We love having Vendors inside our Tribe as they can add a lot of value, insight, and outside perspectives into all the conversations.
However, we don’t allow any blatant pitching or promoting.
So, our goal is to still keep vendor discussions active and relevant (because vendors are so darned important to the MSP space).
But to not let in any of the noise that happens in free groups like Reddit, Facebook, etc so that our Tech Tribe members get an awesome, uncluttered, unbiased experience 
The basic guideline is that it’s OK to mention your product, blog post, or event ONLY IF it’s very directly relevant to a question that someone has already asked AND if the answer is helpful for the rest of the Tribe.
If it’s not directly relevant and it could be construed as under-handed advertising – it will be deleted and you will be given a Tribal Warning.
Here are some ideas of what is allowed and what isn’t allowed:
EXAMPLE OF ALLOWED:
If a Triber is asking in a thread how to stop their techs from cherry-picking tickets to better manage the queue AND your product helps out with this, then it’s perfectly OK to post a reply to their question with something like:
“You might want to consider looking at <our product> where we solve this exact problem by doing X, Y, and Z. I’m the founder and so of course, I’m a little biased, however, feel free to ask any questions in here so my answers can benefit the rest of the Tribe”.
By suggesting the member asks any questions in the thread, means the rest of the Tribe can benefit from the discussion/answers.
EXAMPLE OF NOT ALLOWED:
Basically anything that could be seen as unsolicited and unnecessary promotion of your product OR yourself or gathering feedback from our members for your business. For example:
- A new thread promoting a new feature of your product or a link to one of your blog posts
- A new thread with industry news. Using news to get your name shown more regularly is not allowed.
- A new thread asking for product, service or offer feedback from our members
- A new thread promoting an upcoming webinar or a blog post
- A reply to an existing thread simply saying “Look at <Our Product>” that adds no additional value
- A reply to an existing thread saying “We have an Upcoming Webinar” when no one has asked about it
- A reply to an existing thread that simply links to one of your blog posts/videos / white-papers etc with no additional value
- E.g. If you do have some existing notes that helps answer the question, then please give some value in your reply first before just blanket linking to a blog post.
If you’re ever unclear or would like to check if something is OK to post – simply shoot our Tribal Support Ninjas a quick email on [email protected] and they’ll be able to confirm with you.
Also as an FYI – there are some Communities and Groups out in the world such as ASCII (USA), Network Group (UK), and SMBiT Professionals (Australia/NZ) that have paid vendor sponsorship programs that allow you to promote your products/services/offerings. It’s worth considering if a Paid Sponsorship of those groups is beneficial to you as well.
Click here to see some guidelines around private messaging our members.