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Are so called “successful bloggers” faking it?

Discussion in 'General Marketing' started by vna1611, May 12, 2020.

  1. #1
    There are many videos on Youtube, of so called “successful bloggers” who claim they are making more than US $30,000 per month.

    Is this true?

    There are a couple of bloggers, who are related to a blogger who is said to be very successful.

    But the other two who are related to him, have really done nothing much to show.

    Yet they claim they are earning so much.

    How can this be?

    Regards
     
    vna1611, May 12, 2020 IP
  2. Spartan14

    Spartan14 Active Member

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    #2
    Well are a lo of scammers that show fake proofs ,make tricks to make you buy their products .But i am pretty sure that are a lot of people who make this income .Firstky they work hard in the begining ,they never give up ,they learn new things every day and they still learn and veri important they work hard a lot .Its like in a sport ,to became a campion you need to pay with years of failure ,hard work ,patience etc
     
    Spartan14, May 12, 2020 IP
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  3. JEET

    JEET Notable Member

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    #3
    A lot of them, yes faking it. Some are being true too.
    Those that are true, they have spent many many years blogging, building a reader base, falling and then rising again and again.
    There is no shortcut.
    Those faking, its not difficult to get a photoshopped cheque image with a huge income amount on it.
     
    JEET, May 12, 2020 IP
  4. deathshadow

    deathshadow Acclaimed Member

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    #4
    I would go so far as to say most if not all are full of it, for the simple fact that they use the same rhetoric and propaganda that all "get rich quick" scammers spew. They use a language and techniques designed entirely to prey upon your hopes, dreams, and fears.

    In the case of the wild claims about what they've made in most cases I would suspect they've padded their figures by three, possibly even four decimal places. I know what "high traffic" blogs make in revenue monthly, and it's closer to anywhere from five to 500 bucks. Claims of significantly more than that would have to have mainstream news website level traffic, where the content is of professional quality, with reliability and legacy... likely the work of multiple people, not just one.

    IF they make ANYTHING real off it -- enough to justify the time invested -- it's the same way people doing Amway and Mary Kay do so -- by being nearer the top of the pyramid and recruiting. In this case, the videos and tutorials you are watching. Like every one of these types of scams, the only place money is really made is in peddling the process and its materiel, not in using it. They'll even dive for the same rhetoric designed in whole to make it sound like if you fail, you are the one doing it wrong, not putting in enough "effort" and all the other duplicitous double-talk crafted to make the failure 100% your fault. It usually isn't.

    Again, the 7 propaganda techniques. They're not always used to peddle a lie or a scam, but you need to recognize when they are used so you can separate the truth from the scams.

    Bandwagon -- don't be left out! Everyone is doing it. Well, in reality not everyone is doing it, or doing it and making boku bucks. People have an innate need to feel like they belong, it's part of being the "social animal". This is one of the easiest to exploit and you can see it all the time in branding. It gets worse when bandwagon is used to promote or exploit hate such as how the mind numbing idiocy that is religion continues to even be a thing.

    card stacking -- creating a false narrative by including facts that support the argument, whilst omitting those that debunk it. In this case find the handfull of success stories and share their numbers, whilst omitting how many people fail. Point out all the places that it is "easy" to create a blog, but omit the fact that the blogs made at these places are inaccessible broken slow money-pits where 90%+ of them never go anywhere.

    This exploits part of normal reasoning called "confirmation bias" where because you got a result -- a blog -- up and running, it was "easy" and should make money. It usually doesn't nor is it in practice ACTUALLY that simple.

    Glittering Generalities -- statements that sound good, but can neither be proven or disproved. A marketing director I worked with some two decades ago jokingly called this "Schrodinger's Boolean" in that until you really dig into things -- and even then -- it remains in both a true and false state; to which another co-worker described it more as the Obi-wan paradox. It's true, false, or somewhere in-between based on a certain point of view.

