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How many posters on B&B are affiliated with vendors?

Dude, I'm messing with you. I know what I posted. ;)
 
in my experience, most are enthusiastic to fanboy on the bell curve. there have on occasion been a few vendors who may have also used a sock account to shill their products, but they've been fairly easily ID'd.

I suspect we're too niche for influencers, especially shilling influencers to come round.

specific product talk leading to trending of them has been cyclical here. if enough people say it's the next best moustrap, others with try it and say the same.
 

Steve56

Ask me about shaving naked!
Agree, the B&B membership is more fanboy than shilling. This is not unusual, B&B is an enthusiat’s site and people get well, enthusiastic. This is a good thing.

But to counter the OP’s posit, probably the most widely discussed shaving soap is Arko, which sells for $1 a stick in quantity. Nobody’s shilling for Arko, you can’t make any money doing that.
 

luvmysuper

My elbows leak
Staff member
There absolutely nothing wrong with saying a product you like is great, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with saying a product you don't like is terrible.

It's not ok to call out someone or belittle them or denigrate their opinion because your opinion is opposite to theirs.

Bear in mind that if you say you love Mitchells Wool Fat soap because the ceramic container is cool, or you hate Arko because the stick always keeps falling over, you're likely to get some push back. Your love or hate is meaningless without some real context.
 
I think we can be sure Gillette isn’t paying all the members who enthuse about mid-20th century Gillette razors, and there’s at least as much of that here as there is for any other products. Frankly I’d be astonished if any shilling was happening here, or that anybody was getting anything for it. And I can’t see how it would be worthwhile for any vendor to do it.

YouTube is a different matter, where video reviews are one person’s unchallenged opinion and YouTubers have hundreds or thousands of followers and their reviews are easily accessible to hundreds of millions of users. A chat forum with a niche membership doesn’t work like that.
 
I think we can be sure Gillette isn’t paying all the members who enthuse about mid-20th century Gillette razors, and there’s at least as much of that here as there is for any other products. Frankly I’d be astonished if any shilling was happening here, or that anybody was getting anything for it. And I can’t see how it would be worthwhile for any vendor to do it.

YouTube is a different matter, where video reviews are one person’s unchallenged opinion and YouTubers have hundreds or thousands of followers and their reviews are easily accessible to hundreds of millions of users. A chat forum with a niche membership doesn’t work like that.
B&B has a pretty small audience these days compared to its past (just like most enthusiast forums). As you point out, marketing has mostly moved elsewhere.
 

luvmysuper

My elbows leak
Staff member
B&B has a pretty small audience these days compared to its past (just like most enthusiast forums). As you point out, marketing has mostly moved elsewhere.
We were never a huge attraction to big marketeers. The few occasions of phony accounts and shilling were from previous members who started businesses, wanted to hawk their wares without being a Vendor, and were banned for disregarding requests to stop.
It's not like Proctor and Gamble was going to authorize phony accounts on an enthusiast site.
 
We were never a huge attraction to big marketeers. The few occasions of phony accounts and shilling were from previous members who started businesses, wanted to hawk their wares without being a Vendor, and were banned for disregarding requests to stop.
It's not like Proctor and Gamble was going to authorize phony accounts on an enthusiast site.
There’s still Google searches and forum lurkers, so B&B reviews are visible to a much larger audience than the member base.

But, still, the effect of posting a misleadingly positive review on B&B would be diluted by all the other opinions that would get posted in the same thread. For that reason, no B&B post could influence potential buyers the same way that a 30 minute one-man video review on YouTube can. But a forum review thread where there is a weight of opinion from multiple users pointing the same way is quite persuasive to me, because it gives a more democratic and representative view than you’d ever get on YouTube.

So I really think this is one of the best places to look for reviews if you are interested in a product, because the review thread is likely to be much more balanced and consensus-based. It’s not a marketer-friendly format, it’s consumer-friendly. I actually wish there were more reviews here than there are.
 

Phoenixkh

I shaved a fortune
There’s still Google searches and forum lurkers, so B&B reviews are visible to a much larger audience than the member base.

But, still, the effect of posting a misleadingly positive review on B&B would be diluted by all the other opinions that would get posted in the same thread. For that reason, no B&B post could influence potential buyers the same way that a 30 minute one-man video review on YouTube can. But a forum review thread where there is a weight of opinion from multiple users pointing the same way is quite persuasive to me, because it gives a more democratic and representative view than you’d ever get on YouTube.

So I really think this is one of the best places to look for reviews if you are interested in a product, because the review thread is likely to be much more balanced and consensus-based. It’s not a marketer-friendly format, it’s consumer-friendly. I actually wish there were more reviews here than there are.
I couldn't agree more... and an additional caveat: I hmmmm how do I communicate this thought? It's important to find people who share the same needs when it comes to razors..... blade feel, type of whiskers and all the rest of the things we require out of a razor. It doesn't take that long to find kindred spirits and their advice is invaluable to someone like me who has limited experience. The same can be said for brushes.... how does the brush feel on your face, how is it for bowl lathering/face lathering, etc., etc.

The discussions/threads about an individual razor are of particular interest to me. I'm set for brushes and soaps.. and I don't use after shaves but when a razor is discussed at length, with lots of people participating in the discussion, you can get a pretty accurate idea if a razor will be something you'll like. All the razors I've purchased based on these discussions have all been stellar.. every one. I have a few more here at our place that I haven't tried yet, but I suspect all of them will perform well for me based on the feedback others have provided. I might not end up keeping them all....but I just might.
 

FarmerTan

"Self appointed king of Arkoland"
There absolutely nothing wrong with saying a product you like is great, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with saying a product you don't like is terrible.

It's not ok to call out someone or belittle them or denigrate their opinion because your opinion is opposite to theirs.

Bear in mind that if you say you love Mitchells Wool Fat soap because the ceramic container is cool, or you hate Arko because the stick always keeps falling over, you're likely to get some push back. Your love or hate is meaningless without some real context.
I love Arko because my mommy said I'm as handsome as the Arkoman!


Okay, her exact werds were: "Honey, I fergit yer name, but you are almost as handsome as the Arkoman! Too bad you don't smell as good as he does."
 

Fred D

Member of The Illiterati
Man..... There goes my run for the White House doggone!
No need for you to run for the White House when you're already a King! 😁

2The-King-of-Lies-spillwords.jpg
 
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