6 Simple Tips On Asking For Advice

The members of this forum love to help others, it’s one of the things I cherish about this community, and if we didn’t enjoy discussing cosmetics we simply wouldn’t be here. The following is a list of six helpful tips on getting the most out of posting here, and how to make life easier for those of us who will be replying to questions.

1. Search first.
One thing that tends to annoy people is seeing the exact same question asked over and over, especially if there’s already a thread that answers your question on the first page. If you have a more specific question, like something that relies on knowing your skin type or shade, or you’d like updated information and the only post you find is more than a month old, then by all means ask.

2. Post to the right forum.
Each area of the forum comes with a description, so it’s easy to find the right place to make your post, if you post to the wrong section you might find it takes quite some time to get a reply or even that you don’t get one at all either because that section doesn’t receive a high volume of traffic or those who are visiting aren’t looking at your post because it’s not what they’re there for.

3. Use a descriptive title.
While there are those of us who try to look at every post regardless of title, others simply don’t have the time and so only click on the posts which have a title that catches their attention, and in a forum full of ‘Please Help’ putting up another one is not going to be an attention grabber. You will get more replies with a descriptive title.

4. Provide information.
The most common issue with posts is not enough information, which tends to mean the first few posts or more are dedicated to asking questions rather than answering them. What information depends on the question, but often things like skin type, shade and undertone, what products you’ve tried already, and any issues or problems are important to mention.

5. Formatting, Caps Lock, and other writing no-no’s.
This isn’t an English class, noone’s going to ban you for bad spelling or poor grammar. This is about making your post easy to read. Unformatted big blocks of text, all Caps, txt speak, and bright or neon font colours can be difficult to read, and for some it can be impossible. You will get more replies if you use paragraphs and bullet points, don’t abuse the Caps Lock, keep the txt speak to a minimum, and don’t blind people with eye bleeding colours. Advice threads are often longer than other threads, and so making them easy to read is even more important.

6. Be patient.
Don’t bump your thread 20min after posting with a comment about people not having replied yet. Other that seriously putting people off replying at all, depending on when you make your post it can end up taking several hours before you get a reply. If after 24hours no one has replied, give it a bump, people might have simply missed it.

I hope this has been helpful. If you have any advice to add please do so as a reply.