Internet Marketing Consultants - suddenly there are so many....

[Marc]

I think Dean's blog is great.

You can see Dean puts in the effort to create content on his blog that brings people back and I seem to be stumbling into Dean all over the place (on the net) related to social media such as the Facebook/Wordpress plug-in

It will be interesting times full of new technologies most of which will die out but some will remain. Social media is currently a term that has been abused and it will get worse. I try not to use it these days as it normally brings up confusion and anger with people not in this stuff day-to-day.

People are getting frustrated with the amount of new tech out there and the promise of how it will help make you $$. First people had to try and get their head around Facebook now its Twitter.

Cheers

marc

[Dean@Massiveaction]

I agree Marc. Every second email I seem to get takes me to a "wealth grenade" video sales page blah blah blah.
Seth Godin's book Tribes really opened my eyes to what you are talking about in your previous post.

And of course PT is incredible cutting edge in this whole area too!!

[Stevegoodey]

Seth Godin is god.

Best Blog ever, read it every day.

[PeterEmpowerEd]

Parting the gullible from their cash

Old guys like you and I have an inherent "fear is not quite the right word but I'll use it" fear of the internet because we didn't grow up with it. So I think anyone over the age of about 45 to 50 does have this unconscious "the internet is slightly bent and seedy". I know I did till I started seeing the growth of it in "reputable" industries like legal firms, finance and travel etc.

Please speak for yourself re "old guys" "showing their age". (I'm sorry I couldn't reply after midnight last night. Matron had tucked us all into our beds early with our Horlicks because we have a bright young whippersnapper coming to the home today to teach us about some newfangled thing called 'text massaging'.)

As for the implausible argument that people who somehow don't 'get' social media and web 2.0 (or the web itself) are fearful ‘boomer’ Luddites showing their age...

I go back to the 8bit days of 300baud full duplex, didacticmodems, and with nothing but ASCII and CLI. I embraced the e-age before it was called the Internet. My first e-mail address was TZQ054. Anyone recall the term Sysop? Or Starnet or Oasis?

Yup, yup and vaguely. (Remember those modems with the rubber cups we plugged our phone handpieces into?)

I suspect that adoption of nouveau ways of Internetese will and should be, selective, rather than indiscrete.

Totally agree.

I was in the Wellington Apple User Group and used the club bulletin boards in the late 80s (pre-world wide web) running at something like 300-600 baud on a good day. I got my first non-work email address when I opened a Compuserve account in 1994, and participated in several c/serve user groups and communities including the Writer’s crit forum there ... before the www really took off.

Maybe I look like a bunny to some here on PT (is it my low post count?) but I don't, as suggested, suffer "fear" or "distrust" of the interwebs -- just a wariness born of experience of shallow sleazeball salesmen hawking their latest get-rich-quick snake oil by whatever means possible.

Without descending into what Perry rightly decries as 'sweeping statements', I think the internet is at the heart of the future of commerce, communication and publishing (broad or narrow-cast,) and will soon be regarded as an essential utility like electric power -- if it isn't already.

But many of the "breakthrough" ‘internet marketing’ ideas are mere adaptations of direct mail techniques pioneered/developed by people like Ted Nicholas and Joe Karbo (The Lazy Man’s Way to Riches) and others as well as ADHD geniuses like Jay Abraham and the Results Corporation guys. Seth Godin, already mentioned, is in a league of his own - brilliant. A real thought leader and highly ethical.

Where the internet has blown through previous barriers (besides speed + storage = VOLUME) is the ability to track/collate/crunch data and stats to track ‘effectiveness’. User-generated-content like this forum seems just like a bulletin board or user group with better bandwidth. Most blogs, however painstakingly written, are doomed to remain virtually unread/uncommented. (Don’t get me started on spam. My ISP reckons 90%+ of email is spam. Yik.)

--

But back to Donna’s original post... it seems to me both Steve Goodey and Dean Letfus could (perhaps unkindly) be seen as prime examples of the very phenomena Donna so discreetly identified when discussing 'internet marketing consultants' and Marc chimed in on 'social media experts':
Self-proclaimed "experts", still quite inexperienced or wet behind the ears in their chosen field, yet preying on the gullible offering paid or free 'advice' and 'education' replete with inadequately disclosed sales commissions.
Mutual-admiration aside, Dean and Steve having both worked closely with NZ's "most published" spruiker and tax exile, this shouldn't be a surprise.

Another good example was their Richmastery stablemate Daniel Kertcher who switched from selling Gold Coast off-the-plan apartments with his mum to overnight reinventing himself as an ‘options trading expert’ -- managing to garner negative warning articles in NZ Consumer magazine for both careers.

I don't know Steve Goodey. Although I have in the past highlighted his property sales activities (along with "mentors" Sean Wood and Sue Laurie) e.g. spruiking the Columbard apartments in the guise of 'education', I make NO COMMENT about the quality or likely outcome of his own apartment developments, or the value of investing in them.

And as always, these thoughts are my personal opinion.

[Xav]

It seems that we are discussing two different things here, as I have tried to point out in my previous posts. I have zero issue with blogging and internet newsletters etc. I agree that Dean's blog is usually a good read, not that I read it often.

Just take my posts as a word of caution that the techniques touted in the seminars referred to are different from (and far more complex than) those that most of you are familiar with. It is not as simple to profitable utilise them as the presenters claim, and there is usually a hidden benefit to the presenters in you attempting to doing so.

