Paying for posts

I think overall it is risky, the post quality will be poor, it will encourage pointless posting, quantity rather than quality. You can encourage people by awarding a prize for good post instead pay for post.

Perhaps it is a good method for those who are first starting up a new forum and need to make it look active?

Perhaps it is a good method for those who are first starting up a new forum and need to make it look active?

Still I think it is not good in long run, those who are starting up it first are going to be dependent on that company to make it live and real with thousand posts, overall I think it will loss the inner beauty and will require every time a cosmetic surgery. :)

I had started a domain thing on my forum "free domain for certain referals and posts" .

and then the crap Credit Card started giving probs then I couldn`t register domains :(

Huh??

I'm bumping this thread because it still is a really hot topic and I'm interested in getting some more feedback on it. Do you think it would work on popular sites who just want to stir up more traffic? Is spam a big problem? I could see people getting a kick out of being paid to promote their own sites and services in other forums! :)

Well if i was requiring the service i will ask for references from other customers and see if i am able to read the posts they have posted on previous forums. I think it is a good idea to kick start a forum community. But i will try and get as many new subscribers aspossible while i am paying for the posts since the forum will look more active with new posts daily since you dont want to be a member of a forum where the last post was done 2 weeks ago.

Yes, definitely. I think that the #1 question a potential new member asks himself or herself when deciding to register on a forum is: "will what I have to say be heard?" and "will it be heard by the masses?"

HI,

I think it is a dumb idea. Nothing like a bunch of mercinaries on the website. Nopers.

Christian

Personally. If I want my forum to look active. I just go to a few chat rooms (mostly my own on p2p Networks) throw up a link and ask them to check it out, join, and post a few.
Then I start to get noticed a little more. Throw some Anon-Emails out, and Rely on word of mouth.

Reputation is what I like to rely on. Then you don't have to worry about a lot of trouble that can come with a new forum (especially technical support related forums).

Yes word of mouth is the best source of quality visitors for a forums point of view.

A forum point of view word of mouth might be effective somewhat in your local market only.

Word of mouth is definitely the best advertising ... WOM and viral marketing all the way! Lightninghawk, what do you mean by sending out some anonymous emails? Spam is a big no no.

Not spam :D just... hmm like you know when you get a email from devry university and everything. After you've visited a site and stated that you would like information on it and related sites.

Kind of like you affiliate with a larger website that sends out noticable newsletters, and have an add from your site in there.

You mean purchasing advertising in company newsletters?

Word of mouth is definitely the best advertising ... WOM and viral marketing all the way! Lightninghawk, what do you mean by sending out some anonymous emails? Spam is a big no no.

Best advertising is word of mouth and word of mouse both ;)

Yes but without the purchasing part. Some Websites, Companies, ect. Will allow an affiliatecy to suffice for advertising in a newsletter or magizine.

I'll check around and see if I can find a few of my old contacts, and put them in contact with you.

The idea of paying someone sounds nice, i've contemplated it before. But it's just not the same.

I've been running a vB community since last February, about 720 members, 16,000 posts and 1,200 threads. It started by word of mouth, but the content really bought most people in, as one of the forums is a specialist one for a certain set top box.

I wouldn't pay for posts. I'd concentrate on getting the content there and growing the forum slowly.

I see a lot of people start forums with 'Gaming', 'Media', 'Tech' and 'Off Topic' forums and they rarely take off. You get about 20 forums on the board, and they're all very quiet. If I don't think anyone will read or reply, I'm not going to post. I think it's better to start with a few forums, and once you start covering a new topic on the site, or notice a 'Computers' forum is filling up with gaming threads or specialist threads add a subforum or another forum.

I'm working on a project at the moment, and from my experience with my current site I'll be having 4 forums, one for each 'zone'. If in the 'Entertainment' forum there's a huge number of music threads I'd make 'Entertainment' a category, with an Entertainment forum and a Music forum. Each zone goes down in to about 5 areas, the mistake I made at the start is to give everything a forum. :)

For IT stuff I stick to Neowin and Daniweb, but if it was about PHP or Bluetooth I might look at a forum that covers those too. I think if a community has something unique, like rewards or a specialist topic they'll have no problem growing on their own.

