Paid Posting Survey

For those of you running paid posting services, how many of you were approached a week or so ago by someone from Sitepoint who is conducting a review of our services?

I was, and I find the whole thing rather unfair to be honest.
Basically, this guy wants 1000 FREE posts on 2 of his forums so he can do a review on sitepoint on who has the best paid posting service.
Now, I clearly told him that we have very limited time and can probably do 10% of those posts as I don't want to abandon my customers in favour of posting on forums just for a review.

He told me thats fine but that will be stated in the review.

So, my service is going to come out with a negative review from Mr Sitepoint due to the fact that my focus is on providing customer service to my paying clients.... rather contradictory isn't it?

I'm not overly worried about it as my own customers know what kind of service I provide, but I just thought the whole thing was rather silly as the people who will get top reviews are only the ones that have the time to fulfill his demands of 1000 posts for $0.... It's a rather inaccurate way to conduct reviews in my opinion but oh well.

 

How do you know?

 

He's actually one of the bloggers on Sitepoint, not just a user. Still i think 1000 posts for nothing is a huge ask considering how busy most of us are. We just dont have time to fit that in without pushing aside customer jobs which I refuse to do just to get a good "review".

Rob - Im just assuming it will have a negative impact, he thinks I have a bad service if I dont make 1000 posts obviously

 

I'm going to try this strategy at the car dealership tonight - give me a free car for a month to test drive or I will give you a bad review!

I would tell Mr. Sitepoint to pound sand.

 

It sounds like he'll do his review and then note that you did fewer posts than the others. Or at least that's what he should do!

Maybe you can ask him?

 

Good idea.. Make it a Ferrari too

 

My service also received his review offer. I think he's honest, and to quote him, he wants to compare "apples with apples", that's why he's asking all services a certain amount of posts.

Still, I was in the same situation as you FB, we have a lot of orders and my posters are busy. I only contacted a couple of my posters, who were relatively free, to post on his forums. However, none of my available posters were either capable or interested to posts on the topics asked.

So, I explained the situation and told him not to include us in his review. I think being mentionned in his review would be a good PR boost, but at the same time, I don't think you should concern yourself with that. From what he told me, even if you're not able to deliver the whole package, he will give you a fair rating based on the quality.

 

The proper way to do such a review is privately. By asking for the services upfront, he completely skews the results.

Even if you all agreed to do it happily, the results of such a review would be entirely worthless.

 

I agree. That's my only problem with the review offer. Obviously, all the services getting reviewed will go that extra mile to make sure that everything is done perfectly, therefore the review is not really objective since you know you're being reviewed.

In any case, there's many customer feedback, good and bad about the different paid services, on forums such as this, which I think are the ones to be taken seriously.

 

I agree
We're not going the extra mile for the review, simply because like I said I dont believe in abandoning people that have paid me. 1000 posts is an incredible amount that he is asking, its just not that easy.

Still, Sitepoint is a credible site and Im sure some of us won't get favorable reviews which will make an impact on people on that site who feel it is the gospel... lucky we have DP which is where the real reviews take place

 

Yes, i also received a pm asking for this but i had to decline 1000 posts for free is a lot of work. I think its better to get customers from word of mouth then an article anyways and if yuor service is that good its going to get around to thoughs who wish to use it they dont need a 3 page article to read before using your service.
I think the time is better spent on the paying customers.

Just my opinion though.

 

It seems alot of us here anyway have rejected it, so I wonder who they will end up reviewing?

 

Yes, thats true i dont think they can really judge a service like this in the way they are approaching it as every service would be inclined to post more detailed posts then that of a normal customer.
This really diminishes the point of the article.

 

Buying anything is a gamble on the internet...especially something that's never going to end up on your door step

This reminds me of how seedy the web hosting reviews you find on the net are.

 

They aren't seedy when they come from people who have paid and used the service.
Its seedy when the reviews are biased or rigged.

 

True, but how can you tell from a 3rd person's perspective?

 

I take it you fellas have never heard of companies giving review copies to reviewers. Book reviewers don't pay for books, software reviewers don't pay for software. Hardware reviewers don't pay for all those gadgets they get. This is standard operating practice.

I can only assume the profit margin for running one of these businesses is about 50%. So for 2 $70 posting packages you're probably making $70 and paying your posters $70. You should still pay your posters to do this, meaning it'd cost you around $70 to be included in said review. With 2 midsized orders you'd make back your investment. If your profit margin is 25% then it'll take 4 orders to make back your investment. In anycase your investment would likely be remade within hours after publication.

Obviously if your business is to small to handle the additional volume of a single reviewer-customer then you probably would not be able to handle the volume of increased normal customers so you might as well not participate. No point in advertising your business when you're already at max capacity.

The point about people being on their best behavior is true, however its meaningless since its true for every company. Every restaurant a food critic goes to is going to treat him like royalty, but the food critic is still going to rave some places and pan others. As long as all companies are on the same footing, ie they know they're being reviewed, then its fair.

 

I agree. The best way to do this is to pay your posters for the review and think of it as advertising. I mean, if you do good, you should get more business out of it.

With that said, I do agree that the review may be meaningless since every company out there will know they're being reviewed... and go the extra mile. It's hard not to.

 

It is standard practice for products, not for service. It is not the standard practice for services. If it were, all such reviews would be worthless as you would get unusual treatment. Why do you think restaurant reviewers try and disguise themselves when dining out? They always pay for their own meal as well. If a publishing house offers a different book to a reviewer than they sell on the newstand, it will be evident. It is not so easy to detect a change in a service.

I don't think most of them were balking at the money, other than it is a waste of money considering the results are going to be bogus.

That is ridiculous. You clearly do not have a handle on the issue.

A I mentioned above they try not to be discovered... And it does impact the quality of review. They also don't pay for the food.

Sorry, but any service review that is known about is entirely worthless. They are trying to get over $1000 worth of posts for free. If they wanted to do a legitimate review and not scam free posts they are a number of other options for doing this. Even ways to reduce the cost. This is just not a legitimate attempt to review forum posting sites. And if he goes through with this criteria, I will be the first to shout bogus.