One of the world's largest social networks to date has 1.94 billion active users
Facebook has quickly caught the attention of many entrepreneurs. With a wide range of Facebook users that are constantly checking their news feed every day, it makes for a perfect place to reach customers. For the past two decades, an internet gold rush has taken place along with the growth of Facebook. All kinds of people rushed to make money from using some form of the internet. People made all kinds of money using various types of online strategies such as opening a small niche e-commerce stores, shipping products straight from China to your door, and all types of affiliate marketing where you receive commission bonuses to promote other people's products. These methods of making money were brand new and were made a KILLING!
These e-commerce stores were able to rake in 20-30k a day...
These entrepreneurs were able to use social media networks like Facebook to easily reach their target audience. It was all brand new and had unlimited potential. The ability to target our audience lead to social media channels generating insane amounts of profits for e-commerce stores. However, this success was not able to continue long-term due to so many entrepreneurs flooding the market with competition. In the beginning, the industry was very attractive with an abundance of opportunity available to anyone with the tiniest bit knowledge about online marketing. Sadly, those days are gone and competition is fierce. Now that the money is no longer in owning and operating these online stores what kind of method makes all the money now? Internet "Gurus" are now creating guides teaching you how to make tons of money by teaching you how they did it! So now we have people all over Facebook selling an outdated method on how to make money. Instead of teaching you basic skills of the internet(like they should) they convince to open a store and say copy me. They sell you this worthless guide on how to make money in a market you can't compete in. The people going around selling you these opportunities to "get rich online" are selling you crap.A Well Hidden Scam
The real people making tons of money online are the scam artist. Sadly, they are pulling around 20-30K selling you an out-dated method of making money. The methods they use are over saturated with people looking to get rich quick. This overflow of competitors is from these people who took that "$1000 10-week course" opened a store using Shopify and are now sitting around scratching their heads confused as to why they aren't making a million dollars like they were told happens when owning an online store. They failed to realize that these internet "Gurus" won't be able to teach them the basics of internet marketing and that is something they will have to learn on their own. They failed to acknowledge the fact that you are competing with 15x as many people as they had to compete with a decade ago. We have to stop and think as entrepreneurs and say if someone was making all this money online would they really share it with you or would they just go out do the method themselves?
For example, I open my first online store that sells specialty candles made in India. I do $10,000 my first month of sales and all is going great! The next month I do $5,000 a little confused I make a hard push on my marketing campaign. Going into the third month I only do $2,000 in sales. After doing some investigative work I come to find out that a competitor has undercut me significantly. This leads me to question: "What is to stop someone from copying and undercutting the price of my new e-commerce store if I make another?" Some would argue that MAP (minimum advertising price) policies are in place prevent re-sellers from undercutting each other and to protect products value. However, I would argue that the competition with 10 other stores to sell the same product is not worth the trouble of owning and operating a store in the first place. This stable dream that these online e-commerce "Gurus" are selling you is a load of crap. These guys rake in 30-40k a day because suckers like us buy into the dream that these gurus shove down people's throats on Facebook. They advertise as some kind of "get rich quick on the internet" when we sign up for that "$1,000 10-week course" without disclosing all the challenges that come with the industry. It is very wrong how these guys are able to sell a method that is no longer working for anyone except themselves.
What You Should Be Learning
First and for most, my advice to the person reading this and is interested in learning the digital world would be to prepare to read and study. Start doing your own research and practice the art. This is not something you will learn overnight but it is something that if you master people will pay you thousands of dollars for an hour of your advice. Start by seeing what common trends people are looking for when needing help with their own business and learn how to help them with the skills you learn. There are 19-year old kids who are making over $10,000 a month managing small business owners Facebook pages. This is a skill you can learn in a month. If you want to be successful in this industry ask the people who are willing to pay for these skills aka Small business owners what they need help with and then learn all the skills necessary to do that!
Here is a list of skills I recommend learning that can be transferred into any area of this industry:
- Adobe Creative Cloud- In order to create content you will need to proficient in Photoshop, Illustrator, and Indesign
- Google Analytics- This will allow you to track your data such as number of visitors that come and go through your website
- Google Adwords- Become a master of Google Ad words by taking their free online courses
- Lynda- Watch short 3-5min videos breaking down certain subjects in digital marketing
- Crash Course Book that is Very Beginner Friendly- Read this book and take the Free Certification Exam that comes with it
- GoAnimate- Learn how to create animated videos for social media platforms
List of Recommended News Articles:
Here is some of the example work I have done learning these skills:
Conclusion
If you want to be successful in this industry you have to learn the basic skills. The market is constantly changing and you will have to also. In order to be a successful entrepreneur using the internet you will need to:
- Constantly learn and grow
- Predict/recognize what services are valued in the industry
- Think outside the box
- Understand what people want
- Know the basics of the internet: Blogging, Website Design, HTML/CSS etc.
So many people are short-term thinkers when it comes to the internet and that is because they don't understand the whole picture. The internet is puzzling to most people and they understand bits and pieces of it. I challenge you to become a long-term internet thinker and by doing this being able to make money using the internet. When thinking about how to make money using the internet ask yourself. How will the industry change over the next decade? What part of the industry is actually making money? How can I do that better? What kind of skills do I need to learn in order to anticipate that shift? Thinking like this is how you become a Successful Online Entrepreneur!
