A New Twist on Ye Olde Get Rich Quick Scheme

Doncha just love Get Rich Quick! schemes?  They're seductive, aren't they? I especially like the ones that come disguised as something other than 'get rich quick' schemes.  'This is an incredible business opportunity!' 'Make sure you get in on this!'  'Tons of opportunity!' and, of course: 'Get rich quick schemes suck! You're too smart to be taken in by a get rich scheme! This isn't one of those!'

The bottom line, of course, is that the people who are really going to get rich quickly are the people selling you the scheme/book/franchise/whatever have you.

Now what has prompted Aleta to rabbit on about this? Well, this morning I was presented with a get rich scheme this morning, via my email 'inbox', from a reputable source.  A few clicks later I was reading all about the fabulous opportunity that was available for me - and a few hundred thousand gullible others.  The free instructional video to which I had been treated was a bandwidth gobbling infomercial.  Tune in next time! I was advised, to really learn how to do this (read: to be told what you're actually buying and what it costs.  Maybe.  Or maybe you'll have to wait for the third video, who knows?). What really set the alarm bells ringing was the idea that you could make $500...$1,000...$20,000...per month from the comfort of your own little desk in your own little home, and what could you do with all that money? 

So I said to myself, I said 'Self, when was the last time you learned of a real person making an extra $20,000 per month (legally) sitting on their ass?'

So why did I get into this in the first place?  Well, because it was talking about using social media for marketing, something which, if you've seen my new Facebook page, you'll know I'm very interested in, not because I need more glue applied to my computer seat, but because I'm in business and don't want to be left behind.

The most interesting thing I took from this was the opinion of a marketing guru, one Ms Li, (I want to say her first name was Charmaine but I've lost the link so I could be totally wrong on that and even if I had the link I wouldn't share it because why help publicise a get rich quick scheme...but where was I? oh, yes) Ms Li was quoted as saying that any business that didn't have a social media presence would fold within the next 3 to 5 years.  Of course, the crux of this is that Ms Li is an expert in - you guessed it - social media, so her analysis could well be coloured by the primordial urge to keep her job, but what do I know, anyway?

Anybody got anything to say about this?  Let me know, please, I'd love to hear your opinion.