This is a reply to a number of questions posted by Scott Reynolds. I puposely don't give a link. Do the hard work. Visit his profile, read it, invite him as a friend and then check out his forums. This is a guy who cares about Adland and the way in which we conduct business.
Hi Scott,
I haven't visited here before. This a whole lot of questions with a whole lot of replies.
So that my views aren't biased I am going to reply BEFORE I read the other postings.
My experiences.
Spam in general is a huge problem. I am one of those strange folks who consider peoples' email to me to be important. If somebody takes the time to contact me then I want to respect them and read, and if needed, send a reply. Therefore I DO NOT use a a spam folder. I plough through all my emails, delete the obvious, delete the repeat forum replies AND finally I sort out the remainder.
As far as Adland is concerned the annoying thing to me is the guy/gal who continually starts new forums on new programs and invites me to join the forum or thread on a daily basis. NO THANKS but I rarely block them. They may just have something important to say one day. I just read the occasional one.
It has become obvious to me that Adland, like every other community, has a majority of members who have never really made significant money online and who wish to do so, NOTHING WRONG WITH THAT. There are also those who PRETEND that they make money in the hopes that others will queue up to join their downline, understandable but a little annoying.
When it comes to postings within my forums my experience has been VERY GOOD. I have had very little spamming within my forums, if I have, I have deleted the posting and sent a PM to the poster. Usually no problem.
I think that a big mistake that we make as a community is this:
We forget that new folk come here to promote their businesses (after all we claim to be a business interested community) and if we are fair we should understand this. The mistake these folk make is to send out an invite for friendship which is ALL ADVERT and the mistake we make is to block them on their first or second invite. We need to say "Yes, I would love to be your friend and maybe we can work together to make some money, but, we need to know each other first and more importantly we, At Adland, consider it rude to advertise upon first contact. I will be your friend but, reserve the right to block you if you continue to advertise before we agree to exchange ideas".
We need to WELCOME new folk and let them know the protocol. Simple as that.
Next, my question:
I pay to be a step up from basic membership. This gives me the chance to send out a message to everyone. I do my best to use some of my VERY resticted online time to chat, exchange views, promote others and help if I can, in return I ask to be taken seriously. IF I PROMOTE A PROGRAM IT IS BECAUSE I BELIEVE IT TO BE GOOD FOR OTHERS AS WELL AS MYSELF. In other words, if you get an advert from me it is because I think it HAS VALUE. Would (or have) you blocked me or do you consider that the ONLY WAY TO ADVERTISE is via signature or paid Adland adverts, if so, understand, like many others, I can't afford it any other way.
We have an ultimate weapon, if somebody really SPAMS we can get them removed.
I love Adland but am now becoming disillusioned with it as a business community. I have tried VERY hard in the last few months to get a lot of members to THINK about a new way of building a business system which would use our joint strength AND our shared knowledge. The need to spam would be eliminated and our huge number power could be our strength BUT I think that still PEOPLE HERE still think I'm advertising. I'm not.
I will post this reply in my forum too and aim to promote your forum, so for those who view this in my forum try visiting Scott Reynolds profile, check out his forums and give your opinion on spamming.
Roger Macdivitt