Guidelines for Commercial Posters

[roddy]

We strongly recommend you get in touch with us (contact link, bottom of the page, or [email protected] ) before posting. Introduce yourself and your business. We're interested and we can advise on your use of the site.

If you're currently (Dec 2011) posting here, you can probably keep on doing what you're doing - we'll get in touch if necessary.

Commercial / Promotional Use of the Site

I use business to refer to any product, service or website, paid or free, profitable or not.

General Advice

There are lots of people on Chinese-forums.com who spend time and money on learning Chinese or visiting China, and we know you want to get in touch with them. They may also be glad to hear about your business. We also know businesses may have valuable information and expertise.

However businesses often make posts which are irrelevant. The majority of posts from businesses get deleted before users even see them. We'd like that to happen less.

Remember at all times you are talking to a community with many experienced and independent learners of Chinese, who may have lived in China for years. Do not assume you are talking to people who know little about the language or the country.

Do not post too often - make one post about your business. If anyone asks any questions, answer them. if there are any major changes to your business, post about them.

Accounts

Posting with a normal account (one you already have, or register for this purpose).

This is if you wish to participate in the forums generally, not just to promote your business, and are happy for the link to be clear. Your username should not refer to your business, avatar may include a logo but no url or name, see below for signature rules.

In this case you need to remember to make it clear that you represent the business you are posting about (bearing in mind that avatars and signatures may not be visible to all readers). This does not require boiler-plate text of 'Full disclosure: I am employed by . . . ' - just write 'I'd recommend our school, Lovely Chinese, because . . .' rather than 'I'd recommend Lovely Chinese'.

Business-only account

Username can refer to the business (no urls though), avatar can be whatever you want, see below for signature rules. This type of account may *only* post about the business.

You're welcome to have a business-only account AND a normal account for personal use. However please a) let us know and b) remember to make business posts with the correct account. You can make the relationship known to regular members if you want, eg by adding ‘I also post on here as Lovely Chinese School, where I’m marketing manager’ as a signature on your normal JoeBloggs account

There should only be one account promoting any one business at any time. If you feel it's necessary to have more than one person posting here at the same time, get in touch.

We are aware that, eg, you may post on behalf of the school you work for and then leave and start your own school, or your marketing person may quit and you don't know the password for the account, etc. Get in touch and we'll advise.

Posts and Relevance

Posts mentioning your business must be *directly* relevant to the original post.

If you run a private Chinese school in Xi'an you can mention your business in discussions about private schools in Xi'an, or recommendations for schools anywhere in China - but not private schools in Beijing, or universities in Xi'an. If someone asks for a textbook recommendation, you cannot then post 'actually, you should try online tutoring', or ‘our tutors at Lovely Chinese School love to use . . .’

Signatures

A signature link to your business is fine, but normal rules apply - no more than two lines of normal-sized text, no use of colour or formatting to draw attention. Signatures are not shown to guests or search engine indexers, and members have the option to hide them.

Please do not make posts just to get your signature seen. It’s annoying, and you’ll get very limited traffic, if any.

Cheating

Do not, under any circumstances, register an account and mention your business without disclosing the link, or constructing some faked ‘I used to study at . . .’ or ‘I was thinking about using . . .’ scenario. That will result in deletion, banning and ridicule, depending on what mood we're in. Roundabout methods - linking to your products on a third-party site such as Amazon, or suggesting people Google a term you rank highly for - are equally unwelcome.

Linking

We currently nofollow outgoing links. Please don’t try to create obvious keyword links – it looks like you’re more interested in the link than the post.

Designated topic

It is usually possible to start a topic introducing your business and to solicit feedback and provide updates.

Please contact us before you do this – we’ll decide if we think our users are potentially interested and suggest content. We also recommend you spend some time reading the forum first, and perhaps even participating. Updates should not be trivial - a new blog post does not need an update, for example. Some good examples are:

http://www.chinese-f...inese-magazine/

http://www.chinese-f...low-chinesecom/

Private messages, etc

Do not send private messages or emails to users unless explicitly told to, eg, ‘can you email me details?’ If there is information you do not wish to post on the forums, such as pricing, invite the user to contact you.

*Only* posts on the forums should be used to promote your business. Please do not use status messages, blog posts, or anything else we haven't thought of, to mention or link to your business.

Paid Advertising

Paid text and banner ads are available. Paying for advertising does not give you any influence over what is posted on the forums, or allow you to ignore any of the above guidelines.

Comments or queries on the above should come to [email protected]