Stop Jumping On Bandwagons - Create Them!

I think the important thing is to know when to get off the band wagon.

It is good to be an innovator but sometimes bandwagons are good. It is an indicator of what is working and what is popular. (Watch how things can go viral very quickly by jumping on the bandwagon.)

You can still innovate while being on the bandwagon by making the product or service better. But once it stops working ...get off and find another one to ride along instead.

You don't always have to reinvent the wheel

Joe

Hi Ryan, what you said is spot on. Like most people on a quest to make money online if you have a unique idea you can waste a lot of time trying to fit it into traditional online income models. After years of feeling like a round peg in a square hole I have come to the realization that for me to success in IM I have to include my own uniqueness to achieve long term success. After all there is only 1 me!

The problem with "learning from the pros" is - you never know who is an expert and who is not.

For newbies, they're surrounded by a sea of "marketers" who are presenting themselves as experts and quick to dish out advice, while many of these people are not making a penny online.

The problem becomes, who can you trust and who is just blowing smoke up your a** so you'll give them money?

Too many new marketers get sucked into buying bad products from pseudo experts and they get burned.

I'm all for people following the lead of a real expert to get started, but they need to be careful on who they trust.

The hard part is telling the real experts from the "gooroos."

But those successful "copycats" created their own bandwagon. They weren't just another Myspace wanna be or an AltaVista look alike. They took the base that was in place and created a whole new thing.

I took the bandwagon comment to be more along the lines of what they did and not be the first.

For example, if you look at the IM world you'll see a lot of secrecy about supposed niche sites that are making a killing. Many, many people (ones with common sense and the brains to not blindly follow) question whether there really is a secret goldfish training website raking in the bucks. If Mr. Guru is really all that smart and marketing savvy, why is he afraid of a bunch of beginners taking his beloved goldfish site and tossing it to the side? Or in fact is there no other site and this guy just decided to hype up his claims and the first thing he ever sold on the internet was how to get rich on the internet?

Then came along people like Pat Flynn (he perhaps wasn't the first) that got off that doubt creating secrecy bandwagon and created a new one - he laid out his sites, his tactics, and his income. He wasn't afraid of showing his "goldfish" site. Because of this transparency, he has gotten a lot of followers and money. To many, he appears to be more trustworthy without all the secrecy. So he jumped off one bandwagon and created, in a sense, a new one even though there are other similarities.

Mark

As a Generalization ... good advice.

But Specifically, it depends on what bandwagon you're talking about.

- Product Bandwagon
- Business model Bandwagon
- Marketing strategy Bandwagon
- Marketing trend Bandwagon
- Advertising strategy or (gimmick), Bandwagon
- Social media Strategy Bandwagon

... and a host of others. Not all bandwagons are created equal.

Some bandwagons are good If you get in early or as it's trending up.

Others are a waste of time as you stated, especially if it involves gimmicks, hype or hyper emotion.

But if it adheres to the basic fundamentals of marketing from top to bottom (ex. not enough supply to meet demand)- the bandwagon may be worth a look.

I agree with your general point though, personally I wish more people would look at creating rather than just copying or following. But everyone's not the creative type. As the saying goes, 'if it was easy everyone would do it'! The Good News? More money and higher demand for us creative types.

Why make up your own system? ...Why not?

SEO algorithms change, methods get saturated, websites change their Terms of Service that may invalidate a method, exploits get patched, etc., etc., etc.

People need to be able to adapt in order to succeed in this industry.