Commercial ads

MikeM

Hey forum folks

I quite like that people are able to post lessons and services, but what's to stop people abusing this system, and posting once every couple of days to bump their ad? I mean I am all for this, but I've noticed repeated ads being posted a few times. This doesn't seem particularly fair to me.. Am I wrong in saying this?

AlanRatcliffe

but what's to stop people abusing this system

Me. ? But I need to be aware of any abuse. I usually keep an eye on it, but have been molto busy lately. Unfortunately you can't report an ad the way you can a post, so the only way to do it is by normal PM/

AlanRatcliffe

No dupes there ATM BTW.

MikeM

Cool.

I'll make a note of the few I have seen.

I'm pretty sure these chaps are deleting their previous ads are posting new ones ?

Kalcium

I've also noticed this....cause im pretty sure in less than a month I've seen the same ads popping up again

MikeM

Exactly.. Folks are lucky enough to be allowed this opportunity. We don't want this to turn into some kind of facebook networking WATCH MY BAND, COME TO ME FOR LESSONS, kind of thing.

chris77

If the adds are relevant and offer value to the members, why not? The folks using the classifieds to advertise their services seem to be teachers and small time entrepeneurs, not big retailers abusing the system.

Keira-WitherKay

MikeM wrote: Exactly.. Folks are lucky enough to be allowed this opportunity. We don't want this to turn into some kind of facebook networking WATCH MY BAND, COME TO ME FOR LESSONS, kind of thing.

well i believe as long as the ads and posts are in the relevent catogries its cool and yes i agree don't post same ad 5 times , but this is a music / guitar orientated site and if the non corporate , working class local muso , advertises gigs or services that are music related it should be seen as helping develop a network and supported ,

we talked often re a gig guide with no joy , thats something we should institute and it will get rid of posts , cos i regularly post my gigs and cos they all different and in different venues on different dates i post each separately , this week i will post 3 events , i do hope this is not suddenly becoming frowned upon,

i wish more people would post re local gigs they playing as i think so much happens musically that slips by unnoticed that would draw support if it was known ,

and believe me the gigging musos do need to share where they performing , tj's open mic is a great example of growing constantly with forum members but that is cos we post a lot about tj's on a weekly basis and if i knew where other live music was played i would support more,

so i am of the belief its a good thing to advertise ,

and if someone has no interest just skip the ads

as long as people dont pm me re services i've got no issues

AlanRatcliffe

@Mike - as long as they are not spamming the classifieds with multiple posts for the same thing, or replacing their ad every day to stay at the top of the classifieds, It's OK, AFAIC. But classads are exactly the kind of marketing that the established brick & mortar entities don't do IME, while the smaller one-man operations are more motivated to spend the time and, as long as they do not overdo it, I regard it as "no harm, no foul".

I haven't seen any of that going on anyway - I just went in and checked, and all the ads that have been replaced have been replaced because they have expired after their allotted run - usually the same day as expiration or the day after. So all 100% kosher and the way it is supposed to be. Once again, If you run across any abuse (or suspected abuse), let me know and I'll investigate (and I'd rather something is reported and turns out to be nothing than not reported at all).

@Keira - we haven't gone with the dedicated gig guide because our "target audience" are the people onstage rather than in the audience (there is a little overlap, but not much). Most self-marketers will soon realize that time spent marketing there would probably be better spent promoting gigs to dedicated sites aimed at punters like whatson.co.za.

For the completist marketers such as yourself, we still have the events board (and no-one is complaining about people posting/reposting there). Perhaps we need to put the calender back in the links, but the reason we removed the link in the first place was that people were not using the facility.