What does a forum begin with?

Today it is very hard to tell when the first poster appeared, but one can guess logically that it happened simultaneously with the appearance of the first forums. Exactly that time the idea that a freelancer cannot fall below the level of posting on the Internet was born. But the project manager of MoneyMaker.su project, Vitaly Daxxex completely disagrees with this: “Posters first of all are the life and soul of the forum. Well organized posters within certain number do a great job at development of a forum,” says Vitaly. “It’s absolutely impossible to attract community until somebody begins discussion. Speaking figuratively, posters are the aid men of forums. Only they are able to steer a discussion, touch upon urgent problems, support a discussion where necessary or on the contrary, being the real professionals in this area, will disclose a hidden spam and will not let some true advertising topic to develop.”

What’s the picture of an average poster today?

The survey, conducted by the specialists of the Trainex analytical department has shown that a poster is a young man of 15-20 years, for the most part a student or schoolboy/girl who doesn’t have a stable income and who is ready to work 2-3 hours a day.

How much does a poster cost?

It is difficult enough to define the cost of posters’ services, however, there are some job rates. A poster of a lower class required for the so-called chat, and hence, writing some messages under some nicks, earns from 5 to 10 cents. Specialists of upper class who are required to make a hidden promotion of projects on the forums can have 10-20 cents for a post. The elite posters, i.e. true professionals – a dream of the forum owners, who develop a forum within strictly specified terms and form that desired community may request even 50 cents per one post.

However, today in B2B practice people usually use complex services – when your resource is offered a whole team of posters guided by a manager. Such team may contain a great number of people beginning from 2-3 up to several hundreds. It is always very difficult to know the exact number of posters working in a team. Somebody may say that it is not so important but after talking with some forum owners, who preferred to remain unidentified, we concluded that the number of posters promoting any project is very important. And this matter does not only concern the number of posts that the toilers of posters’ shop can provide but a human factor. Attracting a large quantity of posters with lower salaries will give more qualitative results comparing to one poster with a significant salary. Different opinions, various points of view, various ways of thinking – that’s what makes a whole team of posters different from just one or two posters.

As for the efficiency of posters’ work, here everything depends on the project and posters themselves, however, the owners of some resources agree in opinion that recruiting a team of posters increases the popularity of a forum by 6-10% for two weeks of work.

But still nobody can tell about the industry of posting better than a poster himself. So, a reporter of Trainex Journal contacted a manager of a posting service and decided to find out what is the work of a poster indeed. After a long ICQ messaging session finally we got a polite reply:
“Hello”.

The further conversation was as follows:

TJ: Could you tell us how much does an average poster, for example, as you are earn today?

Answer: All depends on the state of affairs. There is no stable long-lasting work with one project in our business. So on average a simple poster can earn up to $200-300 per month.

TJ: And how much does a posting crew manager earn?

Answer: Again, everything depends on a certain situation. But in the presence of several projects and a large number of posters the earnings of the posting crew owner can come up to 1500$.

TJ: Does the demand for posting services increase?

I can answer with a full confidence “yes”, it really increases. The internet enters the phase of a mass development, and the number of forums grows every day, and therefore, the demand for posting services increases.

We can also separate blogs in the posting industry. Here those who joke that a blogger is an evolved talented poster are right. Posting of blogs has gained a great popularity as the audience of blogs is broader and has a higher status. Today blogs are owned by stars, politicians, famous journalists, so the services of bloggers who write for a target audience are more expensive, let alone a simple fact that a text size in a blog is bigger than the one in a post. Today, one post of a respected blogger can cost even $400. Average price of a simple blog entry on the market starts from 50 cents.

Today we can say with confidence that the posting market has already formed and is outliving its rapid developing. It is also hard enough to determine the cost of service of some poster in view of a big number of factors; however the presence of the demand and the supply is evident.

What should we expect in the future? There is an opinion that posting service fees can rise, though insignificantly. And here it is even not a matter of the notorious inflation but an upward tendency in the cost of intellectual labor. A good post can always give birth to a scaled discussion where a skilled poster can conduct such a promotion the effectiveness of which cannot be compared with any advertising banner. Thus, poster structures in the hands of skilled manager and under condition of responsible approach of the workers themselves can be an excellent marketing tool for the Internet business owner. But only one question remains unanswered – how many posters does your project need? ...

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