Paying to get posts made on your forums

dojo said:
It's not 10 years ago, when anyone would join a forum and post to help. Most members are posting in your forums TO PROMOTE THEMSELVES (if you run a webmaster/admin forum). This doesn't mean they post crap, it means they will ignore your forum until it's established enough to matter. A brand new forum doesn't matter, regardless of what you have in mind with it.
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That's very true, and for most forums not just webmaster ones!
 
I tried this recently for GeeksChat. Not with any form of research or anything, just used a guy offering a posting service at one of the Admin forums I use. It didn't work out and I ended up deleting pretty much most all of the content.

The thinking behind it was simple enough - more content, more chances to attract new visitors - but I wouldn't advise taking a blind punt without checking credentials or looking at some examples of their "work" first.

Cheers,
Shaun :D
 
Take small steps. Hire for 5-10 posts. Yes, paying $0.5-$1 seems weird, especially for someone whose services are way more expensive (my case as a web designer), but it does the trick. Have them post 3-4 posts a day, this way you can control better. Keep a 'log' with the editors you're using and tell them if the post quality is bad. It's YOUR MONEY :)
 
craigiri said:
As I said above, it's all about context and disclosure - and let me add reputation to that.

I was taught that online (or offline) success is/was based on trust. When you lose that, you lost everything.

Most famous people who write books name the other (real) author. I have much less respect for those who would try to hide that.

Sure, lots of wasted posts, junk and BS on my forums and all forums. The difference is that I don't pay for it.....nor put it there to look good.

It's an entirely different matter to have paid content - then again, some of the "content mills" our there are, IMHO, horrible business models over the long term and are, again IMHO, not worthy of the time.

We could write a book on this and I'm sure, depending on our situations, would have many points to disagree on. For instance, was it unethical for many sites to use Britney Spears in keywords way back when it fooled search engines? Is fooling search engines immoral?

The line is very different for each individual, company and situation - which is why we put in on the continuum of "ethics".
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For the record, I appreciate your viewpoint on this. You come across as a good guy - I just have a difference of opinion on this issue (sometimes things can be misinterpreted so don't want you to think there's anything personal) :)


I was taught that online (or offline) success is/was based on trust. When you lose that, you lost everything.
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Online and offline success was built upon perceived trust. Some of the biggest offline and online companies in the world are borderline criminals. I remember years ago when AOL was promoting themselves as the family/safe ISP. Mozilla was growing in popularity due to it's pop up blocker. So what did AOL do - they used it as a browser for their customers except they modified the browser so that they could deliver their own pop ups to customers. Years later it was found that they sold millions of customers details to spam companies in order to make a quick buck. AOL are now part of AOL Time Warner.

  • What about Amazon. They've made news in the UK as they have made billions of profit in the UK and yet paid zero tax as they have moved their operations to Luxemburg. Is this ethical, is this trustworthy?
  • What about the way Facebook was started with Zuckerberg stealing peoples details from other students without their knowledge?
  • What about affiliate companies? I spent a lot of time and money promoting referrals to a certain affiliate network ten years ago. It was making me hundreds of dollars per month but then they just went against their own terms and conditions and stopped paying affiliates referrals commissions to ave money. That particular company was later bought by Google for millions of dollars.
  • What about huge companies like Coca-Cola who spend millions on public relations to appear that they are really trustworthy whilst simultaneously doing over all the natives. Look at what they have done to rural areas in Central and South America. In one plant Coca-Cola was being threatened by the union for poor working conditions and for ruining the local areas water supply. What did they do - they sacked a few hundred employees. It just so happened that 95% of those employees were part of the union. Has this stopped Coca-Cola being successful.
  • what about Apple and other large tech companies using Foxconn and other cheap Chinese labour companies where people are forced to work 15-18 hour days for no more than a few dollars. Has this stopped Apple being one of the large companies in the world?

What I'm trying to illustrate is that the business world wasn't built on trust - it was built on perceived trust. The general public don't give a rats ass about how ethical a company is - sad but true.