    "Easy" is one of these. You see this in framework propaganda all the time where they'll say its' "Easier" than the underlying language. In most cases that's a bald faced lie, but it's ONLY a lie if you know enough about the language underneath to make a rational decision, which is why they prey on beginners and those who cry "wah wah, eye dunz wunna lurns"... even when there's often more to learn and more work involved in learning to do it with the framework. This is why card-stacked (hmm) examples are often present to make it LOOK easier and to give you a result... any result... with minimal effort to create confirmation bias.

    One of the more classical examples of this is in politics, where they'll use phrases like "A Real American" -- implying that the opponent isn't... but what is a "real American". Who says your definition of it is the same as mine? This example is used a lot in marketing education because it overlaps with so many of the other techniques like:

    Name Calling -- and we're not talking direct vulgarity or the crass and obvious pet names I use for things like bootcrap and turdpress. No, propaganda name calling is insidious, often involves words that shouldn't even be insults, antonyms, and "the inverse principle".

    I've covered two of the classics of inverse already. "easy" and "a real American". Their use implies that everything else is not, and that's name calling. But more so we get words like "idealist" -- what, we're not supposed to have ideals and morality?

    Though much of the time the "blame game" for failure does use direct attacks, the trick is how they word it. Instead of calling you lazy to your face, they'll say "you didn't put in enough time on it." Instead of admitting their entire process is full of manure, they'll tell you that "well you didn't do it right" insinuating that you're inept. They avoid using the actual words and instead use phrases carefully crafted to say the exact same thing, just in a way that makes you not realize they're calling you a dipshit to your face! Name calling isn't just used against those who oppose it, in a more dastardly fashion it can be used to shame or exploit those who use it in an attempt to keep them coming back. Both from a "don't be one of THEM" bandwagon perspective, and in establishing another mental nasty known as cognitive dissonance.

    All of the above working well with:

    Plain Folks -- I was just like you, skeptical that I could make money blogging, but here I am today... A common method by which the peddler can ingratiate themselves. They try to act like they're "just like you", a normal Joe Sixpack or Susie Sunshine, just simple farmers, these are people of the land, the common clay of the new west. You know... morons.

    If they're clearly spending time and effort to make themselves sound "just like you" or "normal" in all likelihood that's manufactured and inserted to the materials on purpose. Of course we also have plain folks kissing cousin:

    Testimonial -- Which in many ways is the same thing, just rather than the speaker doing so, they get multiple people involved. Again, that works with bandwagon and card stacking. Who's to say those singing its praises are typical of the result, know enough to even realize they've been scammed, or that they even actually exist or haven't been paid to say that. It's why marketers KNOW to include testimonials as part of any website as it can be used to fake -- YES I SAID FAKE -- an air of legitimacy. I wouldn't be surprised if nine out of ten testimonials you see on websites or in videos were fake. Not saying they are, I'm just saying it wouldn't be a surprise.

    Transfer -- Transfer is one of the many ways to make you feel, not think. Probably the most successful type of transfer comes from product placement. People love E.T. E.T. loves Reeses Pieces, wheretofor people love Reeses Pieces. Emotionally insecure mid-life crisis white males loved Dirty Harry, he carries a Smith & Wesson Model 29, after the movie came out you couldn't keep them on shelves... something that continues to this day, just look at John Wick and the Heckler & Koch P30L, or even a purse gun -- sorry, "holdout pistol" -- like the Glock 26. The difference is that in my first two examples it was more accident than planned. E.T. was the game changer that led to paid product placement -- like that in Wick -- to be a thing.

    You see the hero of the movie drinking a coke zero, you want to be like that character, so you go buy the product. Ok, bad example.

    Transfer runs deeper though if you know the audience. Again, not to go political, but look at the website for a political candidate in the US. Most always there's a picture of the candidate with a flag in the background. Americans are conditioned through ritualistic indoctrination, peer pressure (bandwagon), and a whole host of other brainwashing techniques to worship the flag as if it were a golden calf, even when the people screaming "America!" and "Freedom" are in fact against everything those symbols stand for. By putting the flag or something similar there it is hoped that they can "transfer" that feeling of love to the candidate. It's simple, it's subtle, and it works!

