False economy What’s in it for me? Understand what makes the

Marketers spread false information and 
establish their expertise for their own profit.
Wonder how self-declared social media 
“experts” end up being interviewed, get invited to 
give speeches, asked to do consultations, and 
so on? In fact, there is a whole system that 
experts exploit to make money from myths like 
social media.

---

For starters, marketers establish their “expertise” 
in areas that they themselves insist are 
important.
If you want to do the same, then just follow this 
simple formula.
First, create a professional homepage where 
you can present your myth. For example, your 
myth could be: “Twitter will decide the next 
election.”
Next, start talking to people in your field or a 
related one, like political bloggers, and do some 
superficial research on your bullshit. Try reading 
a few articles about media influence on voting, 
and make sure to answer any blog posts and 
write comments to make yourself and your myth 
seen.
Then contact some media organizations. The 
media is usually uncritical of things like 
marketing buzzwords, so they will quickly get on-
board if your topic attracts a large enough 
audience.
If you start seeing your myth in the media, then 
you are the de facto “expert.” You’re now on the 
path to working as a speaker and consultant, 
where you could talk about something like 
“campaigning in social media,” and then publish 
a book about peer pressure on Twitter and 
watch the cash roll in.
Once that well runs dry, you simply fabricate 
new information about your myth, or create a 
new one altogether so that your audience 
doesn’t lose interest.
And it’s so easy for marketers to get away with 
selling bullshit.
Marketers have zero accountability. They don’t 
have to answer to their clients for the lack of 
results; they can just move on to other 
companies and cash in again.
The inevitable bad reviews online won’t even 
tarnish their reputation: they can just hire people 
to write nice reviews for them. Problem solved!