As Dojo said, look at it as a business. You need to get a return for your time. Constantly posting on a forum is time consuming (though I enjoy it). I write articles for a lot of top design blogs so if I spend a day working on my forum, I've essentially lost a few hundred dollars that day. Alternatively, I can write for a large website, make a few hundred dollars and simply pay $10-$50 for others to do what I would have done. That makes me much more money....and with more money, I can offer better prizes in my competitions, hire editors, promote the forum etc. It's win win.

Plus, paying others to write for me frees up my time. I left a safe well paying job in finance several years ago as I wanted the freedom that working online brings. However, I don't want to be working 15 hour days. My girlfriend would kill me if I did plus I want to travel and enjoy life.

:)
 
System0 said:
I was recently offered $5 per 500 post. I never took him up on it as he didn't know enough about the subject matter though it illustrates that you can get quality.
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$5 for 500?? Tell that guy I'll give him $20 and he better be a lyrical genious
 
The 'normal' rate for forum posting is around ~ $0.1/post. That means 10 cents/post. You can get better prices or a little more expensive, but this 'average' worked pretty OK for most the editors I have employed. Do not hire someone to post 500 posts out of bat, you'll can get 'tricked'. Use smaller 'plans'. In the end your forum will need the support for some weeks, not 2 days. Split the post into 5-10/day, pay every week or something like this and you can really control the stuff. Always monitor the posting quality, check them to see if they are not copy-paste posts. It's not a lot of work, you just need to get few people who are doing a proper job and work with them

As system0 already mentioned, you don't replace YOUR own work. My editors helped with few of the posts we have in the forums. They were there to 'spice' things up and provide me with enough traction to start the forums. I do have to spend 2-3 hours at least on and off the forums to come up with articles, write a book, post, promote etc.
 
dojo said:
The 'normal' rate for forum posting is around ~ $0.1/post. That means 10 cents/post. You can get better prices or a little more expensive, but this 'average' worked pretty OK for most the editors I have employed. Do not hire someone to post 500 posts out of bat, you'll can get 'tricked'. Use smaller 'plans'. In the end your forum will need the support for some weeks, not 2 days. Split the post into 5-10/day, pay every week or something like this and you can really control the stuff. Always monitor the posting quality, check them to see if they are not copy-paste posts. It's not a lot of work, you just need to get few people who are doing a proper job and work with them

As system0 already mentioned, you don't replace YOUR own work. My editors helped with few of the posts we have in the forums. They were there to 'spice' things up and provide me with enough traction to start the forums. I do have to spend 2-3 hours at least on and off the forums to come up with articles, write a book, post, promote etc.
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This is all very good advice. Thank you. I would like a jump start as well. However I need help with writing wiki content. How would you suggest this be done? It would be for a video game, which I assume this means I should provide them with a copy of the game to play. Not too sure on what would be the smart way to get great starter content on the website. An empty website is boring and no one will stick around. So I want to give them something to look at as other content is submitted.
 
I presume getting them the game to work with would be a good idea. For article writing i was successful on some freelance sites. Have used Fiverr for few articles and got some great job done. Look at editors with excellent ratings and privately discuss your job with them, don't just hire them. I like to lay out my plans carefully and discuss this with my editors, it saves me the future troubles. you can get editors for $5/article, which is not that bad.

I have also used guru.com to get some editors for 2 sites of mine. Employed them to write book reviews, movie reviews, articles on martial arts etc. You can get ~$40-60 / 10 articles. Again, be careful, don't jump to hire the first freelancer there, look at profiles and ALWAYS track their work. They are willing to edit the content and improve, just be on the job and give them your feedback while they still work. Other nice places to get freelancers: elance.com (that's what I use as a web design freelancer - the prices might be a little steep in some cases), odesk.com etc.
 
Pay for Posts is like Paying for Sex: No way I am doing that.
Well, maybe paying a bit for really really good posts from really eloquent posters ? :)
 

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