What do you guys think about this? It's one thing to pay for 'real' content but another to pay people to pose in forums and post messages....But on the other hand how else can you get a forum community kick started? If forum posters are being paid is the value of their posts diminished? They are contributing to the content and it takes time to post as we all know. I'm not sure, I myself am ambivalent.
I give services of provding forum posting, however I have never had it for myself on my own forums. I am always curious if it actually works, maybe I should try it on a new forum one day.
Yeah, I always wondered about the strategy: OK so you hire some people, each pretends to be like 2-3 people. They all need to be online at the same time more or less so they can talk to each other. But it's very hard to have it be 'natural'. You can always tell 'seeded' forums. The same users posting, within minutes of each other.... It's very hard to reach critical mass. To build a good forum with good content is an art form all on its own.
I guess in this case, you would need three or four members who like the subject and you need to lure them into the forum. Get them to start the forums, but you need to offer something to them for the help.
I don't know...I'm in some forums and the same people often carry on conversations posting within seconds of one another for extended periods of time when there is a hot topic.
I have seen forums like that, and there is actually existed in the net today, unfortunately, I forgot the site name.
youtube is the best example for the answer to the subject. What they did ?? Though they didn't pay to others , but to make their idea splashhit they use to view video themselves at first(when youtube was started)......
I think, as long as forum posters are comfortable with and knowledgeable about the forum subject, the posts themselves are no different from natural posts. I did some forum posting a couple years ago when I was first breaking into freelance writing, and I felt that most of my posts were as good as or better than natural posts. That said, it's a terrible way to try to earn a living and I gave up on it after less that a month. It pays SO little-- too little even for a beginning writer. Plus, it's monotonous and not as rewarding as real writing. -Karen
I agree, if you can find posters who are freely registered at forums with the same subject you will get better and more realistic discussions. Maybe you should try finding some. What is the subject by the way?
yea, forums posters are think only about money and its hard to find a good forum poster , some example of their posts : should we really pay for this?
Nope, you shouldn't. To be honest I know there probably are posters like that, however I have never seen any paid poster who posts like that myself personally. To avoid this, basically add requirments and if they don't meet the requirments don't pay them.
You have to set limits like 15 word limit and make sure they know it has to be relevent posts any irrelevent posts wont be counted but its still good.. And make sure they have had exprance with forums postings before.. Personaly i think its good for both the forums and the posters in my opinion but offering like 5 cents a post isnt cool. Id at least pay .10 or .15 per post. Pay a decent rate and use a little stricter guied lines..
You should pay more for posts only of they are more better quality, not quantity. If you want something like 30-40 word posts pay a good amount, and its also a good idea to post large articles if possible.
honestly, im split on forum posting, on one hand getting a forum going is a tough task, the problem i see with that method is that the people post then when the offer is over, leave, money spent, nothing but a short traffic burst accomplished... but c'est la vie, such is life... its up to the forums owner to make that call individually.
Yeah, I mean this is the problem. It's no problem to pay some people to kick start things...but then they finish and leave. You need to keep people coming back- naturally. Anyway, we have a small forum at forums.milkmore.com, we put it together mostly to support the website and hopefully in the future it will be bigger. We didn't expect miracles right away. It deals with issues regarding the mobile web, cell phones and our website itself. We are not trying to be like some of the big cell phones forums, there are already alot of people doing this job very well. Now I discovered this whole world of forum posters, and got me thinking that maybe we should try that as well. Plus, I never knew writers do this for a living...
Ive done it alot before.. but got tired of the 5cent post offers lol if its .15 and i have the time ill do it nicely but not for less..
Meh, some writers when they are starting to do it, after all money is money, in my personal opinion don't pay per post, but maybe have a contest offering prizes for the best quality post etc, other relavent topics, this will allow posters to compete with a good spirit and will probably result in more quality posters staying if they like your forums than if they were just paid to post and per post, also you can offer a product (if you sell anything) that you make (if applicable) as a prize minimizing costs, just one way to do it but its an alternative to think about.....
Thats why you have forum posters, they post and you advertise so when guests come it looks active. Then once you have proper members, they do the job of the paid posters. If you get what I mean.
I do a lot of paid forum posting work (check my web page) I think its a legitimate way of getting a forum rolling, its very much a chicken and egg situation no comments mean no new members, no new members mean no new posts, so as long as the posts are more than ‘yeah I agree’ and get the forum up and running I see nothing wrong with starting a forum this way
the problem lies in getting quality posters, and auditing quality so you dont get a ton of spammers eating up your money and doing your forum no favors.