How Long Should You Fake It? »
There's a school of thought that says you should Fake It Until You Make It - that even if you aren't successful, that you should pretend that you are successful, because it will make people believe that you are, and that will in turn, lead to success. But just how long do you go on pretending to be a success? As long as it takes, of course. That's the standard answer. How long do real successes go on pretending? The simple answer is that they go on as long as they can keep you believing.
For a quick study, let's take a look at the man everyone loves to hate, John Chow. He took his personal blog from a couple hundred dollars per month in September of 2006, writing relatively decent content, to over $25,000 in December of 2007. All the while, he says that his traffic hasn't really increased (it has certainly increased from that point, but when he does share traffic figures, it shows that it hasn't changed much in recent months), but his monetization strategies have. Perhaps most importantly, it makes you wonder - has he made it, or does he fake it?
Before anyone gets irate, let me say that I'm not saying that John is telling everyone that he's making money that he isn't making. If he says that he made $25K last month, I'll believe him. But I am saying that you shouldn't believe everything that you read online. At the same time, it doesn't make it untrue either - it just means that he might be one of the true geniuses when it comes to marketing. It's just that what he is marketing is himself, and he is perhaps the best there is at faking it.
Let's start with his blog. Prior to really getting going back in 2006, John Chow posted some decent content. Now his posts consist of his income reports, which are interesting only because everyone wants to know how much he made, and we're all anxious to see him decline - everyone knows that it's not going to last forever, and we all want to be there when it happens. It's nothing against John personally, but now that he's a celebrity, we all want in on the action. Since most of us can't make that sort of money, we want the next best thing - for him to come down to our level. Regardless, he's like the Paris Hilton of the Internet. He's famous for being famous.
But what John Chow does really well is that he can fake it like no one else. There are ads on his site like no one's business. John Chow owns and operates TTZ Media. If you notice, the ads in many of his entries are ads from TTZ Media, selling product. At least one of the affiliate ads in his Recommended Moneymakers section is TTZ Media. Often when I see an ad in his RSS feed, it's from TTZ Media. Does this mean that he is effectively selling ads to himself? I don't have any idea. I wouldn't suggest that he is, because I don't know. He could be, or he could be simply filling unsold inventory with his own ads - but what I am saying is that for someone who doesn't pay close attention, some very prominent positions are filled not by outside advertisers, but by John Chow himself.
There are other items, such as the advertisers that are on the page. It's quite possible that they simply bump up their advertising buy each time he ups his rate. But chances are he doesn't want to tick off the long-term advertisers, and many of them have been there for a while now. So my guess would be that they are still paying the old rates, while he continues to increase the rates on the advertising page. That means that some of those advertisters aren't really paying the rates you see - he just hopes that you, as a new advertiser, will. And he's probably right that you will, and that's great. I have no problem with it. If I could, I probably would do it too.
I just think it's an interesting process to watch it unfold, because other than the afreomentioned income reports, about all that we get to see these days are pictures of his daughter, what he ate for dinner and sponsored reviews of sites that most people really don't care about, all interspersed with ads, ads and more ads. And maybe some announcements of ad spots that have come open through some way he's dreamed up to sell more ads. Once again, I don't fault the guy - if I could bring down that kind of cabbage, perhaps I would do it as well. He has an amazing mind for monetizing his site, and I commend him on it. I just have to wonder how long he'll be able to keep it up, and I wonder how many others are doing the same.
