Internet Marketing Versus MLM – Crucial Facts & Knowledge

---

I’ll admit that this is kind of a sore subject for me becauseI really dislike MLM and network marketing.

It’s easy to compare internet marketing and MLM, because they are actually very different things, though sometimes language is used in such a way that makes them seem like they are actually the same.

This is mostly because MLM scammers do not know the difference.

MLM stands for Multi-Level-Marketing

Basically, it is a pyramid scheme that has found a loophole. Hopefully you have heard the term ‘pyramid scheme’, though you may be a bit unclear about what it actually is.

Pyramid schemes are illegal in many countries. They basic idea is that when you sign up, you pay a fee to be ‘in the group’ or ‘part of the business’. You are then responsible for getting people into your ‘down line’, i.e. the people that pay you to enter the group.

Of the fee they pay you, a percentage goes to your ‘up line’, the people who signed you up, and a percentage goes to you. Then when people in your down line sign OTHER people up, you make a percentage of whatever fees they get paid.

The more people in your downline, the more you get paid. The more people your down line signs up, the more you get paid.

The problem is that this is just exchanging money. There is no product, and no value. The last person in the ‘scheme’ is unable to make money because there is no one to pay them, and the first people that are on top of the ‘pyramid’ (probably the owners of the business) are multi-millionaires.

Multi-level marketing is THE SAME THING, except they found a loophole. By providing products along with the exchange of money, they can say that they are actually selling something.

Still, the concept works the same. I sell you some crap and an opportunity to get people into your ‘group’. Whoever pays you for the crappy products, both I and you make a percentage, all the meanwhile, the big-heads on top are becoming millionaires!

Plus, no one really wants the crap that MLM people are selling, which may be Tupperware, magazine subscriptions, or access to MLM training videos.
I’ll talk more about multi-level marketing in this video below, but lets move onto internet marketing, which is something completely different.

The Facts About Internet Marketing

---

Internet marketing is a broad concept that simply refers to marketing things on the internet. Many real businesses use internet marketing through Google Adwords, search engine marketing, or YouTube. There are tons of ways to leverage the internet to market real businesses, real services, and real products.

I mentioned earlier that MLM scammers like to now call what they do “internet marketing”. In some ways, they are right; they have figured out how to use the internet to extend the reach of their scams. In some sense of the work , it is in fact, ‘internet marketing’.

The trouble is that many people, including myself, refer to the work we do online as internet marketing. In fact, I call myself an internet marketer. This is because I have several websites and do marketing for several different businesses. I do not work for just one company or promote just one product.

So “internet marketer” describes what I do.

What Will Be Your Business Reputation Online?

Furthermore, internet marketing is also closely related to ‘affiliate marketing’, which is a more specific term that refers to affiliating yourself (or website) with certain products and companies. This is what I teach in my 5 Day Getting Started Course and what I learned in the business community called Wealthy Affiliate.

In pains me to think that some people may mistake what I do as the scummy work that MLMers do. And I feel even worse when I realize that many people who are new to making money online may be tricked, or led astray by false promises of riches.

I will no doubt write more on this subject in the future because I hope to clarify the difference between building a legitimate, sustainable business on the internet and just getting a group of your friends to sell a bunch of useless rubbish to try and make a few dirty dollars.

http://onemorecupof-coffee.com/internet-marketing-versus-mlm-crucial-facts-knowledge/

So how much money do bloggers actually make?

Lifestyle blogs have existed in some shape or form for more than a decade. In the early 2000s, many started as ways for young women to keep in touch with family living far away—a virtual diary of their exploits in a new city. Most never intended to make money from them. Their sites were rudimentary, hosted on early blogging platforms like Live Journal or Blogger, with low-quality photos.

But with the rise of more sophisticated software and social media platforms, blogging has morphed into an online equivalent of Conde Nast magazines. The most prominent bloggers present highly polished personas across multiple online channels and publishprofessional-quality photographs. As their reach grows, they're increasingly referred to as “tastemakers” or “influencers.”

They've also started creating new revenue streams, such as affiliate links. (These are links to e-commerce sites that sell whatever leather jacket, stiletto bootie or crossbody bag the blogger is sporting in that day's blog photo. Whenever someone clicks through and buys the item, the blogger receives a commission.) Other opportunities for revenue come from “brand ambassadorships” that generally involve multiple posts about a company or even helping to create new products for a well-established brand and taking a cut of the sales.

