Share what you know with millions of people
Focus is the best place to turn what you know into remarkable content
Should answers be automatically voted down for self promotion?
Best Answer
- Recommended by:
- Craig Rosenberg,
- John McCoy,
- Brielle Nikaido,
- and 2 others
No, answers should not automatically receive down votes for self promotion. Up and down votes are at the discretion of the community, not the system. Focus' decision to include a down vote feature was very deliberate and intentional and not taken without a lot of internal debate. We believe it's an effective mechanism for protecting against low quality answers. Low quality contributions tend to fall into a few core categories, including answers that are:
-- Factually incorrect;
-- Incoherent or difficult to understand;
-- Irrelevant to the question being asked;
-- Overly promotional in nature.
Aaron's question asks specifically about self-promotional answers. Here are some guidelines that I think about when considering a promotional plug on Focus:
1. The most important thing to remember about answering a question on Focus is to, as simple as it sounds, answer the question. This simple rule allows you to recognize when the person asking the question is actually looking for contributions that promote specific products, services, and companies. Anecdotally, the vast majority of questions do not ask for answers to be promotional in nature.
2. One common type of self promotion is including contact information in an answer. When you do include contact information as part of an answer, lead into it with content that is of value and substance - that, again, answers the question being asked. It's perfectly fine to offer further assistance and follow up so long as you give the person asking the question a reason to ask for additional help from you. That's best done by, again, answering the specific question being asked. In general a solicitation to connect such as "call me at 1-800... so we can discuss" with no value preceding it will receive down votes from the community.
3. The other common promotional tactic is to link to a third party site. Linking to third party sites in general (not just your own) is fine so long as the off-site content is relevant to the question being asked. You should try to contextualize that link with some meaningful information or highlights about why you are including a link in your answer. Make sure you provide meaningful, substantive context for that link. This might include an answer to the question, a summary of the off-site content as well as the key points. In general, a link that is only introduced with something like "my thoughts are here" will receive down votes from the community.
4. Internalize the community's feedback. The marketplace of ideas is alive and well on Focus. Up and down voting is a great way to learn how to create better answers and more compelling business content in general. In fact, I've taken much of the feedback on my Focus answers and used it to improve how I communicate on other sites, as well as in the offline world.
Finally and most importantly, the answers to this question show just how effective the community can be at self-regulating. Nine great answers with very specific recommendations and use cases before I even got here. Thank you Focus!
- Recommended by:
- Scott Albro,
- Chad Massaker,
- Ken Nadreau,
- and 1 other
No, there shouldn't be an automatic voting (up or down) - that discretion is and always should be in the eye of the reader.
Generally speaking, the idea of these forums is to provide both the question and answer(s) right here. So your answer should be just that - an answer. Not a link to someplace else - and not blatant self- or employer-promotion.
It's complete reasonable to link out to relevant materials and resources, and also to suggest that you and/or your employer can offer additional assistance. Especially because, as Mark states, the goal isn't to write a book (or copy and paste an entire white paper) here.
However, to simply post something like "I wrote about this someplace else, see http://www.MyCompanysSite.com/brilliance.html" isn't very helpful and will very likely get voted as such.
- Recommended by:
- Aaron Lintz,
- Frank Laurijssens
I have been voted down for linking to pages of my web site or blog which contained information relevant to the question. I guess next time I'll just copy and paste the content. :(
- Recommended by:
- John Bozarjian
Yes and no.
Yes if it's a straight-up plug without adding any value to the conversation.
No if the plug is contextualized by answering the question and if the question hasn't already been answered by 30 other people.
- Recommended by:
- Frank Laurijssens
For one thing, can it still be qualified as "voting" if a moderator or a script automatically makes the choice? Admittedly, spam happens everywhere, but I think the people can make the decision whether to vote something up or down.
And whether its article writing, blogging, or commenting, the credibility of the person doing it is reflected in what's being said. So if someone wants to ruin their reputation by using a comment box to solicit, then we'll all get to see what kind of person he or she is.
