Is Facebook and Google's domination of media advertising really bad for digital entrepreneurs?

Just wanted to share an interesting article – ‘Beware of the big beasts as Facebook and Google squeeze rivals’  – by Gideon Spanier, head of media at Campaign magazine, for the London Evening Standard.

If you are a digital marketer, where do you advertise your product? Chances are Facebook, Google and Instagram take up the lion’s share of your budget.

The author is concerned that from a media point of view Facebook and Google completely dominate the online media and their internet advertising revenues increased by a combined $18 billion (£13.7 billion) last year. This figure is the same amount that the entire digital ad market grew globally, with the exception of China, where Facebook and Google are not active.

“Two companies generated growth equal to 100% or more of global digital advertising outside of China last year,” Brian Wieser, an analyst at Wall Street firm Pivotal Research, says. 

“Other media owners’ digital growth either came alongside Google’s as part of their ad network activities [through revenue-sharing] or displaced declines from other digital media owners.”

Both are set to grow at a faster rate than in 2015 and should add $23 billion in revenues between them this year, according to Wieser.

Facebook, still only a third of Google’s size, is catching up and has reinvented itself for what it calls a “mobile-feed” world of media consumption. Its messaging app, Messenger, hit one billion users this month, its photo-sharing app, Instagram, passed half a billion in June, and it keeps poaching senior staff from the ad industry.

Meanwhile. half of the world’s top 30 media owners saw their ad revenues fall last year, according to Zenith, the media-buying agency.

Robert Thomson, chief executive of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, the owner of The Sun and The Times, complained that Facebook had changed its algorithm to “reduce, if not remove” news publishers’ stories in favour of other posts. 

Kath Viner, editor of The Guardian, which is about to post a loss of £173 million, attacked Facebook.

“Social media companies have become overwhelmingly powerful in determining what we read — and enormously profitable from the monetisation of other people’s work,” she warned.

The author points out that while in the explosion of the digital economy, we enjoy unprecedented limitless media choice as consumers, the power lies with a decreasing number of technology giants.

Whilst the traditional print and other media players are naturally worried about their diminishing market share, smaller advertisers and digital entrepreneurs have never had it so good.

There has never been a time in history when a small business owner could so quickly launch a product worldwide and go toe-to-toe with the big boys.

In the past, businesses had to rely on a scatter gun approach using the likes of the Yellow Pages, local news advertising or leaflet drops to drum up customers. In most cases, we never knew if any of these methods actually worked, as it was almost impossible to measure.

National media coverage was and still is hugely expensive and there is still no guarantee of measurable success. Looking at a newspaper, distributed freely in London, I can see glossy ad’s costing tens of thousands of pounds for big brands – Samsung, Hilton, Virgin and VW - however, these ad’s are increasing awareness rather than directly pulling in business.  

Smaller entrepreneurs cannot afford the luxury of placing a series of £25,000 ad’s in the hope of building a brand!

That’s where Google and Facebook comes to our rescue, giving us low-cost targeted advertising with accurate measurable results. Nimble, agile digital entrepreneurs can market any product online, and even compete with larger rivals, using internet platforms like Amazon, Google and Facebook.

Millions of people are now working from home or running home-based businesses, some part-time but others escaping the 9-5 rat race to join the digital economy.

If you would like to learn more about launching an online business, escaping the 9-5 or joining the digital revolution from the comfort of your home, click here.

Are you really happy in your job?

UK workers tend to work much longer hours than their counterparts in France and Germany, and our labour laws are more flexible. There are also a large numbers of workers zero-hour contracts, which offer no guarantee of how many hours will be offered on any given day.

Whilst most are grateful to have any kind of job, it does not follow that they are happy with the daily grind and drudgery of work. Unlike their parents or grandparents who accepted the status quo, many younger people are looking for something more out of life – they actually want a life and are not prepared to work for 40 years doing a job they hate in the hope that they can enjoy their life in retirement. They want to take the steps to retire young and rich!

Even if young people do their time and reach the magic retirement age, the chances are they will have little to look forward to in terms of a pension. The previous baby boomer generation had the luxury of full employment and final salary pension schemes, which are now almost exclusively only available to public sector employees. The country is facing a ‘pensions time bomb’, where millions of people will be unable to retire due to lack of resources even after earning money throughout their working lives.

You can save into a private pension (the benefits of which are not guaranteed), but with wages being forced down and the cost of housing reaching record levels due to a population boom, most ordinary workers will never be able to save enough to live on during a retirement which could last as long as their working lives.