Related:
• Turning a blog into a business

Most Chicago bloggers don't have the reach of the top fashion and lifestyle bloggers on the coasts, whose ubiquity and social media followings lend them near-celebrity status.

In Los Angeles, Chiara Ferragni, a 27-year-old who pens fashion blog TheBlondeSalad.com, boasts 3.4 million Instagram followers. (Vogue magazine, by comparison, has about 3.6 million.) She commands $30,000 to $50,000 to host an event, will rake in an estimated $9 million this year thanks to product collaborations with brands such as Steve Madden—and recently earned the distinction of becoming the first lifestyle blogger to receive her ownHarvard Business School case study.

In general, someone must have tens of thousands of social media followers to command rates that would allow her to blog full time, according to several local bloggers.

Most, from fledgling to well-established sites, create media kits similar to those circulated by mainstream publications that describe their editorial tone and audience reach in order to connect with brands. A fairly new blogger with perhaps 5,000 unique monthly visitors might charge $100 for a post sponsored by a company. He also might offer to bundle content and create several posts (and complementary Instagrams and tweets) for about $1,000.

FOLLOWERS AS FRIENDS

But most bloggers, many of whom slowly built their following through years of personal writing, consider their followers to be almost friends. They're wary of publishing too much sponsored content. Many strive for a 1-to-1 ratio of sponsored to unsponsored posts, meaning they only earn money on half of their output at best.

Affiliate link programs like RewardStyle have received a lot of attention for helping to monetize blogging. But many bloggers say it's hard to make much money that way because, while readers might click through to see what jacket a fashion blogger is wearing, they rarely complete the purchase. The payment threshold for most affiliate link programs is $100 a month; if a blogger earns less than that in commission, she receives no income. But if a blogger has a large following and dozens of people purchase a dress or pair of shoes she posts about, she stands to take as much as a 20 percent slice of each sale.

Bloggers can more reliably earn money through hosting advertising on their site and agreeing to host an event on behalf of a brand, though those payments also vary widely.

"We're not raking in cash,” says Graham Kostic, a former Modern Luxury art director. He says he can run beauty and fashion blog GlossedAndFound.com full time only because of his husband's salary. “With blogging, it's not the same advertising model. It's really hard to tell what's going on behind the scenes and to know what the industry standards are."

http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20150314/NEWS07/150319897/so-how-much-money-do-bloggers-actually-make

7 Reasons Why You’re Not Making Money Online

Making money on the internet is similar to the American dream. You have an equal opportunity to achieve success and prosperity through hard work, determination, and initiative.

The hard part is those last three character habits — hard work, determination, and initiative.

Making money online has this appeal of “getting rich quick.” Believe me, I wish it were true but it’s not.

There are a handful of obvious patterns I see people fall into that prevent them from adding some green to their wallet.

Let’s address those patterns, kill them, and create new, more empowering ones.

7 Reasons Why You’re Not Making Money Online

And….blast off.

1. Your Mindset Sucks

Some people are raised to have a rock-solid mindset and others have to create it for themselves.

The ones who make it are in control of their thoughts and they allow the Universe to work in their favor. They always see progress where others would see failure.

They see opportunity where others see misfortune.

They read personal development books and listen to audios that strengthen their willpower and desire to succeed. Meanwhile, others watch TV and let their brains turn to mush.

They push past struggle and hold onto the reason why they got started in the first place.
Others never had a strong enough reason to hold onto in the first place.

They remove any exit strategy; there is no plan B. Success is the only option.
Others are always thinking, “I can always fall back on my job if this doesn’t work out.”

If personal development is not a part of your daily routine then I HIGHLY suggest you add it in. It will only serve you for the better.

2.) You Don’t Have A Mentor

The fastest way to see success online is to find a mentor who has what you want and do exactly as he did.

Join him in his business opportunity, purchase his products, ask him questions, and model everything he does. Success leaves clues, but most people are so ego-driven that they want to do it their own way.

You wouldn’t re-invent the wheel would you? No, you would just use the one that exists because it has already been proven to work.
The same goes with building a successful business online — find a system that works and use it.

Only tweak it later when you are seeing results and you are experienced enough to make those changes.

 3.) Your Attitude is Rubbish

I hate complainers.

They always blame their situation on outside circumstances, and they never take ownership over anything.
They are the kings and queens of making excuses and they love pointing the finger.

