Reporting Guidelines

Message Boards l Instant Messages l Chat Rooms l E-mails l Radio Requests l Screenshots

To submit reports, log into popgeneration.com with your username and password. After doing that, click on the Report button next to the band's logo you are reporting for.

Message Boards

1. In order for your reports of message board postings to be approved for cred, the must contain different messages for each post. Meaning, on each board you post on, the message you give the people cannot be the same that you gave to people on previous boards. Reports of message board postings with the same message will only be approved for one cred. So spamming 30 boards with the same message isn't really worth all that time for one cred. We would rather have you turn in 10 reports that are each different and of quality than 1000 reports of "check out this band's player". Also, we want you to be unique with your messages, but please don't make your messages sound like commercials for the band. Make each message personal. Talk about why you like the band so much, your favorite tracks from the band, your experience seeing them live, etc. The worst thing is to come across like a promotion robot to potential new fans. It is also important that in the message you include the link to the band's team page or their player. Do not just link people to the band's web site unless your Pop Generation team leader asks you to. If the team page link or player link are not in your post, you will not receive cred.

2. In addition to unique messages, we also need to make sure we only hit message board communities that make sense for the band you are promoting. If you are on the Hilary Duff team, posting on the Slipknot board is pointless. Try to think of bands that are similar in style to the Pop Generation artist(s) you are promoting.

3. Be sure to only hit up active message boards. If you are on a board that hasn't been posting on in over a week, do not post there. That means that no one visits the boards enough to actually care about what you are posting about. If you notice the board is only active with other eteam posts, the community has become an eteam wasteland. Posting on those boards will not be approved for cred.

4. Posting more than three times on the same chain of boards will no longer be allowed. Examples of this are:
MTV
VH-1
ICQ
Bolt
Sony Music
Yahoo! Clubs
MSN Communities
ARTISTdirect
The Street Network

If you post more than three times on these board systems, you will still only get a maximum of three credits. If you think these new rules limit where you can post, keep reading below to find new spots to hit up.

5. Official message boards of bands related to whom you are promoting are the perfect place for bringing up band news. However, if you see that another teamer has already hit up the board with info on the band you are promoting, do not start a new thread. Instead reply to their thread and continue the conversation about the band. This will help bring interest to the topic and get more people to view it. We don't want you to upset the other fans on that board by spamming up the board.

6. Another good set of message boards to hit up are what we call "lifestyle" boards. These include things like skating, surfing, shopping, video/online games, body mods (tattoos, piercing), etc. When thinking about lifestyles to hit up, just think about the types of things you are into and they are probably the communities that would be interested in the band you are promoting too.

7. LiveJournals/ Weblogs are another good place to promote. But ONLY post about the band in your journal. It is not polite to intrude on someone else's space to push a band. Please be courteous of other people's journals.

8. Friend network sites like Friendster, MySpace, etc. are also a good way to let people know about the bands you are promoting. Put up a message on your bulletin board so all the people in your network can see it. This is a good way of getting all your friends to check out the band.

9. For those of you that have your own personal web sites, you can earn one cred for posting links or banners to players on them. Just turn in a report with the link to your page and a little note saying where we can see the link/banner.

10. You can also earn one cred for having a link/banner to a player in your message board signatures. Although a lot of you are members of more than one board, and are extremely active in all threads of that board, we can only give you one cred for the signatures per board (not per thread on a board).

Instant Messages

1. The easiest way to make sure your IM conversations are approved for cred is to include your ENTIRE conversation about the band with the person. This doesn't mean that you only turn in the sentence of you talking about the band and the link to the player/team page. It is important for us to also see the person's reaction to the music. While we ask for the entire conversation about the band, this doesn't mean we also need your other interaction with the person about things not related to the promotion. We don't need to know whose friend is hooking up with who.

2. When you are turning in your report of the IM conversation, be sure to specify what program you were using in the URL Box. Please put either AIM, Yahoo!, or MSN. If you were using another program, just put its name there.

3. If you use one of the many popular file-sharing programs, you can message people that have similar artists shared. Send them a message and let them know about the band you're promoting. When reporting this, include their feedback! People on file-sharing programs are often very active music fans and always looking for new music to listen to.

Chat Rooms

1. The biggest problem people have with earning cred for chat rooms is that they just hit and run the room with a team page/player link. Those kinds of reports will not be approved for cred. In order for them to be approved, they must include the reactions from room members to the music. A report of chat room with you giving them the link and the room not responding to it will not be approved.  Your best bet is to screenshot your Chat Room experience and submit with your report of the text of the chat.

2. When turning in reports for chat rooms, it is important that you put the exact name of the room in the URL Box. For example if you hit up the Movie room on AOL, you would put "AOL: Movie Chat". If your report only says "AOL Chat Room", it will not be approved for cred.

E-mails

1. Unfortunately, we do not accept reports of emails sent to people. Spam is a major problem with internet promotion and all internet services frown upon this. The most important part of helping these bands out is to get real-time feedback from potential fans. However, if a friend replies to you by email about the band, you can screenshot and submit the entire email text showing us what they had to say about the band and we will approve that for one cred.

Radio Requests

1. Unless instructed by your team leader, do not request a band's song on your local radio station unless you hear the song being played. Radio stations have become very aggravated with teamers flooding their lines with requests for songs not on their play list. In the long run, this could hurt that bands chance of being added to certain radio stations.

Screenshots

1. Screenshots are a very good thing to add to your reports. However, this does not mean you should attach pictures of the band or other non-related items to your reports. Screenshots of your message board post, IM conversation, or chat room time are very much appreciated.