Jump to content

Finding Consumer Communities


penangel

Recommended Posts

As much as I enjoy doing surveys, I like paid communities a lot more.  I'm a chatterbox (yeah, who'd believe that?  hehe)   and I've so loved the communities I've been able to be a part of.

 

Therein lies my question... how in the world do I find them?  Is it always a matter of having to wait to be invited via one of the survey companies?  Don't any of them allow sign-up directly?  And if so, how do I find that?   When I've searched online, all Google ever gave me was hits for the survey places.

 

If only available through invitation/survey site, are any of them better for community participation invitations?  I don't really like the ones where participation brings us a "chance to win the monthly raffle" instead of monthly pay even if it's tiny, because.. well I like eating and a chance at a raffle won't buy the bacon.   :mrgreen:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi penangel,

 

Research community opportunities have sort of a sporadic availability; sometimes it seems that a bunch are recruiting new members at the same time, and at other times, they can be quite difficult to find.

 

As you note, unlike traditional survey panels, they are usually invitation-only, and after they have enough members, they close off recruitment. So if you wait too long, there might not be any spots left, or the spots that are left are available only to very specific demographic groups.

 

In any given month, we usually list a couple of these communities on our site. You can find them:

 

 

Otherwise, it might be worthwhile to join a GPT website or two. Oftentimes, GPT sites will help recruit new members for such communities by tapping into their own membership base. As an added incentive, they will provide you with points if you do decide to join a community through them.

 

Hope this helps!

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've found socialopinions to be particularly good for being recruited to that sort of thing - and I agree, they are often super-nice pay/hour, especially since you're guaranteed to not get screened out. 

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

It helped tremendously, Admin... thank you so much!   I can't believe that I hadn't connected yet on Facebook!  But I've taken care of that now and marked it that I'll "see first" so... good!  I'll be watching and signing up for the other places you mentioned as well!

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've found socialopinions to be particularly good for being recruited to that sort of thing - and I agree, they are often super-nice pay/hour, especially since you're guaranteed to not get screened out. 

 

neminem, I can't seem to find social opinions cashout info... by the looks of it, I can cash out at any time, is that right?  And I also can't see if it's a paypal only payment.  One of the profiles did ask if I have paypal, but I can't find an FAQ.  In any case, thank you for mentioning this one... it looks interesting!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

neminem, I can't seem to find social opinions cashout info... by the looks of it, I can cash out at any time, is that right?  And I also can't see if it's a paypal only payment.  One of the profiles did ask if I have paypal, but I can't find an FAQ.  In any case, thank you for mentioning this one... it looks interesting!

 

No, their cashout is at 10 bucks, and the cashout is either in the form of basically restaurant.com - which is a huge ripoff, don't ever do that, or a prepaid mastercard (ok, but I prefer not dealing with virtual prepaid cards, too much of a pain), or Amazon (I always go for Amazon if paypal isn't an option). 

 

Interestingly, I believe they're actually the same as Clear Voice, which oddly, has pretty terrible reviews - I've found them generally pretty great, other than it is a legitimate complaint that sometimes surveys take forever to clear from pending. The nice thing about it, though, other than I've found it has the highest rate of invitations to private better-paying communities, is the 10 cent payout every time you get DQ'd. 

 

I only said socialopinions rather than clearvoice because that's what I actually signed up under - I know they're owned by the same person/people, but I only believe they're actually completely the same, rather than, like, OO vs surveyspot, where they have the same surveys but OO pays better. ;) (I actually signed up for it from an advertisement in a game for a few thousand in-game points for signing up, before I even knew there were so many sites like it or had explored the hobby fully.)

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

No, their cashout is at 10 bucks, and the cashout is either in the form of basically restaurant.com - which is a huge ripoff, don't ever do that, or a prepaid mastercard (ok, but I prefer not dealing with virtual prepaid cards, too much of a pain), or Amazon (I always go for Amazon if paypal isn't an option). 

 

Oh, okay... great.  And thank you.  I definitely already know about restaurant.com and would never EVER use that.  :-(   Over the past couple of years I have won TWO (same place)  restaurant.com $100 cards.  I couldn't use them... the one place listed for anywhere near me went out of business years ago... and even the next closest place, about 25 miles away refuses to take it and knows nothing about why they're listed.  :x    Bottom line, I lost $200 because when I pleaded my case with the place, they said that's all they have for prizes and it amounted to "tough luck, bucko."   I *really* hate losing money!  (Thankful it was wins, though, and not earnings!)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Luls, yeah. I cashed out some frequent flier miles that I learned I had on United when they sent me a "you have frequent flier miles that will expire in a week if you don't redeem them" notification. Given that I wasn't planning on flying anywhere in the subsequent week, I looked into what else I could redeem them for, and found something advertising a hundred bucks in restaurant vouchers, sounds great! That must've been at least 5 years ago at this point... still haven't used it. My experience is similar to yours - there are dozens near me that restaurant.com claims accept it, but most of them either have no idea what restaurant.com even is, know that they once took it but stopped ages ago when they realized how awful restaurant.com treated their restaurants as well as their customers and have been trying to get restaurant.com to remove them for ages, or are really desperate (really desperate for a restaurant usually means "terrible".) 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 months later...

I just wanted to say thanks for the communuties that have been listed here at Survey Police.  I have been accepted into a couple of them and am enjoying it completely.

Still looking for more because it's much more enjoyable to me than endless surveys... any new ideas on how to get in?  Primarily this would be C Space and My-Take but there may be others I don't know about, or independent communities.  A few of the survey places used to screen for community entry but it's been very rare... maybe I'm just not a member of the right ones.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've gotten into a few more since this thread was posted originally - including one crazy-good one that pays 20$ Amazon credit every month for life, just for logging in a few times a month and responding to a few questions, which is pretty much the greatest thing ever. It continues to be the case that, of all the survey sites I use (and while I've cleaned house a bit, I still subscribe to about a dozen), I get invited to epic private communities like that one, almost exclusively from socialopinions, so I'm pretty happy with them, obviously. 

Have you gotten any from them yet, or am I just lucky? :)

Funny enough, I've definitely never even heard of "My-Take". I knew I'd heard of C Space from somewhere... I checked, turns out that epic 20$ a month in perpetuity site I just mentioned, was from C Space. :D (I just knew it by the name of the community, I hadn't noticed who was hosting it.)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've gotten a few, too, BUT those that actually have a monthly incentive, even if extremely small, are few and far between now.  :-(    I've never had one that was $20 a month  :-(  but I do have a $10 one.   I'd so love more... I need to check into socialopinions more often.

Anyhow, the communities I've been finding are mostly on the raffle system.  NOT a good reason to spend a lot of time there, that's for sure.  If they'd go by actual participation and quality of content I'd do a lot better because I'm a talkative soul... but if it's a raffle, the winners could be those one or two word people who say nothing but "yes" or "I agree" just so they don't get tossed out.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 year later...

I have been with MyLot for many years. It has never paid well but it does pay. I was with the old MyLot and it was a great site. Then MyLot went through changes and they tried to stop paying. They lost their members and ended up with spammers and scammers. MyLot has gone back to paying but it is not the site it once was. You can talk about anything as long as your are respectful and they have members from all over the world. Cashout is $5.00.

I am also with Connected Life which is a newish site. They sort of pay. Every month some members win gift cards. I never have but every so often, I am sent a $5 Amazon gift card I really enjoy this site.

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...