February 28, 2024
The internet has given rise to countless questionable marketing tactics and online behaviors.
From deceptive self-promotion to manipulative sales techniques, these digital sins have become all too common.
Here’s a list of offenses that should earn their perpetrators a one-way ticket to internet jail.
The Complete List of Internet Offenses
- Listing yourself as a TED speaker when it’s really TEDx. You spoke at your community college, and that’s totally cool, but it’s not TED, and you are lying, implying otherwise.
- Calling your book a “bestseller” because it was in the top 1000 of your very, very poorly niched category on Amazon.
- Marketing something as free or $0 only to bundle the cost of your nonsense thing into the shipping and handling price.
- Labeling yourself as CEO of a company that has no employees. You aren’t fooling anyone.
- Using Facebook purely to extract value and not being social.
- Countdown timers. Limited offers. Fake urgency.
- Most, but not all, of #crypto Twitter.
- More than three hashtags (this is only temporary imprisonment).
- Most uses of the phrase funnel (pipelines are cool, though), ESPECIALLY if you are hacking said funnel.
- An $X, XXX value for only $XXX.
- Most of your social proof just being pictures of you with thought leaders/celebrities but no real context or connotation.
- A social media feed on any platform that is more than 25% quote posters.
- Screenshots of tweets on Instagram.
- Referencing another thought leader as a “friend” only to leverage the social proof to your audience (misdemeanor).
- Giving a group of your followers a name. Except for Beyoncé and the Beyhive.
- Most, but not all, info products. If there is even one image of you leaning on a luxury car or referencing passive income, it is a lifetime sentence.
- Any of the behaviors highlighted by the heroes of @BestofLinkedin. Especially if it’s one of those rags-to-riches fake stories.
- Using any sort of pandemic as marketing fodder.
- Continuing to email someone AFTER they unsubscribed. This is a minimum 3-month sentence.
- If they never signed up in the first place, and you do the above, it is a life sentence.
- “Notice me, senpai,” via.
- Asking people questions that you didn’t even have the decency to Google.
- Single or zero opt-in intros, ESPECIALLY using the phrase “I just thought you two should know each other.”
- Sending offers for new subscribers to existing customers / email capture when you already have their email.
- Outbrain and Taboola ad units.
- Not having emails between purchase and delivery of e-commerce items. REINFORCE YOUR VALUE AND EDUCATE YOUR CONSUMER!!!!!!
- Videos that do not show a progress bar or an ability to fast-forward. Mostly used in squeeze pages for scammy internet marketing info products. IF YOUR OFFER IS GOOD ENOUGH, LET ME FAST FORWARD!!!!
- Social proof logos on the website, but no click-through or link to said article or post.
- Overdoing the hashtags.
- Clubhouse silence.
- Making it unnecessarily hard for your customers to give you money. I am at the bottom of the funnel. I have converted. Credit card in hand. You should be like Mona Lisa Saperstein. Get it together.
- Proselytizing entrepreneurship when you have nothing to lose. Think it’s super bad for the ecosystem for entrepreneurs to try the thing without acknowledging the risks.
- Calling anything a high-ticket item.
- For the most part, asking for NDAs. These could also be signs of wantrepreneurship or IYKYK or a shibboleth.
Conclusion
While the internet gives us incredible freedom to build, market, and connect, with that freedom comes responsibility.
The practices listed above represent some of the most frustrating aspects of internet culture and digital marketing.
Whether you’re a creator, entrepreneur, or just someone who spends time online, avoiding these behaviors won’t just keep you out of “internet jail”—it will help maintain your credibility and build authentic relationships in the digital world.