We as a community are incredibly grateful to the instructors and vendors who make the products we use in our exercise programs. We welcome you to stay and read our boards or have one of your colleagues do so. You can do a lot of great informal market research by reading what our members like and don’t like, what we are buying, and what we would like to see on the market. Though we have members at all levels of fitness, overall our community represents the perspective of the educated consumer who maintains a video exercise program over the long term rather than the consumer who picks up a workout video on a whim. Our members are not always representative of the “average” fitness video buyer, but they do know the market, and you will find a lot of good information here.
However, we ask you to respect that Video Fitness is a “consumer to consumer” community. We credit our success and longevity to the fact that we allow consumers to share detailed opinions about the workouts and products and vendors in the fitness marketplace. As a result, we ask that those with a commercial interest in the products we discuss NOT post to our boards or attempt to contact our members directly. This preserves the nature of our community and it protects you, too. Video instructors, those in the fitness video/product industry, and and friends or colleagues of instructors have often found it very difficult to walk the line between participating in our community and promoting their products, which we do not allow. Many of our members consider it an intrusion when a vendor posts to our boards, and may even look unfavorably on companies that do so.
We are one of the few truly independent boards related to fitness videos, and as such, our members feel that VF is one of the few "safe" places to complain about workouts, products, equipment, and vendors. Participation by those who make the products we discuss tends to stifle the honesty of our members.
Whether or not you post, please read our disclosure policy, which serves as an addendum to the commercial posting policy.
Commercial postings and advertisements are not permitted and will be deleted
As stated in our guidelines, you may not promote or post a link to any product or commercial Web site if you have a financial interest in or business relationship with the company. You may not use your signature block or user name to promote your business. Vendors should not use community members’ email addresses, our Forum’s email form, or the private messaging feature for commercial purposes. Email links are attached to most posts so that other consumers may contact a poster with a question or comment about her post. They are not to be used by vendors for advertising or marketing purposes. Those who ignore these guidelines may be barred from using our forum areas. If you need to get in touch with a specific forum member please do so by notifying the board administrator or one of the moderators rather than contacting the individual directly.
Answering Questions about your Products
If you see specific questions in our forum about your products or company or if you see inaccurate information posted, instead of posting yourself please send your answers to those questions and the URL of the thread containing the questions to me at contact@stream.fit and I will post them to the thread on your behalf. Please do not include promotional content in your response--it is inconsistent with our guidelines and will be edited out before posting. You may provide an email address so that those with further questions may contact you.
Dealing with Negative Comments and Complaints
Please try not to be alarmed or offended if you see criticism of your product or company here. Even the best workouts and fitness products and the most reliable vendors have been criticized on our boards at some point. It can be difficult to have your work or product dissected and every aspect under scrutiny. Some of the criticism will be constructive and useful, other comments may seem unfair and subjective. If reading such comments is difficult, I would advise that you have a friend or business associate read our reviews and forum instead and pass along to you only the most constructive comments about your products. Our members do want instructors and vendors to learn and get ideas from our constructive suggestions, but we don't want anyone to be deterred from producing new workouts or products based on comments shared between our members.
If you wish to officially respond to a complaint about your business (e.g. a customer service issue) that you see on our board, please email your response and the URL of the relevant thread to contact@stream.fit and I will post it for you. Whenever possible, please provide a phone number or email address to which consumers can follow up with any customer service problems. Please do not include promotional content in your response--it is inconsistent with our guidelines and will be edited out before posting.
Additional information
Instructors or fitness product companies may submit press releases and sale/promotion information to me at any time to be passed along to the group. Just send it in an email to contact@stream.fit.
Thanks You,
Videofitness.com