What’s the solution? To start with, remember two things:  'JOB’ stands for 'Just Over Broke' and employees are someone else’s leverage to get rich.

You may be able to get by in a job, but unless you reach the dizzy heights of senior management, you are unlikely to prosper or become wealthy. Those who do make it to the top of the corporate ladder are often so burnt-out by the long hours and pressure that they are unable to enjoy the fruits of their labour. 

Small business owners or the self-employed suffer the same fate of trading their lives and time for money and being stuck on the treadmill working 12 or more hours a day.

I have experienced working in the corporate world and running a small to medium size business. Whilst both had their merits and served a purpose, I would not want to go back to either situation regardless of how much money you paid me. I would rather work from home and have time freedom even if it meant earning less money.

Running a business had greater financial rewards, but the sacrifice in terms of time and energy was far too costly. I also discovered to my cost that small businesses are particularly vulnerable to market forces or changes to government legislation. They can literally be crushed and put out of business overnight.
  

Robert Kiyosaki's and Sharon Lecter's best selling book, 'Rich Dad Poor Dad', introduced us to the 'Cashflow Quadrant' where most people fall into one of four categories:

1. Employee - you have a job and are someone’s leverage
2. Self Employed - you own a job or have bought a job as in the case of most franchises
3. Investor - you own investments, such as businesses, stocks or property
4. Business - you own a money making system, which leverages others

Employees and the self-employed or small business owners work hard for their money trading their time (life) for money. Larger business owners, or those with a system using the leverage of employees, and investors make their money work hard for them, earning residual income from the efforts of others.

In other words, the poor work hard for their money, the rich make their money work hard for them.

Through the story of the author's two 'dads', one rich and one poor, the book outlines how the western education system is designed to train people to become employees and teaches us to work hard, study go to university and get a steady job. This model has worked well during the industrial age, but is now failing millions of people. The author writes:

"In preparing for the Information Age, you must change the rules on how you manage your money. You can no longer blindly accept the idea that your job is secure, that your hard work will be rewarded.."

To find out more about the cash flow quadrant and other ideas, read any of the books in the rich dad poor dad series or check out Robert Kiyosaki's website.  

So what are the alternatives to employee or self employed? 

If you are in a situation where your J.O.B. is barely providing you with enough to keep your head above water, you may want to consider ways of earning extra money to save for your future or pay for those luxuries like a new car or house.

For those who lack the capital to become an investor, and do not want to ‘buy’ a self-employed job, you could try joining forces with a large business with a sales system which can help you earn new and residual income. 

There is nothing new in this idea. People have been selling products on a part-time or full-time basis for direct sales companies, such as Avon, and network marketing companies like Amway for decades. Selling cosmetics and detergent to their friends and family may not suit everybody, but some, such as the late author and speaker Jim Rohn, became millionaires using these very systems. 

In recent years, the digital age has provided us with multiple opportunities to earn money online, from the comfort of our own home, by selling our own products or other people's products through affiliate marketing schemes. Some are household names - Amazon and EBay – and offer ready-made platforms to help anyone with an internet connection the chance to earn money online.

I have found that the drawback with the majority of these schemes is that you need an above average level of technical knowledge to set up websites and databases. The commissions are also very low, which means you have to sell a lot of products before you can fire your boss!

Having researched hundreds of companies and schemes I found that most lacked the basic attributes which I consider are essential to long term success:

• Ready-made systems or turnkey business structure
• Built-in automated follow-up system
• Ongoing value-based product range
• Residual income stream opportunities
• Tracking systems
• Training and support for affiliates

There were companies which had excellent systems, but low-ticket one-off products or offered no training and support. Most had no training or support and left it to you to build your own systems. Others put up barriers, such as restricting sales to certain countries or even banning the use of pay-per-click marketing!

After searching for 5 years and through trial and error, I finally a company that ticked all the boxes offering stay-at-home digital entrepreneurs who want to escape the rat race the opportunity to earn affiliate commission - without the need to set up websites or possess geeky levels of technical knowledge. The company trains their students online taking them through a structured series of modules at their own pace, backed up with webinars and live support and mentoring from real people.

What I really liked was the fact that the initial video training, reports and information is downloadable and totally free and without obligation. To find out more on how to escape the 9-5 life sentence, join the new rich and live the laptop lifestyle check it out by clicking here.