Perhaps a happy medium would be to remove or block a comment once it reaches a certain number of down votes. It would still be us voting democratically without spam permanently taking up space.
- Recommended by:
- Ira Wolfe
Chris, I did exactly what you said and got 6 down votes and a Focus Moderator asking if I had any real content to add to the conversation. So I proceeded to open up my 40 slide presentation on Business Technology Predictions for 2011, go to the section on the Cloud, and literally copy and pasted all of my speaker notes into the thread and apologized to the thread for "self-promoting". On that answer I have gotten 4 Up votes... so I guess that the answer is clear.
Why I need to repeat information as an answer that I already have elsewhere is beyond me. Guess I am just lazy...
- Recommended by:
- Aaron Lintz
Mostly in agreement with other responses here. This is not meant to be an advertising platform but, for sure, these threads allow us an opportunity to promote ourselves as experts in our various fields.
What I object to is those few posts that take a conversation and try to twist it to fit a particular offering, even if the response is way off base.
I think we all have access to large volumes of content, slides, blog entries, even other Focus posts, that we can refer to. Some questions are repeated in one form or another - I don't want to retype a lengthy answer that I gave before. I would prefer to add a link to content that might help.
As long as we don't have people saying "give me $20 and I will answer your question" then I think we are in pretty decent shape.
- Recommended by:
- Chad Massaker
It seems that all the viewpoints have already been covered. But I intend to agree that cutting and pasting the content from an existing page that I authored into a comment box is not efficient. It might even discourage me and others from responding. But I can appreciate how some people seem intent on turning a community into their personal marketplace.
- Recommended by:
- Chad Massaker
I have no problem with a member posting their site, blog or report when answering a question. The only time I vote down (and I work for Focus) is when someone is blatantly just pushing their product and does not provide real value at all to the question - and it is usually pretty obvious when somebody is doing this - trust me, I know, I am in sales. There is certainly a way to answer a question in a beneficial and intelligent fashion while also driving people back to your property, blog, report, etc. You won't get a negative vote from me if your answer includes a bit of self promotions give it provides signifcant value.
Chad - I've read several of your answers to questions today and honestly found them quite useful. Sorry you thought you were being voted down for attaching a link because I know a lot of members who that and have many "up" votes. I think it is just finding the right mix.
- Recommended by:
- Chad Massaker
Agreed Frank - many times I find people provide a link back to a blog that I find to be very useful. Not to beat a dead horse but as long as you don't blatently boast and promote your company it shouldn't be voted down - doesn't have to be voted up either. Just let it be.
No, I don't think so. Self promotion is part of the game here: giving enough good input on Focus will help you to get the white E on your profile.
Self promotion isn't bad as long as it answers the question. Useless links to one's own blog isn't really showing off, that's posting bogus answers. You can't really detect that automatically. What if, like Chad experienced, you just happened to write an article or blog that is a good answer to the question asked?
Hope I haven't been doing too much self promotion here...
This was the thread in question. Having reviewed it again, I guess how I could see how it might have appeared to be too general, especially since I brought up unrelated subject matter like Social Media.
http://www.focus.com/questions/information-technology/cloud-game-changing-and...
*shrug* I'll try to be more focused in the future...
Events
- Dos and Don'ts of Small Business Marketing May 29 @ 11 am PT
- Lead Nurturing 202: The Next Generation May 31 @ 11 am PT
- The Tricks to Paid Media June 6 @ 11 am PT
- Display Advertising for Brand Awareness June 20 @ 11 am PT
Related Activity
Aaron,
Before I could respond to your question I would need a better definition of self promotion. If a question blatantly is intended for the "questioner" to circle back and answer it, it seems like solicitation.
If someone provides an answer and indicates that if the questioner is seeking even more information or a specific situation and suggests taking it off line I think that is dfferent.
Some of the questions are quite broad. To answer them meaningfully you could write a book...I don't think that is the intent here...