Word of mouth all the way! :)

There was a feature in a magazine a few years ago where they did a few simple but very effective things to get 10,000 visitors in a week. It included going to cities with signs, or printing a load of T-Shirts with your site name or URL and walking around giving out leaflets.

You could also do some market research locally. Go out with a load of flyers and a clip board and ask people a few questions about your chosen topic, then give them the flyer. When you have the results publish them on the site or community, then send them to a local newspaper or radio station in the form of a press release?

I'm babbling on...

I just feel that a genuine interest and quality posts will encourage more posts than someone who isn't that interested. The posts may not be of the best quality they could be for the amount of money you're laying out for them.

Never been a big fan of pay for posts idea. IMO its not healthy for over all growth of the forum/community.

Never been a big fan of pay for posts idea. IMO its not healthy for over all growth of the forum/community.

Personally I would never do that because in my forum I would want quality posts made by users who are actualy thinking about the same things as me. I dont want as someone stated "mercenaries" pretending to be my friends and ditching me.

Now if you should or should not do it depends on the audience you are trying to get. I agree that the content will have the site grow by itself and thus you need content relating to your topic. For example if you have a gamers forum. Try making some of your own games or even ask other programmers with succesful games if you coudl host them on your site. Free game demos need no license to be distributed so that would be a good idea s well.

So please let us know what your target audience is and mind you if its something like Programming that YOU already have a great community to be a part of.

Hmm ... paying for posts ... I think I'll get some people in my head, but anyway ...

I have used some post exchanges to start up a forum. I usually contacted people I noticed had nice posts and proposed the exchange. Some are still active ;) I have also used an "automated" post exchange ... was OK.

Everything I mention was for free. People would post quality content and I would do so. In some cases we're still posting in each others forums, not as a part of the deal, just because we befriended and we like the other's community too.

Paying for posts? Nope. Not my case. I cannot pay for AdWords or an ad campaign, I'll surely won't pay for posts. Why? because in order for a "programme" to be efective you need HUNDREDS of posts and tens of members. I am having over 200 members and over 10000 posts (a great posting ratio: 42 posts per user) and still I am in dire need of more people to develop more. Try to think about paying for these stats: 200 people, 10 thousand posts.

The sum is indeed huge and it can make a forum grow or just need more "input".

Wow, 42 posts per user?! I would kill for one tenth of that! :)

Has anyone ever tried one of those pay for posts services targeted towards forum owners?

On December 19th I purchased 100 posts from both Forum Elves & Forum Launch. Days went by with no further activity. Finally, on December 31st, I saw a batch of registrations and lots of posting from the Forum Launch team.

Overall, it was so-so. Almost every post was a 1-liner. Some of their posts made it appear that English wasn't their native language. They started topics, and they understood my site's theme (Narnia books/movies). But nothing really substantive.

I've no idea how Forum Elves performs, as they never contacted me, even now, a month later. But they didn't charge me either, so at least I wasn't ripped off.

-Tony

Very topical for me as I am considering starting a forum this year (still doing research). I'm somewhat pragmatic about this, and don't see anything ethically wrong with going this route to jumpstart new membership. However, I don't think it would really work that well if the scope of your forum is narrow. Whomever is being paid to do the posting must know what they are talking about. It's pretty easy to smell a rat.

btw, my first post! ;)

You can do this for free. You just need to see in many webmaster communities people who ask for post exchanges. Visit their sites and see if you're pleased with the way they seem to handle the posting. Then just send a nice PM. It works and it's for free. Not to mention you already know a bit more about the ones that will post in your new community.

In general forum need a critical mass of posts (at least 1000 - 3000 posts) before they start getting active with daily repeat visitors. In some cases it takes years to get enough posts for the forum to truly become active.
About a week ago, I purchased 500 posts from both forumbulge.com and dobump.com
These guys got back to me quickly as well and work was done in about 2 weeks.
Overall I was very pleased with my experience with both forum posting services. :)

If you need to pay people to use your site, your site isn't worth visiting and you'd better rethink your business model.

Well the problem is that when people start up brand new forums, the idea might be great, but no one wants to post on a dead forum. Even if it was an interesting topic, would you post on a forum when you were member #2 and there were only 3 posts? Everyone has to start somewhere. So the idea behind hiring people to populate new forums is to generate just enough activity to make it look like it's worth posting on. Then, if you have a good idea, you can start to take off on your own.