policies