If you can’t take responsibility for where you are in life at this very moment they you aren’t ready for this business.
The position your are in is a direct result of what you have done in the past 30 days.

If you hate your position then change your habits. No one needs to hear your whining or pity stories. Stop playing the victim card and create your own circumstances.

Only focus on what you can control.

When I sold internet door-to-door, I had no control over the weather, other people’s attitude towards me, the traffic, the territory, the income levels of the residents, etc.

I did have control over my own attitude, my work ethic, the length of my lunch break, my pitch, etc.

With internet marketing, I only focus on what I can control and I detach myself emotionally from everything else.

I can control how many blog posts I do per week, how many YouTube videos I record, the frequency of Facebook posts and emails to my list, making sure my on-page SEO optimization is correct, etc.

I can’t control how many people like, comment, or share my posts, if Google decides to move me a few spots down in the search results, if someone on my team decides to quit, etc.

The bottom line: focus on the controllables NOT the uncontrollables.

4.) Too Much Learning, Not Enough Applying

I live by the 3:1 ratio, which is that I spend 3 hours applying for every 1 hour of learning.

You will retain a skill much quicker this way, and you will avoid one of the biggest plagues in this industry — information overload.

I see people studying for hours and hours trying to learn every nook and cranny, loophole and angle about a topic before they start applying it.

This is one of the biggest mistakes you can make.

You have to accept that you will never know everything. Trying to be perfect is just a form of procrastination.

The best way to master a topic is through trial and error. Take imperfect yet massive action and tweak the formula as you go.

5.) Trying to Master Multiple Traffic Sources

It is too easy to spread yourself thin.

I scroll down my Facebook wall and I see people gloating their success on Instagram, YouTube marketing, Facebook marketing, Google SEO, Craigslist marketing, Forum marketing, Solo ads, Facebook PPC, and so on and so forth.

I used to get big-eyed and follow the wave, but I would never see any results because I was spending a tenth of my time doing ten different things instead of focusing on just one.

I started to get results once I scratched everything but blogging.

I wanted to become the go-to guy that specialized in everything blogging and SEO related, and now I have people reaching out to me all the time for help with their blog and SEO.

Only when I mastered blogging did I decide to move into YouTube marketing, and now I am mastering that.

So pick your favorite traffic source and do it every single day until you become a master. Only then should you move onto a second traffic source.

6.) You Suffer From Shiny Object Syndrome

Ooooo there is a new product or business opportunity that just launched and it sounds amazing!!

Everyone is hopping on the bandwagon, so you think this is your chance to get rich with a brand new startup — getting in at the beginning!!

What happens next month when the next shiny object launches and everyone rides the wave? And then the next month and the next month?

All of a sudden you are buying every new product and joining every new business opportunity on the market.

Now your subscribers on your email list have no idea what direction you are going in because you are promoting a new opportunity every day, so they unsubscribe from your list and you are now out hundreds if not thousands of dollars because you can’t make up your mind.

This is a vicious cycle that a lot of internet marketers go through.

In fact, I almost fell into this trap when I first got started, but I caught myself before falling too deep.

Find a company or product that you truly believe in and stick behind it 100%. You will have more peace of mind and your followers will trust you more.

For me, it’s the Internet Lifestyle Network and My Top Tier Business.

7.) You Lack Consistency

Building an online business is like rolling a snowball down a mountain.

You have to start small and keep pushing it down the hill until it picks up enough momentum that it runs on its own and evolves into a giant snowball.

When I first got started, I wondered why I wasn’t seeing any results. I looked at my daily production and it sucked.

I was blogging once every two weeks, spending most of my time watching training videos and paying attention to other successful marketers instead of paying attention to my own business.

Once I focused on blogging everyday and making 3-4 YouTube videos a week, my traffic spiked big-time and my blog was slowly climbing up the Alexa rankings and in the search engines.

Stick to the 80-20 rule (the Pareto Principle). Figure out what 20% of your inputs generate 80% of your outputs.

Watching training videos and studying other successful marketers is necessary, but only to a certain extent. It certainly wasn’t bringing me more traffic, leads, or sales.

So I cut all the filler and focused on blogging, YouTube videos, and emailing my list. Those were my income producing activities.

So do an internal audit of your own business and find out where you are wasting time and where you should be spending your time.

Summary

Use this list to plug the leaks in your business.

Don’t neglect personal development and training your mind. This is inner game stuff that will effect your outer game and producing results.

http://tipsfromtim.com/not-making-money-online/