They say that globalisation is a thing of the past. Whoever they are. With the world economy changing and globalisation becoming something the world, its people and institutions will start to kick against individuals and groups will look to gain an income and living from other sources. To take control of their own economic situation that allows flexibility outside trade agreements or single markets. Therefore, an international economy of small home-based businesses that trade with each other freely is surely part of the future.
Let's put aside discussions about how the world has become too digital-focused. Or how society is becoming insolated and relying too heavily on social interactions through social networks than through the real and the physical. Or the fact that people out socialising, the vast majority of them, seem to focus on the digital device in their hand over the person across the table. Also, let's park discussions about the sustainability of a digitally focused economic world over an industrial one where people actually have to make things and grow things and sell things. After all the latter is becoming automated.
All of these are essential subjects to discuss. But for here in this newsletter/book, we are looking at the digital world. The digital economy. The one you are no doubt interacting with as you read these words.
But how do you do this? How do you make money in a digital world? In a digital ecosystem that is so full of noise? And if not looking to make money how does a campaigner for social and behavioural, or political, change make an impact on a low budget compared to big business with billions to throw at it? There are so many marketing technologies today that people now have the job title Marketing Technologist. So how does a small business owner, someone starting a business in their bedroom or people looking to get their message across to bring about positive change, challenge social norms or get their charity of choice some donations get heard in all the noise?
As mentioned previously I have spent (at the time of writing) over 20 years working and testing out the digital marketing world. I started off as an SEO hack, and since doing so, I have had to adapt to the changes that have come and gone and believe me there have been a lot of them. There have been many fads that would “change the digital marketing world”, and many get rich quick schemes that do nothing but leave people that take part in them penniless and extremely wary of the digital world.
Every marketing technology company will tell you that their product is exactly what you need to get your product, service or message noticed and that you only need to sign up to their system to make money online or get noticed. Some of these technologies are great, some are amazingly sophisticated, some incredibly scary and intrusive and some can really get your message and brand in front of your target audience. Some can do none of this but claim they can. The point is, though, that you could quite easily spend a lot of money very quickly that will halt your growth hacking or business plans before they get started.
It's very easy to spend a lot of money very quickly in the digital world and very hard to hold digital technology providers accountable if you do not get back what you expect for your investment. But this should not put you off. What it should do is spur you on to make sure you do the research, understand the strengths and weaknesses of the technology and spend your hard-earned money wisely. It is also paramount that if you wish to take part in ethical digital marketing and growth hacking you need to understand what these technologies do and how they do it. No, you won’t be allowed access to the source code or algorithms but you can get a handle on the technology by doing a little research.
Taken as a straight guide to digital marketing this book/blog could save you thousands of pounds/dollars a year. It could also open up the world to you that you kind of knew might be there, but you never really knew where to look. It will hopefully help you understand the questions to ask without the need to consult an expert who would look to charge you a hefty penny for doing so.
Being someone who does not have money to burn and learning from my days as an SEO hacker, not the kind of hacker that brings down banks and government infrastructures but the kind that hacks the best way to get my clients and my own websites to the top of search rankings by reverse engineering competitors and understanding how the algorithms think, I may also be able to give you some growth hacking tools where the only cost is time and understanding. I am using this book/Substack newsletter for two things; one as a book/resource that hopefully will entertain and educate you in some way and two; as a testbed for myself to test out new concepts in growth hacking and pulling apart how digital ecosystems think. If we understand how they think, act and respond we can work out ways to beat the system and become hackers for growth.
This writing also aims to expose you to this world while also helping you in making money and building your own digital income or getting your political or social message across to affect positive social change in an all too noisy digital world. Well, that is the aim. The objective is to make the highly technical and jargon-filled lingo of digital marketing easier to understand and as jargon-free as possible. To show you the systems and techniques at play and how to use them to your advantage in an ethical way as well as protect yourself from them and aid you in exposing their use when the aim is to manipulate or misinform.
The idea of this book/blog is simple. It might not be the most original idea in the world. It certainly isn’t the first book/blog on digital or behavioural marketing. The point though is for it to be the simplest yet most accurate guide to digital marketing it can be as well as a handbook to behavioural marketing insights with the overall purpose of questioning and challenging the ethics around the way you are using, and the industry is applying these techniques.
When I talk about growth hacking, I want to be clear there is nothing illegal or immoral in what we will be discussing. It is also important to know that you will only need minimal digital ability. You won’t need to be a coder or a technologist yourself. In fact, the easiest way to take do growth hacking is to be observant of how the digital ecosystem in question is working and delivers the results. Listen to talks, interviews or discussions from the owners of those systems as to their “vision” or “mission” and reverse engineer how they might do “that thing” and what that might mean for their customers. An example of this is the early days of Google. Just as it was going from a free search engine to a benefited business model that it is today the centred on the customer experience, they cantered on tailoring the search results to the user. With this in mind and with a careful analysis of competing websites within my search terms and keywords, reverse engineering their websites (which could be technical analysis or more of an overview of content), I was able to surmise what Google wanted me to do to the websites I was working with in order to jump to the next level and beat them in the rankings. Much to the annoyance of some of the top banks, garden centres and other retailers at the time. To me, it was more of a game than a business model and the thrill of beating companies with massive marketing budgets to the top of the search engines was enough for me. The beauty being, apart from my time and hard work, it didn’t cost me a penny to do this.
