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Aug
12
Pet Peeve: Web 2.0 Gurus Who Really Don’t Get Web 2.0
August 12, 2007 |
I have a pet peeve. See, everyone is hopping on the Web 2.0 bandwagon these days, especially all the internet marketing gurus. Now, these guys (and a few gals) really know how to write good sales letters, compelling squeeze pages, and so on. And a lot of them have figured out how to make some pretty good money by leveraging blogs, MySpace, and so on.
But fairly often, they do something really bone-headed that shows that they still just don’t completely get it.
Take, for example, the Authority Black Book. Now, I have to admit this looks pretty intriguing. I signed up and have downloaded my copy — I’ll post a review later. So I’m not judging anything about the content of the book. It has some pretty big names associated with it — Mike Filsaime, Willie Crawford, Jack Humphrey, Sean Wu, Colin McDougall and Michelle MacPhearson — and looks promising.
But take a look at the Step 2 page. At the bottom, they ask you to invite three friends — a typical viral tactic — no problem there. And they give you what looks like a personalized message that you can customize to your taste:
I hope someone involved with this project is reading… I’m going to address this to you assuming that you are…
See, I know what you’re going for. You’re trying to make it look like a personalized message — the recipient’s name in the subject and at the end of the letter, written in a casual, fairly hype-free style. I like the letter. There’s only one problem…
It’s the letter you would write… it’s not the letter I would write.
And my friends know that. They know me, and this letter sounds nothing like me. Which means that when they receive it, they are a) more likely to perceive it as spam instead of an authentic recommendation from me, and b) I lose cred (aka “social capital”) with them because I’ve given their name to some internet marketer.
The thing is… this is SO f***ing simple to do right. Why didn’t you just make it so that people could edit the message and the subject line??? It’s already in a <FORM> element… in fact, I expected it to be editable… just like when I send invitations from social networking sites. I tried 3 or 4 times before I finally gave up and realized it wasn’t.
So to my three friends I sent this to, my apologies. To Mike, Jack and whoever else is behind this, please make that one simple change. I’ll bet you money it will improve your response rate. Set up a split test — try it and see. And if it does, I want a cut… 
Article Series - When Internet Marketing Meets Web 2.0
- Pet Peeve: Web 2.0 Gurus Who Really Don't Get Web 2.0
- No Pitch? Oh Really?
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Scott:
Thanks for the article and referring me to the report. I too did not like the process or the message behind the bait but since it came from you I followed through.
In return one person I sent it to respond like this
Ok
The way it looked to sign up – I would run the other way.
This response came within minutes of me filling the form, enough evidence?
After filling out the form and getting the report there was a follow up sales message to pay money to get further insider tips. Much of the free download report contained information I already knew.
Bottom line, only because you invited me did I follow through. But the end result was:
Appearance of a scamming process
Bait to buy something
The writers lost credibility with me as “knowing something I needed to know” soley because of their process and technique on baiting me
Loosing a relationship with me means you lost my time and attention
The world of social networking, the relationship economy, social media etc., requires reverse thinking if one wants to achieve a valuable postion of authority that others will follow.
The tricks of the tradego against the foundation of building a relationship with individuals and entire markets.
Tricks are the old school methodology of marketing
In order to leverage our future value in the social medium we need to go back in order to get to the future. Back to the fundamentals of relationships, trust, sincerity, giving without expecting to get etc etc.
Just my two cents….
Looks like the only honest way to go is to not fill in anyone else’s form with recommendations - this way making sure that your e-mail list does not become theirs and then seeing you losing that all important credibility factor - what for? - you and everyone else that has been around for a while already knows the formula - give one sentence and then begin asking for money - why bother wasting time - digging in the same dry hole - looking for the oil in the same spot - let’s create something new - that no one on the Internet has been smart enough to create - thank you!
Walter
Hi Scott,
I totally agree that the content of the email to friends misses the mark, as it is not a message a friend would send a friend. I also think it misses the mark that the authors expect people will want to tell their friends before experiencing the product, based only on marketing hype. Who would do that?
If I wanted the product (I’ve seen so many like this), I would either click the link “Skip this… I do not want to tell any friends at this time” or write in three of my own addresses. Since they’ve hardcoded the message and I can’t change it, I simply don’t want the freebie enough to risk friendships.
I did download the freebie, just to complete the process, but I only received 2 pages even though there is an indication that there are 64 pages.
Thanks, Scott, for caring enough about good practices to bring this to the surface.
Thank you folks for enlightening me on whats the buzz these days.