    The biggest thing to know about transfer is that if you're not looking for it, your conscious brain won't see it... but the subconscious will. It stokes a fire in both the id and the superego in ways that again, bypasses rational thought. It's what in wrestling is called "cheap heat" where they literally don't want you to think, they want you to feel.

    You really have to look at the whole process used to promote things, where you'll see the above seven techniques used with aplomb. They start out appealing to the id -- instinct, self-interest -- early in the process to bypass the ego... then late game as you fail they stoke the super-ego to try and hit you with guilt and anxiety to both keep you in the herd, but also to deflect blame from themselves onto you by promoting varying levels of neurosis we all have.

    Once you learn to recognize these techniques, you'll start to notice them EVERYWHERE with almost everything. It's like losing a street fight with Roddy Piper and seeing the world through Hoffman lenses for the first time.

    [​IMG]

    ... and I'm all out of bubble gum.

    Again, none of these seven classical propaganda techniques (double checking, yup, I got all seven) are in and of themselves evil, but they are used to bypass rational thought which makes them a go-to for nefarious purposes. It's why if you take any marketing classes or spend any time working in marketing and development (not as in web development, but as in fundraising) they will come up as they are the heart of any good campaign.

    Laughably, whilst I know them inside and out, and can recognize them with little expenditure of effort, I absolutely SUCK at using them. I'm too ham-fisted and direct for "name calling' in the propaganda sense, I suck at dumbing down my vocabulary for "plain folks", I'm mostly immune to "transfer" so it's hard for me to think of how to even create it, and I have major issues bald-faced lying for things like testimonial, card stacking, and glittering generalities. Much less I tell people what they need to hear, not what they want to hear, making the indoctrination and echo-chamber needed for bandwagon get tossed right out the window.

    If only I was more dishonest...
     
    deathshadow, May 13, 2020 IP
  5. qwikad.com

    qwikad.com Illustrious Member Affiliate Manager

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    #5
    I don't know if your points cover this, but I'd also add Charm / Charisma / Hypnosis to the list. Some people have this inborn ability to charm. The gullible can't help but get under their spell. Almost all popular MLM schemes are run by those types. Some TV evangelists have enriched themselves to the nth degree by charming their gullible followers. Or should I blame the gullible?
     
    qwikad.com, May 13, 2020 IP
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  6. JEET

    JEET Notable Member

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    #6
    @deathshadow
    I wish I could have "liked" your post a million times!!!
    Each word you wrote is equal to gold!
     
    JEET, May 13, 2020 IP
  7. deathshadow

    deathshadow Acclaimed Member

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    #7
    It's often too easy to blame the flock for enabling their shepherd, particularly if they do indecent/immoral actions in the name of decency. But I don't think that applies here.

    You've likely seen me say it a few times, ignorance isn't an insult. It just means you don't know any better. You can FIX ignorant, it's called education and is why I went through and explained the seven propaganda techniques. Education is the key, and sadly it's been lacking in this department for a while.

    Right after WWII in America there was a drive to educate people to not respond to hucksterism and propaganda, to the point it was even taught in middle and high school civics classes. This ended up hurting the "Madison Avenue" crowd which is why a shift to fight the idea of education or to corrupt the education materials started up in the late '60's and reached its peak in the mid '80's with the shift from "Civics" and "History" to "Social Studies". The same thing happened over in math with the "new Math" removing logic from the equation (*rimshot*) and failing so miserably they had to undo it... just to try again with the same broken idiocy and calling it "common core".

    Remnants of what was taught in such classes can be found in the old Cornet 8mm film reels. One of the big propaganda ones:



    Does a mad excellent job of explaining it. Just as the "Make Mine Freedom" cartoon warns against "isms"



    Whilst using all seven techniques to promote skepticism of those claiming to promote socialism, communism, and even capitalism when what's actually being peddled is fascism.