Things however move on and doing that today is a lot harder than it was in the early two-thousands, but not impossible. Search engines and social networks are today big business and although it is possible to growth hack using them they dance to the beat of the highest bidder and can manually intervene on their behalf when beckoned to do so.
I would like it to be simple. So, the average person on the street can pick it up and use it to market their business idea, promote their cause and get their message across and hopefully make some money online or make a social impact. If I can give small businesses or even people working from home the marketing edge that is usually only the privilege of large firms then that gives them a fighting chance of building a business or cause, that not only gives them an income but makes a significant difference in their lives.
Why buy this digital marketing book or read this newsletter? After all, there are thousands if not millions of books and websites out there teaching you this and that in online marketing and how to make money on the internet. There are books on web design and e-commerce that could take you forever to read.
Well simply put this book/blog is here to dismiss some of the myths of internet marketing, get rid of some of the jargon and lingo and show some of the realities and teach the basic rules of thumb to a novice or beginner.
The aim is also to make it as future proof as possible. The technology of internet marketing changes so quickly that it can often be the case that it can have moved on before the book is ever printed. So, the intention may be to publish this as an e-book only and mainly on kindle so that I can update it from time to keep it as fresh as possible.
If you want to make money online or you already have a business, cause or not for profit organisation and want to promote it online because you have heard that it is “the place” to promote and sell your products, then this is the book for you. Whether you use the book as a tool or guide to marketing your website or as a reference when employing someone to market your website for you, it’s the ideal companion for marketing your cause online.
As I have mentioned, I have been doing this for over 20 years. No, I am not a millionaire. No, I don’t have a get rich scheme for you to follow and no you might not make $100,000 in two days using my techniques. Well, you might I just don’t guarantee it unless you have a product that will just fly off the shelves (if you do could you let me, we can come to some sort of arrangement).
This book/blog is a guide to marketing your website, product, service or cause online. Getting search engine results the blue chips would die for and getting your business, cause or not for profit where you want it to be. No pyramid schemes or making money from selling thin air just real cold hard facts of internet marketing.
Authors side note: there is a hell of a lot of pyramid schemes being promoted through YouTube these days. Usually by people telling you how wonderful their life is and how they have the financial freedom that they could teach you “how to make money today” if only you keep watching. Usually, these are shot against a green wall or fake background that look very convincing, but if you actually pay attention, you can see that not all the perspectives and dimensions in the background look right in comparison to the host. Sometimes though the background is real, and the person has hired the use of the “Mansion” or “fast cars” he or she “owns”. In the art of the con, we are told that the longer the person keeps listening, the sweeter the deal sounds. By this rule, my suggestion is to kill it dead, don’t watch the video unless it is to find the faults and fake parts to educate yourself or expose it online to others. There is no legal or ethical way for you to make thousands of dollars a day just by signing up for someone's scheme. All they will do is teach you to pyramid sell online and then you will become like them, soulless, pathetic liars bottom-feeding off societies poor by miss-selling dreams of getting rich to people who can't afford to take the risk. If that sounds like you then fill your boots but hopefully you have something more about you.
Also, as another side note if you work in online marketing and are looking for a highly technical SEO or digital marketing guide then this is not it. This will start off as a basic 101 guide for those new to online marketing for small businesses, social enterprises and those looking to bring about positive social change. It will in time progress to something more technical and advanced, but it will not be a step-by-step guide on how to do something.
In learning these techniques and technologies, you will also learn valuable lessons and facts in how your own personal online data is used. How it is gathered and used, not just by big brother to monitor you, but by big business and politicians to manipulate and persuade you, to create their own rules and realms of socialised structures that fit their agenda. To distract and dissuade you from what is really going on. To fatigue you into submission.
In recent posts, I have written here on my own website, I have discussed how digital marketing, data science and behavioural economics were used in the US presidential elections and the Brexit decision in the UK. These points cannot be overemphasised, and if we are to arm ourselves against these techniques, then we need to have knowledge and understanding of them.
You only have to look at the Facebook and Cambridge Analytica saga to realise how bad the issue is. But we will go into that more as the subject matter expands.
For me, the world of digital marketing has gone from the game of SEO hacking (not as bad as it sounds) in order to, as one guy, beat the big business multinational brands to the top of Google to something much more sinister. Namely big brands, multinationals, politicians and mass media hacking human beings. It is this I want to expose and talk about along the way.
This is a live book writing project. Copyright is protected. It is a first rough draft so I would love to hear any feedback from readers. When the book is launched all that are signed up for this substack project will be sent a free Kindle copy of the book as a thank you for subscribing.
This project is part of the SleeplessDystopian.com writing projects.
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this book/newsletter will be written live and published first here on my substack
Written by Sam from SleeplessDystopian.com where we aim to do exactly that - Campaign for truth and sensemaking in a web of lies.
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