That all depends on your definition of success. If your definition is getting a few hundred views on your blog every week, then yea, it works great.
However if you’re an independent musician, or a small business owner, and you’re one fish swimming in a sea of millions, online promotion today won’t do much at all for making you successful. Course that doesn’t mean it can’t.
With all of the hype behind social networks, and people shoving out thousands of dollars to “internet marketing” companies to conduct marketing that most people don’t even fully understand, and that’s methods are still evolving so rapidly, it’s no wonder that people continue to jump on the ship.
Nobody really knows what’s going on, but they’re smart enough to know that something is happening. And this isn’t a bad thing, but it can be a bit dangerous if not handled correctly.
Results on the web have not proven to be full proof by any means. There is no secret formula that can guarantee success. Right now it’s all about luck, some strategy, risk, and persistence. And the results don’t always come out quite how you expect.
I wouldn’t say online promotion is in it’s infant stages, but I would say it’s about a pre-teen right now. The potential there has not been fully realized.
This is an important thing to take into consideration when planning on investing and developing an internet marketing strategy. It’s best not to get your hopes up about anything online right now.
If a company is telling you they can get you thousands of new views to your website a week, I would at least be a little skeptical about where these “views” are coming from.
It’s not to say that internet promotion is not a good thing to do. If anything, I believe it WILL eventually be the future of marketing, just because of the million benefits that the internet provides to it’s users in general, including ease of use, mobile access and stuff like that. It safe to say the internet will always be a big part of people’s lives.
So establishing a presence is a great idea that I believe everyone should do, but expecting the world out of it right now would be a bit wishful.
As practices develop however, online promotion will begin to get much more fruitful. If you want an example of how this may be possible, check out my model for Beat-Play, and how we revolutionize promotion for independent artists.
The same principles can be applied literally to anything that needs promoted online, but gone will be the days of posting ads and trying to virtually scream for attention into a crowd of people. It doesn’t work too well in real life either.
Instead, the beauty of the internet is that it offers alternatives to these kinds of medieval things. When the internet matures a little, if someone is looking for something that you provide, they will automatically get introduced to you.
In other words, the people already looking for you, will find you, and you will no longer have to waste time advertising to people who may never have a need to look for you.
It seems right now we are working against the natural flow of the internet, when it comes to our marketing methods. When we smarten up a little bit, things will definitely change.
This is a good thing to keep in mind when considering any kind of online promotion. If you’re not getting great results, don’t get frustrated..it’s not designed for you to….but it will be soon. Just don’t go betting the bank on it just yet.
Written by: Dante Cullari Founder & President Beat-Play, LLC
The Beat-Play Experiment 