    Just as:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42X_eAOU4DU

    Makes use of the same techniques both as a mockery of the dirtbag on his soapbox, and to promote its own message.

    Again, it's a subject that was taught to everyone for a while, and SHOULD probably be taught as early as the 5th or 6th grade. But much like firearm safety, mass marketing, organized religion, and various other parts of society it would hurt "big interests" too much to have an educated public on the topic.

    Because an educated populace is less likely to fall for such snake oil peddling.

    BUT educating to recognize propaganda is only half the problem. Education only works on a healthy psyche where the superego has control. The superego is the part of mentality created by education and the societal ideas of morality one is raised with. If the id and ego are nature, the superego is nurture. A faulty superego results in the sociopath, who uses it not to regulate behavior, but appearance. When that fault is physical, you get the psychopath.

    A healthy well balanced superego is what keeps the id from making greedy self centered monsters of us all. The problem is that when the brain switches into "survival mode" the superego gets turned off and the id runs amok. <Wacko Warner>amok, amok, amok.</Wacko> Because the Superego is where critical thinking skills occur, when it gets switched off and told to stuff it, people become easy prey.

    When people are living hand to mouth, paycheck to paycheck, often failing to make ends meet, they get desperate. We're seeing this right now. They will cling to any straw of hope no matter how absurd because hope is about the only thing they have left. This is MORE true of people used to a certain degree of luxury who go into a total panic. See today's "wah wah, I want a haircut" being justification for murder crowd of panicky animals.

    People who live without fear of where their next meal is coming from are often far harder to manipulate if you can't "indoctrinate" them while they are young, or out of touch due to being elderly. This is why the biggest predators target the young, the elderly, and the poor. A comfortable well paid educated middle class is the enemy of snake oil peddlers. There's a reason dirtbags "Rent a Center" or "check cashing" loan sharks have a 10:1 ratio in poor neighborhoods with poor education over rich neighborhoods with private schools. It's why big business scaremongers small businesses about paying a decent wage, to have people teetering on the edge of financial ruin to keep showing up for those "jobs". It's how the scam that is privatized insurance continues to rake in massive money hand over fist by not actually paying for the medical care promised and having back-room deals to keep prices artificially inflated.

    ... and that's NOT off-topic, because the same techniques and reasoning applies to how every "Make money fast" scam has a very specific target audience. They use the propaganda techniques to target poor, poorly educated, and just plain desparate/hopeful. That's exactly what makes them predators. AND it's exactly what we're talking about when it comes to the folks making clickbait "make money blogging" SCAMS.

    Note, that's ill educated when it comes to propaganda, finance, and business... people can have a education and still be poorly educated on specific topics. It's sad how many people don't seem to realize that and assume their degree in English literature makes them an expert in medical research after watching a youtube video made by a "naturopathic doctor". (aka not actually a doctor).

    ... and those lacking such self-awareness also go onto the heap of easy marks. Why? Because they want to THINK they are smart, and that want is exactly what the propaganda techniques help exploit! It's why when you shatter people's bubble of isolation they flip out so badly. They so want the lie to be true, they will do anything to maintain that illusion, even the rejection of facts. That's the literal definition of cognitive dissonance.

    It's also why most religions have major passages devoted entirely to shunning/distrusting/attqcking/murdering those who question or oppose the faith. You have to establish an echo chamber and make sure that anything that contradicts the dogma is "the bad guy". The same techniques used by marketing scams once they have someone on the hook.

    The old addage: people will believe a comfortable lie over an uncomfortable truth.

    When people are scared and desperate, they become the easiest marks of all. That's why right now the predators who've wormed their way up the social ladder are trying to keep the masses poor, sick, and fearful. Hence the real solution for putting these dimestore hoodoo scum out of business are things like universal healthcare, livable wages, and fighting the fear-mongering rhetoric that makes people hate those alien to one's own race/sexual preference/accident of birth; and all the other pointless idiotic trivial reasons people come up with to hate other people they've never even met.