Arun
Hey. Your blog is broken. I just wrote a long reply and when I hit submit it said I hadn’t put my name or email. And anyway, what do you need my email for? You don’t.
I’m not rewriting it.
Spike — Sorry about the problem… I’ll look into it. Interesting point about the e-mail… it’s built in to WordPress that way, so I never really questioned it. I’m not big on anonymity (it’s antithetical to networking), so I always enter mine. But yeah… since it’s easy enough for someone to enter a bogus one — probably “a@b.c” would work — why require it at all? I don’t have full control over the code on this blog, but I’ll bring it up with the Blog i360 folks.
RE: rewriting it… I know that in Firefox, if you hit the back button, it should still have everything you typed into the form. I think the same is true in IE7 (but I’m pretty sure not in IE6).
Man, Scott! That’s a helluva catch, my friend. Way to take ‘em to the mat.
I like to edit the letters too, for anything I join and refer others too - if it’s not of me, it’s not from me.
Scott –
They’ve forgotten the one of the rules they teach — help the customer see themselves in your message. That’s us — the customer. They’re so busy hyping the next product to make the next million bucks, they’ve lost touch with who they are supposed to be serving.
Actually, I wouldn’t even get that far: the first page was already a turn-off for me - it looks like one of those typical spam baits.
I simply clicked the “Skip this… I do not want to tell any friends at this time.” link and was able to download the ebook with no problem.
I have just completed evaluating it (note I didn’t say “reading it” because I skimmed most of it). My advice- this thing isn’t even worth getting worked up about.
I suppose if you have never even undertaken an initial investigation of what it means to write a blog intended to generate revenue this document would be interesting. IF it were not so obviously a thinly disguised advertisement for services and so bloated with fluff. The last 10+ pages are simply lists of links to things like “Community Sites”.
I wouldn’t be wasting my time commenting about it now except for the fact that the best way to reclaim the past 10 minutes of my life is to spare others from wasting their own time.
@Roger - Most of what was in there was stuff I already knew, but I thought that for a newbie, it was pretty informative.
You’re definitely right about the lists. For one thing, lists that long aren’t actionable — you could waste months just going and exploring all those sites. And the other thing is that they’re readily available online whenever you want them. Mashable is a great source, as well as a couple of others that they listed in there (I was surprised not to see Mashable listed — may be too much of a competitor for them).
@Rika - I know those long sales pages are turn-offs for a lot of people. They do work, but there’s a huge segment of web users who they don’t appeal to at all. Count me among them along with you.
@Denise - “Help the customer see themselves in your message” - great advice!
@Spike - Didn’t realize I could turn it off, but now I have — name and e-mail are no longer required. That said, I certainly appreciate people who do leave them. Anonymity is antithetical to networking, and a lot of people use it as a cheap shield. And no, I won’t add anyone to my list if they leave their e-mail address, but I might write them and say, “Hey, I appreciate your comment.”
Scott,
Great observation about Web 2.0 “Gurus” not actually getting the point of it. I see this all the time as well. I agree…that is a ridiculous error to make. Like some of the others have said too, the design of their page could have been at least a little more attractive, aka people friendly, as that would (if done right) also contribute to higher conversions.
I have enough trouble forwarding such items to friends, knowing the provider thus gets new email addresses without even trying. But as I think you would know, Scott, I am totally turned off by the idea of putting my name to an email someone else has composed, probably in prose that would lead people who know to wonder what Des was on yesterday.
Hmmm interesting and very agitating social mechanism. I am all for forwarding meaningful business, but gee the idea of giving up names before qualifying the service is smarmy at best, and seems more geared at one time blasts, then developing a meaningful relationship.
BTW, speaking of EARNING referrals, I love what you are doing on the profiling makeovers, and shared that with my network!
I never fill those refer a friend boxes out anymore exactly because of the usually smarmy emails. In their defense, I don’t think most of the gurus had anything to do with this marketing. It is just a directory where someone got permission to publish some of their information and use their name.
Geared toward “newbies” who probably don’t hesitate to use that tell a friend form!
Thanks,
Carl Pruitt
funny, I agree with you but sometimes you have to claim authority to have people listen. Not web related, but I was an instructor for parachuting (military) and scuba diving (civilian) when my boss asked me to help him teach something. Since I was already an instructor he inroduced me as that - “RM will be teaching you x today, he is a certified instructor (no expertise listed) and you will listen to everything he says.” The people listening heard what I said - text I had learned for the training - and then went out with a certified instructor for hands on.
Since the hands on process for the web is done without an instructor present, anyone can get away with being more of an expert than they are.
Teaching at the ‘teacher of teachers’ level is where you can’t fake it.
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