Being a full-time blogger comes with a lot of baggage. Actively maintaining two websites, six email accounts and memberships to a dozen social networking sites is definitely fun, but certainly more work than I ever imagined it would be. Although these tools are great for keeping in touch with readers and fellow bloggers, they also come with a catch: I receive more than my share of incoming junk messages. Not surprisingly, most of these messages are related to Internet marketing, and claims of easy money and immediate wealth. Some are mildly annoying, some are ridiculous, and some are unethical. But whatever category they land in, there are five Internet marketing claims which are outright lies, and amateur Internet marketers need to be protected from them.
“I Made $5,000 per Week on a Social Networking Site!”
There is a reason so many people are convinced there is money to be made in social networking: because Internet con artists still claim to be able to generate six figures per year on sites like LinkedIn and FaceBook. Sure, social networking sites have a number of great business uses like distributing news, coordinating user groups and augmenting your internal database. But actually generating a few dollars worth of direct revenue from them—much less thousands of dollars per week—is not only unlikely, it is impossible. Unless, of course, you own a social networking site.
“You Can Make a Great Living Working Out of Your Own Home!”
Here’s a question: if you make such a great living working at home, why do you spend 12 hours per day trying to talk other people into doing your job? Because your home-based ‘business’ is actually a recruitment-focused pyramid scheme. If you are considering responding to one of these work at home solicitations, be sure to read 9 Signs You’re Involved in a Pyramid Scheme first.
“I Can Show You How to Get 2,000 Twitter Followers Per Day!”
I don’t mean to ruin the mystique surrounding Twitter, but if someone dedicates an entire day to it, acquiring 2,000 followers in 24 hours isn’t exactly the equivalent of splitting the atom. Even if you have only 15 minutes to spare, there are plenty of free or low-cost automated Twitter applets that can dig through the Twitter database and figure out which members are most likely to follow you back. The only real thing ‘professional’ Twitter builders plan on showing you is a form to enter your credit card information.
“I Made 400% Net Profit in the Last 60 Days In Affiliate Marketing!”
Affiliate marketers are a lot like poker players. Although two-thirds will claim they are making a living doing what they do, the reality is less than 3 out of 100 are getting paid minimum wage for their time, much less making any sort of ‘living’ at their craft. And if an Affiliate Marketer did figure out a system for pulling in massive amounts of cash, why would they offer to tell you about it?
Anything Related to Making ‘Big Money’ with Pay-per-Click
As I mention in a previous post, When Pay-per-Click (PPC) is a Bad Idea, PPC is the only marketing method where companies can be absolutely guaranteed to pay MORE than market value for each and every click. In addition, Pay-per-Click advertising has been around too long for anyone to find an exploitable hole or unique strategy that would allow excessive revenue generation. PPC should be no more than 10% of any company’s marketing budget, for a very good reason: there is very little value to be had anymore.
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