How Many Members Are Real People?

(Following is an excerpt from the book Mr Business Golf is writing.)

Since the beginning of online social groups there has always been someone who feels being deceptive is going to be profitable. Now that I have said that I will agree, it must be profitable for them or why would they want do it?

I have heard story after story from fans and clients who are fed up with online social and business groups who harbor people or things who promote deception. The number one reason these people are leaving the internet is they do not having enough time and energy it takes to fend off the persistent badgering from members of online groups that are more than likely a computer program or BOT that has set up house in the group to hit on every member with their worthless scams or products.

Then there are the companies who pay a person to join a group and set up dozens, if not hundreds, of membership profiles with different names and funny little cartoons or photos of SOMEONE, that is not the person using the site. Then that person will create a group within the site that all of those profiles joined as members making that group look to other members to be a HOT group to join. They soon find they have been suckered into being pounced on like fresh meat in a lion’s den by every home business opportunity, deceptive Search Engine Optimizer or MLM in the group.

This issue is getting fueled with more and more social/business networking groups being launched each day which just provides more targets for these unscrupulous businesses. With so many online groups on the internet the question becomes, ……how many groups does a person need to be a member of in order to maximize their interests? One should do it, shouldn’t?

There are a number of related problems developing from the saturation of online social groups that when piled up smells like what most people thinking the internet is full of. These negative aspects of online social networking are now driving people away from the internet by the thousands, if not millions.

The even bigger problem overshadowing the opportunities legitimate business are looking for on the internet is these aggravating incidences experienced on the internet are keeping from coming online a very large market of people who have never been online . In order for the online economy to become solid more real live people are going to have to come online. However, it is clear that solutions to all of the problems are going to need to be found in order to protect the yet inexperienced interneters from being chewed up and spit out before they finish their log-in.

The mega groups naturally are not interested in controlling or solve these problems since it would expose the true number of members they have on their rosters which are their only sales tool used to draw in the over zealous advertisers. Those 100 million+ memberships could be cut as much as 60% if controls were put in to validate memberships, eliminate unused profiles, duplicate profiles, abandon accounts, social predators and scammers. That kind of reduction in these large groups’s marketing of how many real members they actually have would not be very appealing to advertisers and sponsors so there is no motivation on the managers of these large group’s part to want to clean house.

Along with the individual consumer leaving the internet to find other more traditional social venues the advertisers are now starting to leave. The advertisers are feeling the pain from their CFO’s and CPA’s hammering them upon the head and shoulders for those huge advertising checks they are writing to these sites that are not even getting close to reaching any kind of ROI. These online group’s business models that are based on page view counts and click on ads are not creating enough sales to substantiate the funding of this method of cash flow for the large trafficked social groups.

So, the person who is just trying to find a place to gather with liked minded people and the advertiser who would like for them to see what they offer are starting to pull back and ask the same questions many legitimate business people and regular social onliners ask….how many of the members of the group they have joined are Real People?

Stay tuned for more from Mr Business Golf book..

Let me know how I can help.