I will be very interested to hear if anyone attempts those strategies and how they get on.

[PeterEmpowerEd]

Yeah, mon.

Just take my posts as a word of caution that the techniques touted in the seminars referred to are different from (and far more complex than) those that most of you are familiar with. It is not as simple to profitably utilise them as the presenters claim, and there is usually a hidden benefit to the presenters in you attempting to doing so.

Totally agree -- that's what I mean by get-rich-quick snake oil.
(OMG. Does this mean we're both 'bagging' it out of ignorance and fear, as suggested? Nope.)

[AndrewK]

I don't have a problem with internet marketing. selling products for a commission inst exactly a new concept its just being done via new methods.

To me the biggest problems with internet marketing are the over hyped sales pitches (see Richmastery and their Tax liens) and the quality of a lot of the products.

The reality is that the people that are not using their products and whacking up links on every web 2.0 site they can to these hard sell landing pages are just the new spammers. There are tonnes of honest and very worthwhile products available that can be sol on internet marketing its just that we are constantly smacked in the face with these cheap nasty e books and get rich quick schemes that internet marketing gains a negative connotation.

One site i like for its success story is http://www.caradvice.com.au/ the owner having a passion for cars and seeing a need in the online marketplace started his blog and serves up valuabel worthwhile information to his subscribers and makes money by advertising products targeted at his client base and apparently now makes in excess of $500000 AUD a year from this blog and its resulting mailing list.

This is what i like about internet marketing, not the being spammed via twitter from some so called property investor who has now decided to spam his followers who follow him for his property advice with this kind of crap. you hear me Dean?

if you believe in Affiliate of the year then go and market it but dont spam your massive action databases to try and make a few bucks.

[Cadmium]

6 Reasons You Shouldn’t Brand Yourself as a Social Media Expert
http://personalbrandingblog.com/6-re...-media-expert/

Social media gurus don’t call themselves social media gurus
http://blog.arhg.net/2009/02/social-...hemselves.html

Top 25 Ways to Tell if Your Social Media Expert Is a Carpetbagger
http://www.livingstonbuzz.com/2008/1...-carpetbagger/

Great links Marc.

I am quite astounded at how many people are referring to themselves as gurus in this area on Twitter. These folks are now a dime a dozen.

[Marc]

Great links Marc.

I am quite astounded at how many people are referring to themselves as gurus in this area on Twitter. These folks are now a dime a dozen.

Yeah its funny. I remember one person told me that they are all the "Personal/Life Coaches" that use to be around before the recession and now looking for new work since most people worked out that the bulk of the coaches were movement from other non-specialist trades that went out of fashion.

Strong words....

Cheers

Marc

[PeterEmpowerEd]

...one person told me that they are all the "Personal/Life Coaches" that use to be around before the recession and now looking for new work...

Yup, Marc. Reminds me of the old joke: "Last week I couldn't even spell enjaneer, and now I is one..." - P

[tpr2]

It seems that we are discussing two different things here, as I have tried to point out in my previous posts. I have zero issue with blogging and internet newsletters etc. I agree that Dean's blog is usually a good read, not that I read it often.

Just take my posts as a word of caution that the techniques touted in the seminars referred to are different from (and far more complex than) those that most of you are familiar with. It is not as simple to profitable utilise them as the presenters claim, and there is usually a hidden benefit to the presenters in you attempting to doing so.

I will be very interested to hear if anyone attempts those strategies and how they get on.

I agree with you xav.
Most of the techniques are rubbish or require you to invest a whole lot more than first advertised.

Yes some people do extremely well, better than a lot of people can actually comprehend however it is a small number only.

I wonder what qualifies someone to be an expert in that field

[tpr2]

Oh yeah by the way guys, affiliate marketing is not new........

Mark Joyner sold over 1,000,000 e-books over 10 years ago and is talked about as the Grandfather of affiliate marketing.

Considering he is not even a dad yet that's kind of funny.

[Dean@Massiveaction]

Yes he is amazing isn't he. Database of over 350K, incredible!!

[whitt]

Yes he is amazing isn't he. Database of over 350K, incredible!!

I thought my 25,000 was big enough.

[donna]

I agree with you xav.
Most of the techniques are rubbish or require you to invest a whole lot more than first advertised.

Yes some people do extremely well, better than a lot of people can actually comprehend however it is a small number only.

I wonder what qualifies someone to be an expert in that field

This was one of the points I was making when I started this thread. Xav has kept to my train of thought of so called Internet Marketing Consultants...thanks.

Yep, they (these Internet Marketing Consultants/Gurus) are impressive communicators that talk it up well (due to being good sales people) and they personally are possibly deploying a lot of the sophisticated strategies.

However what is really impressive is the workshop/seminar presentation - and the following testimonials where the words of praise (you find on the websites and landing pages) tend to favour how wonderful the presenter is.

The average attendee does not and will not grasp the stuff the presenters are communicating and never use it. Not that that matters as there's something to be gained for everyone even if you don't really understand the sh*% - at the very least you can attempt to get your workshop attendance fee back by spreading the word - spamming your databases and facebook/twitter accounts etc.

The rise of these operators is what I was referring to - and the replies in this discussion have alluded to the possible previous careers of many of these so called experts.

Cheers,

Donna