Berkeley Parents Network: Self-promotion on the BPN

Berkeley Parents Network

Self-promotion on the BPN

Berkeley Parents Network > Help & Frequently Asked Questions > Self-promotion on the BPN

Is self-promotion allowed on the newsletters?
Recommending yourself or your friends or family
Self-promotion and the website
See also: Advertising and Commercial Use

Is self-promotion allowed on the newsletters?

Yes, but there are certain restrictions. BPN does not accept advertising because of the requirement that we not use our newsletters and website for commercial purposes. However, we do allow 1) responses from local businesses to questions that appear in one of our newsletters, and 2) announcements about services that families find useful and that are hard to find in other venues.

Any BPN subscriber may recommend themselves or their business in response to a question. These responses often contain helpful advice from someone with expertise. However, self recommendations are not archived to the website. They appear in newsletters only.

Some BPN newsletters,including Parents of Teens, House & Garden, Schools, and Announcements, accept certain types of announcements from local business. For more information about announcements that are allowed, see Postings that promote a business.

In January 2005 we asked subscribers to tell us how they feel about member self-promotion in the House & Garden newsletter. Most respondents told us that they either don't mind reading them, or that they find them useful. The comments we received are on this page.

Recommending yourself or your friends or family

It is OK to recommend yourself or a family member or friend if someone asks for referrals for the service you/they provide as long as you disclose that you are the business owner (or friend, relative, etc.). Many BPN subscribers would rather do business with a fellow subscriber than with someone selected randomly from the yellow pages. However, your message must clearly convey that it was written by the owner or a family member or friend. Most people do this, but there have been a couple of instances over the years of business owners submitting reviews for themselves that were written as though they were coming from a satisfied customer. When this happens, we remove all reviews for the business from the website, we don't accept further reviews for the business, and we unsubscribe the person who posted.

Self-promotion and the website

While we do allow people to recommend themselves and their friends and family members in the newsletters, we do not archive them to the website since they are not actually reviews. If we are unable to tell whether a review is based on first-hand experience, then we don't archive the review.

The opinions and statements expressed on this website are those of parents who subscribe to the Berkeley Parents Network. Please see Disclaimer & Usage for information about using content on this website.