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Is paying for forum posting ethical?

Discussion in 'General Marketing' started by noobpreneur, Apr 29, 2008.

  1. #1
    Guys, I want to know your opinion on this.

    I saw in freelance job markets that some people looking to hire someone to do forum posting in exchange of several cents per post.

    I view paying for forum posting to be unethical and not right :mad:

    What is your view on this? Is it ethical? Is it right? Or, it's nothing personal - it's just business - thing?
     
    noobpreneur, Apr 29, 2008 IP
  2. southpar

    southpar Peon

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    #2
    New forums always need a boost, and although you may have to pay for your first daily post, it is just as buying traffic from Google or MSN. I consider it ethical as it does not breach any established marketing or SEO rules.

    There are other such services where people pay writers for their writing - blogs, pay per post, articles, reviews, ratings, press release and news features and stories - just to list a few. It can not be ethical these other services to pay for a writers work, but becomes unethical for forums to do the same.
     
    southpar, Apr 29, 2008 IP
    noobpreneur and sainshea like this.
  3. braane

    braane Peon

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    #3
    well said south^
     
    braane, Apr 29, 2008 IP
  4. noobpreneur

    noobpreneur Well-Known Member

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    #4
    @southpar - point well taken - good point. I never thought about new forums like that before.

    Then, I should consider change my attitude toward paid forum posting :)

    Cheers!
     
    noobpreneur, Apr 30, 2008 IP
  5. sheds

    sheds Peon

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    #5
    I m not sure, but i believe it's ethical.
     
    sheds, Apr 30, 2008 IP
  6. amedia

    amedia Well-Known Member

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    #6
    If you're just starting out i think its ok, but if you already have an established community and you want to boost it i think thats unethical
     
    amedia, Apr 30, 2008 IP
  7. noobpreneur

    noobpreneur Well-Known Member

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    #7
    @ sheds - cheers!

    @ amedia - you got a point. Thanks for your opinion

    What about a forum member that is paid by someone else to enter a discussion, with the end result is for the payer's marketing (and SEO) purposes?
     
    noobpreneur, May 4, 2008 IP
  8. joebert

    joebert Well-Known Member

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    #8
    Technically people are being paid to entertain.
    The only real difference between the people who are paid to post and the actors which the same people who complain about paid posters watch on TV, is the media used.
     
    joebert, May 4, 2008 IP
  9. southpar

    southpar Peon

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    #9
    If I get your point correctly, I can pay someone to focus their post on my website or product so that it can boost my SEO or improve sales. This is somewhat under handed unless the poster a part of the forum management.

    Notwithstanding that people do this with the use of signature, and by making reference to certain websites in response to a question.

    Example:
    David (Partner of "the-bait" .com) anyone know about this website. I just run across them and they offer tons of free traffic - "the-bait" .com
    Tom: (Partner 2 of "the-bait" .com) Yes, I have used them before. I just do not how they make money giving away such good traffic for free.

    That is very under handed and I have stop them in my forums when I come across them.

    Here is the principle:
    The people who should benefit from paid advertising in a forum is the forum. This is just like McDonalds sending a worker to sell Mac Burgers inside the Burger King store.

    At the same time, we allow signatures, links and even open reviews of websites. But this is a free service offered for members. Not advertisers. Forums do not do this to create competition for their ad space.
     
    southpar, May 5, 2008 IP
  10. sultanofseo

    sultanofseo Notable Member

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    #10
    depends on how you look at it i think. if you think of it from marketing point of view, i don't see anything wrong with it. you are doing paid posting to get the words across as well as to get the forum established. big companies always run marketing campaigns offering free products/paid surveys to make a new product popular and gather informaiton. they give away free stuffs to get people hooked up in the product hoping some will buy it in the future. just a marketing trick and form of advertisement
     
    sultanofseo, May 5, 2008 IP
  11. Retired Internet Marketer

    Retired Internet Marketer Peon

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    #11
    Driving traffic to an empty forum is just spinning your wheels. Most users wont join a dead forum. One of the best things you can do is inflate the threads and posts so that when new users come across the site, they are more apt to join.
     
  12. Lalit_Burma

    Lalit_Burma Active Member

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    #12
    Well New visitor is not going to post a related topic into forum. For the visitors you have to kept hot burnning issues for them so that they come and can have discussion with others. And in this case one guy cant do it all ... for the various topics you should have various head and thats how this come.

    You are just paying them to write a contain for the website or you can say building the website or forums nothing else ... So this is the part of website building with the help of others and you pay them for their helps. Simple ...
     
    Lalit_Burma, May 5, 2008 IP
  13. noobpreneur

    noobpreneur Well-Known Member

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    #13
    Thanks all for the opinion!

    @southpar - another good point :) - love the McD & BK desc.

    Off topic, what about forums sales? How selling a forum is affected by having an inflated number of threads and members? Is it just a common practice that forum buyers have to aware of before purchasing one?

    Cheers!
     
    noobpreneur, May 7, 2008 IP