A Guide to find the best Discord Mods [Mastering Discord series Part 5]

Mastering Discord series Part 1 - How to set up the front-end Discord server and make it feel like a 5-star hotel experience

Mastering Discord series Part 2 - How to set up the back-end Discord server and protect it from malicious attacks

Mastering Discord series Part 3 - How to onboard new users to increase activation and engagement with AI

Mastering Discord series part 4: How to build your community [Step by Step Guide]

In this fifth installment of the "Mastering Discord" series, we will discuss how to hire the right moderators for your server.

This article will cover the technical skills and qualifications you should seek in a moderator. You will also learn how to balance the technical skills of your moderator with their interpersonal abilities.

Additionally, the article will touch on community engagement and how to measure your moderators' performance. By the end of this article, you will have a better understanding of what to look for in a moderator, how to measure their performance, and how to help them improve.

What qualifications should the moderator possess?

Technical skill sets: Can the moderator set up a server from scratch?

At CommunityOne, we know that the best way to ensure our moderators have thorough server setup knowledge is through live testing. That's why all applicants who list expertise with servers are put through rigorous assessments and assigned tasks to prove their proficiency in this area. We've divided the difficulty into Easy, Medium, and Hard.

Difficulty level: Easy

Here are some simple tasks that all Community Managers should be able to perform with ease.

• Make a welcome channel with an embedded welcome message using an image or GIF.
• Reaction role to get verified
• Reaction role to get a hobby/language
• Ticket support setup with one button
• Make an embed message for the official links
• XP reward system without autoroles
• Auto role verification for everyone without reacting

Difficulty level: Medium

Here are some medium-level tasks Community Managers should be able to perform.

• Verification using a custom password
• Live server stats (online members, channels, messages sent)
• Activate kicks, mutes (time: for 30s, reason: noisy), and ban using the Dyno bot.
• Create an announcement channel after enabling Community Settings
• Create an embedded announcement with Dischook/Discordclub
• Create a flexible Voice channel that can be renamed and locked by the team

Difficulty level: Hard

For only the most experienced Community Managers, here are a few difficult duties that need to be undertaken:

• Setting up Wick from A to Z
• Create a Multi Panel ticket tool
• Set up language channels with multiple roles. As mentioned in our previous article, "How to set up the frontend Discord server and make it feel like a 5-star hotel experience", the community manager should be able to segment the community based on their preferred language.
• Set up a Tokenomics system that gives every user:

-20 coins for joining

-15 coins for talking every 30 seconds

-Create an item to purchase

-Create a command that responds to !close and warns about closing a ticket.

Only 1% of candidates have the right technical skills.

We anticipate Community managers to have only mastered the fundamentals. When screening mods, we estimate that less than 1% of candidates possess medium to high technical skills.

If your mod has only been on Discord in the past two years since web3's emergence - chances are they lack these capabilities. Most technically adept moderators have accumulated experience through their involvement with various non-web3 communities over many years and can tackle complex setup tasks due to prolonged practice.

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Technicians vs Engagers

The second point is that technically skilled moderators often lack the ability to engage users. It takes two distinct personalities to manage a community successfully.

We recommend that you don't search for an individual adept at both roles, since finding such a professional is impossible. Instead, employ us once for set up and have two months of free maintenance assistance so you can focus on finding a matching moderator.

Tip: Look at the most active members of your community, and invite them for a job interview to become a moderator.

Community Engagement

Engagement is critical to measuring the success of a mod. That's why we place a 70% weight factor in our analytics tracking system to gauge the performance.

Not all mods are created equal - some stand out thanks to their abilities and enthusiasm. We've identified the ones we call 'super mods' with a track record of excellent performance and genuine interest when interacting with members.

At CommunityOne, we review applicants carefully by examining servers they have worked on to measure their quantitative ability to communicate with users.

Good news; You don't need to do this manually, as the number of messages sent is reliable for assessing user engagement proficiency.

If a moderator could send over 30+ messages per hour in his previous role, he would likely be a great addition to your moderation team.

How our software utilizes quantitative data to measure performance

Using a quantitative approach, we can determine the percentage of users interacting with the moderator. We also look at how many new users they engage with and what messages they send them. This allows us to understand their conversations and communication efforts accurately.

We analyze all activities of our mods in our customer's server and offer analytics as an independent tool for those with internal mods. Generally, we aim for a score of 60 for servers exhibiting high workloads (over 100) and 80 when traffic is lighter.

Offer Instant Feedback

Nevertheless, the most critical factor when recruiting a new moderator is to OFFER INSTANT FEEDBACK.

People, especially moderators, are always unpredictable when gauging their future performance. After all, they're only human! From our experience, we have seen both junior mods earning $1/hour grow into senior moderators and the other way around.

To give yourself the best chance of success, you must provide your new mods with an outstanding onboarding experience and continually work to help them improve their performance.

By providing our clients with comprehensive full-stack service, we have been able to onboard 10 mods in a single day and ensure our mods scores are all above 70 on a highly active server.

The key to rapidly developing a successful team is providing instant feedback. We work hand in hand with them, offering compliments for the right tasks and promptly pointing out any mistakes. Initially, they were unsure of how to interact on the server, so we onboarded them onto the project and provided instructions about what points needed to be communicated within the community. We spent several days working together to ensure everyone was fully up-to-speed until everyone could confidently navigate their new roles.

For a successful integration, it is necessary to review the mod daily in the initial days, establish achievable goals and provide constructive feedback.

Leverage our Analytics to monitor the moderator's performance.

Taking full advantage of our analytics allows us to observe the performance of each mod. This way, we can easily spot areas in need of improvement. During our routine meetings with mods, we show them their dashboards and explain how user engagement should be both meaningful and beneficial while meeting all ticket requirements.

To ensure they reach the level of scores that meet expectations, we continually evaluate their progress via the dashboard and provide guidance on further improving performance.

Take the example of one mod we closely monitor to improve its performance. Every few days, we provide constructive feedback on what she did well and how she can make other improvements. With this guidance, she learned that daily checking in with our dashboard would be a great way to receive prompt feedback.

Summary

• After deciding to hire a moderator/community manager for a Discord server, the next step is to screen applicants and find the best fit.

• Technical skill sets should be tested, such as setting up servers from scratch, creating embedded welcome messages and reaction roles, making an announcement channel, setting up XP rewards systems, implementing kick/mute/ban commands, verification using custom passwords, and more.

• Technicians vs Engagers. While some moderators are more adept at technical know-how, others excel in interacting with community members.

• Feedback is key to successfully managing a team of moderators - it helps them identify areas of improvement and motivates them to do better in their roles.

• CommunityOne's insights analytics dashboard provides users with real-time metrics and immediate feedback on mods' performance.

Feedback is an invaluable tool for moderators, as it helps them identify areas where they can improve and effectively do their jobs. When mods are adequately supported with the resources needed to succeed in their positions, they become deeply invested and inspired to work extra hard. With CommunityOne's insight analytics dashboard, you have access to robust real-time metrics that provide immediate feedback on your mod team's performance - so don't wait any longer; try it now at https://communityone.io/analytics