Balancing the Message
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Comments posted to this topic are about the item Balancing the Message
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I always enjoy reading about how community-based groups tackle the issue of allowing advertising to fund activities, without being too obtrusive and interfering in the activities of members. I sincerely hope that you post a follow-up with a number of ideas that you plan on implementing (and ones you never would!).
To contribute --- do many vendors add to discussions or problems in these forums by saying "product X can solve issue Y and this is how you use it"? Not behaviour I have seen, but may well happen. Make certain that it clearly is advertising, but it is also much more personal and (dare I say) gets vendors involved in a conversation with actual and potential clients.
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Targeting your audience is key. We don't want to be bothered with adverts, however when you need information there is no forum or channel on SQLServerCentral that I have seen other than the occasional article.
I realise that potentially fewer people will see the advert, or review however whats better, views or sales? But a dedicated forum targeting each area of SQL or a channel (sqlservercentral.tv?!) would ensure articles are found quickly and meaningfully.
From my view point if a product is advertised its worthless without a recommendation or review to give a truer picture.
I'll happily submit myself as a reviewer if you need one!
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If you wish to go down this route I would have thought allowing vendors to post articles would be best. these could be held under a group heading to allow searching later on. Obviously these would go through filtering\review by the site owners first. People could then 'join the discussion' if they wished to give feedback on their experiences with the tool.
would not like to see adverts or vendors posting, smacks too much of cold calling.
Any legal implications here if people post opinions the vendors don't like?
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You have Featured Articles, Editorial, Featured Script. That's where I start, that's how I decide whether to read further. Add "Interesting Products/Vendors" as a link to the information on another page. If I have time, I can check it out (and probably will). If not...maybe another day.
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To be honest I've not had much time to look over the forums as of late so I can't say how it is there now, but I like it when vendors are not taking up a big space. However, having some parts in the forum that is directly made for vendors and their products and customers using those would not be bad, just make sure they are at the bottom of the list.
Third party products, I've had good and less good experience with those.. The worst was perhaps a web tool kit that added lots of nice components but was not compatible with several browsers, rendering it next to useless. On the positive side, who has not used one or two redgate products? Their backup and sql prompt tools are good.
Products voted as good by a majority of uses should perhaps be allowed a little more space.
It's a difficult issue to decided in a heartbeat and think throu thou.
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george sibbald (1/8/2010)
would not like to see adverts or vendors posting, smacks too much of cold calling.
Any legal implications here if people post opinions the vendors don't like?
It is not cold calling if a vendor is addressing a particular need or answering a question an individual has posted on this board. In fact, by placing a question in the forums, you are inviting a response ... no reason why it couldn't be a vendor with a product to solve your problem. That said, if any vendor does step into this space, their responses had better be relevant and seen to be addressing the situation at hand. If not, their reputation would take a big knock, as even small mistakes get blown out of proportion.
As for legal implications ... ugh. What an awful minefield.
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george.schwalbe (1/8/2010)
george sibbald (1/8/2010)
would not like to see adverts or vendors posting, smacks too much of cold calling.
Any legal implications here if people post opinions the vendors don't like?
It is not cold calling if a vendor is addressing a particular need or answering a question an individual has posted on this board. In fact, by placing a question in the forums, you are inviting a response ... no reason why it couldn't be a vendor with a product to solve your problem. That said, if any vendor does step into this space, their responses had better be relevant and seen to be addressing the situation at hand. If not, their reputation would take a big knock, as even small mistakes get blown out of proportion.
As for legal implications ... ugh. What an awful minefield.
I was thinking of when a vendor starts a thread which is just an advert for their product. Same thing if its a response which is just 'buy my product it will solve all your problems' whether related to problem or not.
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How about a separate page for vendor products. I'm not in favor of vendors in the forums as most of the problems are relatively easy for the experts in the forums to solve without requiring 3rd party software.
If there was a separate page for advertisers we could view it if we wish.
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First, the ads in the daily emails are fine with me. That's how I found out about SQL Prompt, and bought it. (No, I'm not affiliated with them in any way).
Whitepapers would be really great if I could read them without the contact info. If a product interests me, I'll go after it. But I despise sales calls, so much so that unidentified callers always go to voicemail. I won't talk to them. But I do follow up on items of interest.
Let them post on the forums. "I'm from company X, and our product, Y, might help here. Would you like a sample or a demo?" Then leave it at that. Let the original poster go after it. (If I have a problem, I don't mind pitches for products that can HELP me.)
My $0.02
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Consider a Tools section. As a working community member, part of my job is to be aware of the various tools that are available that could be put to use to solve various problems.
If I'm looking for tools, it would be nice to have a separate tools section to go to where I could browse vendors, learn about their tools, get brief descriptions and drill-down into more complete descriptions. Editor reviews, community comments and the like for decision support could go there.
Bill Nicolich: www.SQLFave.com.
Daily tweet of what's new and interesting: AppendNow -
We have definitely benefited from third-party products and I am always interested in learning about something new. If this information was available in some sort of controlled fashion on SQLServerCentral I would check it out from time to time.
What might make checking this out more attractive and agreeable to me would be if there were some “rules” on what information the vendors could require from me before I could download their white paper or view their webcast. There are many times when I have backed out of obtaining vendor information because in order to do so I am required to submit way too many details about my organization and my role. Submitting these details has sometimes resulted in annoying follow-up calls and/or too many emails. When I am initially checking out third-party products I am often just curious and I simply want to investigate the possibilities; I would be happy to submit more information at a later time if I find I am truly interested in the product.
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This may seem like a lame brain idea, but why not give them a special Advertiser section on the site, with an Advertisers Forum section?
They can use the advertising section to showcase their wares and we can go over to look at their offerings at our leisure. This might be the place to go when we are looking for that special Product X idea.
In their forum, users can ask more detail questions on the products and services being offered which in turn will allow the advertisers to point out their highlights and even discuss problems with the products on a more personal basis.
I'm willing to bet the more forthcoming advertisers will benefit from more business. People want to work with people that are interested in what they think and how they feel.
This I know from experience. The folks at SpreadsheetGear were very responsive when I tried their product a couple of years ago. Now that my company is going to be looking for a new spreadsheet control, I'll make sure they are not forgotten during our exploration and testing phase.
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The one thing i love about SSC is the minimal advertising. At times it seems a bit much but compared to most of the junk we get it is nothing. I think having a section for Vendor Ads, Reviews and Case studies could be useful. Anyone who buys anything needs to turn on their Crap Detection Goggles anyways and allowing these to be accessible could allow for an easier research path and starting point for us. Just a thought. Like I said though... the current level in daily use is acceptable but i wouldn't want it to increase.
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I agree with the many other posts, it should be it's own section. Similar to an old-fashioned printed newspaper with the classifieds in the back, ordered by type of software.
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