Yes they are. Apart from my experience-based opinion, this article features real life evidence in form of a Channel 4 TV Dispatches investigative video report exposing how businesses manipulate social media statistics.
It’s a sad reality. But I doubt that any conscious adult would really be surprised to learn this is happening. It’s however the scale on which it’s occurring – given the capability of the web – that’s mind boggling.
They Say One Thing & Do Another
When I first started using the web as an entrepreneur in 2002, I saw everything through rose coloured glasses. It was a perfect world, where everything worked as people said it did.
Over the years one scale after another has fallen from my eyes. Steps prescribed by many (but of course NOT ALL!) experts yield nothing like they promise or claim to get.
A lot happens behind the scenes that the average person cannot detect or unravel.
If no one is buying back links, why do people still keep sending so many emails offering them? And if no one is buying Facebook likes, Youtube views etc, how come I still get such offers?
They’re obviously getting patronage – else they would have gone out of business long ago!
In light of the above, how do I know that expert did not BUY his own thousands of LIKES and VIEWS?
Yet he may offer to “teach” me how to get similar results by writing articles and publishing a newsletter!
A Real Life TV Report That Confirms What I’m Saying
So you can have someone using doing naughty things Google says not to e.g. buying links. They go to great lengths to cover their tracks.
The idea is often the same. To do everything possible (legal or not) to get themselves in front of as many eyeballs as possible online.
Click here to watch this shocking investigative TV report video trailer. In it, film-maker Chris Atkins uncovers how some businesses purchase fake Facebook ‘likes’, Twitter followers and YouTube views to promote themselves.
See what I mean??
For me, what’s important here is that we will probably NEVER know those who have used the services of the crooked guy in the video. Even worse, many of us may have taken serious business decisions based on the results people like that have shown us!
When I took care to begin studying these groups of people, I noticed they had a few things in common.
They often employed hype in their copy and offers, targeting large numbers of people promising to turn your fortunes around overnight.
And you rarely needed to do anything, know anything or how to do anything!
Just jump on by paying a little cash and you’d be made for life.
Now, in my candid opinion, only greedy and/or lazy people take up such offers. And I’m neither. Which explains why I’ve never been “had” by them.
Of course what they offer rarely works as promised. But these guys are good at “selling” their stuff :-))
They always have a follow up that explains what steps you need to take to improve your luck. At some point they’ll also bring in another “expert” who’s decided to do YOU a favour, by sharing some new “secret” formula with you.
You’re asked to jump on to his/her list to learn the new XYZ formula. Eventually, you may have to pay a little cash to LEARN…and LEARN…and LEARN….!!!
Right now, in my honest opinion, there’s a webinar and teleconference pandemic on the web. Everybody is teaching something someone else needs to learn.
For the bad guys amongst those offering these events, it seems to me that their key strategy is building of mailing lists. Then they relentlessly “work” those lists.
Someone’s bound to buy something eventually – especially when they keep sending tempting offers that will be potentially appealing to the more lazy/greedy of their subscribers.
NB: Keep in mind that some of these guys have mailing lists running into hundreds of thousands of subscribers. You can therefore imagine how lucrative this whole arrangement can get!
Google’s Algorithm Updates Confirmed My Suspicions
Yep. Must give thanks to the good guys at Google. They sometimes set-up things in ways that punish innocent website owners too. But very often that ends up being only a temporary side effect of any new measure they take, to sanitize the results they give their users.
In time, if the good guys who are affected keep doing the right things, they eventually get plenty of love from Google. I know this because that’s what I’m getting today.
About a year ago, I certainly could not say that!
So What (and/Or Who) Do YOU Believe Now?
Sorry, but I can’t help you there. You will have to do your own thinking
A good first step will however likely be to purge yourself of any laziness or greed. That way, when they come with their offers, your thinking will be much smarter!
However, having watched the above mentioned video, my worst fears have been confirmed. I no longer know what to believe about certain aspects of using the web.
If one man with 1,000 facebook IDs can work overnight to add LIKES to a client’s page, imagine how many people MUST be using his services!!
That’s why I never let the number of Facebook likes or Youtube views anyone waves in my face, sway me.
But that’s not the only thing I NOW question: Maybe it’s just me. Maybe I’m just too daft to get it right…or some “dark forces” are against me 
You see, after taking time and great pains to test/develop something that works for me online, I sometimes deliberately announce it in an article. Just to see what will happen.
On more than one occasion, I’ve noticed some strange occurrences.
One example:
Up till 20th August 2013, my Excel-Heaven Custom Spreadsheet Software Development Service facebook page had been getting steady trickle of LIKES weekly. This began mainly after I began linking to it, and the related website, more often in my blog posts and email newsletter issues.
But since the day I wrote an article criticizing buying of Facebook LIKEs, and also highlighting the new results I’d been getting without buying LIKEs , NOT ONE SINGLE new LIKE has been added to that page.
“Strange” does not even begin describe it. Scary is more like it. I mean, what kind of coincidence is that???
Note that the day Iwrote the article, it already had 39 LIKES. On the day I published the post, the page had gotten 42 LIKES. Just within a 48 hour interval.
But from that day I published thepost discussing those results, NOTHING…
Hmm…make what you will of that.
As for me…”I know what I saw“(like the guy in the horror movie told his disbelieveing friends!)
So, What About Me. How Can You Be Sure I’ve Not Been Lying (or I’m Not Doing So Now)?
It’s only fair that anyone ask me the above question. I may be screaming foul play and still be a part of the whole mess.
People do that in real life – that’s what “duplicity” entails.
The simple answer in my case is however “No”.
I do not, have not, and will not lie about what I do online – or the results I’m getting.
I have no need to.
You see, I’m based in Africa. Over here, Internet use remains a fairly expensive venture for most people. And connectivity can be often quite erratic – making it even more costly.
This means I need to ensure I make the most productive use of my time online.
I’ve kept my website – www.spontaneousdevelopment.com – constantly updated, via relentless web marketing, since July 2005. Over 8 years!
If I was not getting decent rewards for my web marketing efforts (by way of sales of my products and services), I would have shut it down long ago.
I would not be so committed to publishing articles Mondays to Saturdays (sometimes Sundays) here.
But that’s not all.
My clients would NOT pay MORE money for me to write (or re-write) their website content. Or to ghost-write articles/special PDF reports on their behalf, for web marketing systems I setup for them.
That’s mainly because they KNOW that MY web marketing was what led them to find me – often via search engines.
In other words they know it works… and that makes them willing to PAY me to do it for them!
Final Words: In the End Though, You’ll Have to Take My Word for It…Or Move On
Of course, like I said earlier, you’ll probably have no choice but to take what I say as the truth.
Those who have the skills, or means, to do relevant checks should be able to verify some claims or assertions I make. Some people send in enquiries via my contact forms just to “see”.
I do my best to respond to their enquiries.
Sometimes, to avoid having my time wasted, however, I “ask” certain email enquirers to call me.
I should mention that my website’s terms of service allow me to mention names, reproduce emails, and discuss details, relating to transactions I engage in (up to a point), with enquirers.
Most of the names I mention in my articles are for real people – subscribers, some clients or both (e.g Oladipo Mann stayed a subscriber to my newsletter for over 3 years, before finally buying my Feed Formulation Handbook, and software).
Sometimes I include photographs.
And I also know that some of my past clients/buyers would gladly take a call from ANY interested person(s), to speak on the details of their interactions with me.
If you’re an enquirer, email me via tayo at tksola dot com if you want to do that.
That’s the best I can do.
If it’s not enough, just ignore ME, my articles, websites, and of course any products and services I offer.
That should keep you safe :-)))