    Bottom line, these types of "get rich quick" schemes are just another way to leech money away from people who barely have enough to survive, to line the pockets of those who quite often don't even need it... and they are driven by exploiting fear, hope, and ignorance.
     
    deathshadow, May 13, 2020 IP
  8. JEET

    JEET Notable Member

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    #8
    @deathshadow
    Thanks for sharing these 2 videos.
    First one is like a true copy of what is happening in my country right now.
    Makes me think, who is "marketing" the politician in my country... Some PR agency of USA I guess...
     
    JEET, May 14, 2020 IP
  9. vna1611

    vna1611 Well-Known Member

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    #9
    The question is not at all related to working hard!
     
    vna1611, May 14, 2020 IP
  10. vna1611

    vna1611 Well-Known Member

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    #10
    WOW!
    Amazing info you have shared.
    Thanks a lot.
    Best wishes and regards.
     
    vna1611, May 14, 2020 IP
  11. vna1611

    vna1611 Well-Known Member

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    #11
    Yes, blame the gullible!
     
    vna1611, May 14, 2020 IP
  12. dollorphanage

    dollorphanage Member

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    #12
    Great post! Thank you for sharing. I agree 100%
     
    dollorphanage, May 20, 2020 IP
  13. Jesse Davis

    Jesse Davis Peon

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    #13
    With blogging it is one of the most lucrative business models, but it is also one of the slowest business models to get traffic from. Most people don't want to take the time waiting for blog traffic to come to their website so they start doing various other ways of making money online.

    I firmly believe a lot of bloggers are honest with their income claims, but it took them a long time to get there. The traffic from search is so powerful, and most of the traffic is people looking to buy, not scrolling around for fun.
     
    Jesse Davis, May 22, 2020 IP
  14. vna1611

    vna1611 Well-Known Member

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    #14
    A lot of bloggers?
    LOL!!!
     
    vna1611, Dec 10, 2020 IP
  15. Taylor Marek

    Taylor Marek Greenhorn

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    #15
    There's a fair amount that are faking it and a fair amount that are successful and making decent money. I happen to know a handful over the years that are genuine. But it's not easy. It's hard, just like any other job that you want to get good at and make a good amount of money. A couple stumbled into it on pure luck, others worked their tails off.
     
    Taylor Marek, Dec 26, 2020 IP
  16. davilama2682

    davilama2682 Active Member

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    #16
    Human beings lie to themselves (mostly), so it doesn't surprise me the ease in which Human beings attempt to lie to others. Instead of being their true selves they fabricate and promote a farse iconized ideal persona. They are better at being fake than being authentic, because it is easier to lie (for most) than to actually achieve all of those accolades that they laud and promote themselves being the genuine ardent benefactors of. Someone has to believe them in order for their illusion to exist.
     
    davilama2682, Jan 3, 2021 IP
  17. Andrea Yu

    Andrea Yu Greenhorn

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    #17
    Wow! Such a nice post. On-point! Hardwork pays off the longest. And those who are just after fame and who have faked all the way just to have high income will definitely go down.

    Thanks for sharing. Will take note of this.
     
    Andrea Yu, Jan 8, 2021 IP
  18. HimanshuThakur619

    HimanshuThakur619 Peon

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    #18
    Might be!!
    If they are getting this type of income then why are they making videos in Youtube.
    I dont know why are they making these types of videos
     
    HimanshuThakur619, Jan 11, 2021 IP
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  19. deathshadow

    deathshadow Acclaimed Member

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    #19
    Just like late night informercials where ALLEGED millionaires claim to be able to teach you to get rich in whatever scam they're peddling. If they were REALLY so successful...
     
    deathshadow, Jan 11, 2021 IP
  20. dcristo

    dcristo Illustrious Member

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    #20
    You must not be feeling well. This would have to be the shortest post I've seen you make on DP.
     
    dcristo, Jan 11, 2021 IP