The Internet has grown at an astonishing rate, and along with that, there is a huge population of business owners who know so little about the Internet that they are very easy to cheat out of their money by offering them false hopes.
Just consider how easy it would be to lie and cheat somebody who knows little to nothing about an industry, and has little patience to learn enough to make good decisions. Then add in the desperation of a recession and you have a formula for disaster.
Throw in a few social media marketing buzz words and businesses of all sizes are quick to open the checkbook.
I attended a BarCamp unconference last week and heard more than one story of how a naive small business owner was fleeced of thousands of dollars in return for a website that failed on all points – design, content strategy, search engine optimization.
Today, there is more information at our fingertips than we can digest. And yet, getting answers is not always easy. You don’t know what you don’t know.
Be prepared before you open your wallet.
Online research is easy. Type questions in the Google search bar – how to sync blog with Facebook page. You don’t have to do-it-yourself, simply learn enough to know the right questions.
Oh, that BarCamp I attended…
It was chock full of information freely given in exchange for the cost of a t-shirt and a box lunch.
