Remarkablogger

They’re the only guys in a bar on a Sunday morning. The bartender tries to make some conversation with them. He asks the Internet marketer what he does for a living.

The Internet marketer says to the bartender, “I’m in Internet marketing.”

“Oh, really?” says the bartender. “You sell internet service?”

“No,” says the Internet marketer as straightens his cheap suit and slicks his hair back, “I have a product that will help you make thousands of dollars if you sell it to other people through my affiliate system. I tease them with ways to cheat and game search engines and social media. I have tools that help me spam comments on blogs and forums.”

“How do you make money from that?” asks the bartender.

“By selling it to people who think they can make money online if they buy it.”

“Do they?”

“Hell, no! Their sites have no traffic and they have no experience.”

The bartender looks puzzled. “How do you sustain that?” he asks.

“Easy,” snorts the Internet marketer, “I just keep promising them that the next big product is just around the corner, I promise them not just thousands, but millions, and they just eat it up. When the previous product doesn’t work, they blame themselves and vow to try harder! It’s so easy,” he cackled, “I almost feel ashamed!” Then he stops laughing, and just fixed a bug-eyed stare at the bartender, and said, “And besides, there’s a sucker born every minute.”

“I see,” said the bartender, and moved on to the marketing professional. “What’s your story?” he asks.

“I’m a marketer. I handle the entire marketing campaign life cycle for clients,” he says. “I work with clients to develop strategies for them to best reach out to their customers, which can include many different methods and media. Some are online, some are the more normals things like print or television advertising. Things have been evolving very rapidly in the online world. Many of my colleagues are having a difficult time with it. They don’t get how it’s all changing. Clients don’t get it, either, they think I do stuff like this guy,” he says, tilting his head towards the Internet marketer.

“Interesting,” says the bartender, who moves on the blog consultant. “What do you do?”

“I’m a blog consultant.”

The bartender blinks a couple times. “A what?” he asks.

“A blog is a website that publishes new stuff frequently and lets readers comment. It’s become a hot tool for people to showcase what they do and develop real relationships with people. It’s a publishing platform that is part of what’s driving the changes my friend here is dealing with,” he says, pointing to the marketing professional. “I help people figure out their blog purpose and content strategies. I help them with installation and set up on their servers. I even design blogs, kind of like a
Web designer designs regular Web sites. And I provide ongoing coaching to help people run and manage their blogs so they get the results they want. When the blog software needs to be upgraded, I can do that, too.”

“What a mutt of a job” says the bartender.

The blog consultant nods his head thoughtfully. “There are aspects of marketing to what I do,” he says, “but not like what marketers are taught in school. It’s kind of like public relations, but again, not like PR’s been taught all these years. And we use all manner of online social tools and networks, but we have more success if we provide value instead of spam and game the system. There are aspects of designing, Webmastering, and coaching. Blog consulting is a very strange animal. Why are you asking us all these questions?”

“I need a light bulb changed,” says the bartender.

“Sorry, but that’s a different joke,” says the blog consultant. And with that, he downed his wheatgrass shot and left.

Note: I wrote this because someone on Twitter asked me how being a blog consultant was different than being an internet marketer. This had nothing to do with me making disparaging remarks about internet marketers, I’m sure! The term “internet marketing” is not the same thing as marketing online or blogging. Whether we like it or not, the term internet marketing is has been taken over by snake oil salesmen who engage in the classic game of separating suckers from their money through the promise of easy riches online.

Photo by donabel and ewen