Attract, Exploit, Extract, Extinct: The Only Ways to Earn on Social Media?
A-E-E-E — a social marketing business model we can only hope will be coming to an end
Countless studies have shown that overuse of social media can harm health. Lately, I’ve been seeing rapid change in what average people are willing to put up with via social media-based organizations and “communities.”
Over the past 18 months, I’ve written a bit about the real-life friendships I’ve been forming here in Southwest Florida. Some of these friendships began in local social media groups.
One group hasn’t been on an upward trend lately. I also recently interacted with another group that presents itself as being a self-help or marketing organization for independently published writers.
These online communities aren’t just voluntary associations. They are businesses that provide a variety of benefits for their founders, from cash income to the attention of others: even in some cases, adulation.
Both groups are Facebook-based, though one uses Meetup to schedule events while the other has additional membership platforms, a website, and extensive other social media as well as in-person meetings.
The local friend group hosts events that often include themes. Costs can run into several hundreds of dollars.
The publishing group hosts massive conferences in resort locations. Costs can run into several thousands of dollars.
The local friend group built up quickly to a large membership because it fulfilled a need for women to get together with others. Many women in Southwest Florida are either “snowbirds” who are traveling away from their hometown for part of the year, or they have recently retired here from another state.
The publishing support group states it will provide a system for independently published authors to earn what is today, a barely-adequate income after publishing a large number of stereotyped genre books: primarily, but not exclusively, through Amazon.
Both of them are marketing funnels which support the founders’ need for money, as well as for another benefit of peculiar value to certain types of people: adulation, attention — some might even call it “worship.”
Not to put these groups into the same category as an evangelical church, like, say — the famous PTL Club led by Jim & Tammy Faye Bakker …
It Wasn’t About Writing, It Was About Exploitation
About five years ago, I was kicked out of the publishing support group. This group categorized authors by sales volume as various sizes of fish, like from sardine to whale. A “whale” member of the group said that he advertised for ghost writers via a gig work platform and would give them a “tryout” to see if they were “suitable” for his needs.
I questioned this and said I thought this type of arrangement was wrong. I said I thought they should be paid, even if was just a “tryout.”
Well, he said, “I pay them 3 cents a word.”
Yes, that’s right: the business model of this guy was to pay a low price to a person willing to work for 3 cents a word and then spend a fortune on digital marketing to sell this product to readers.
The book I’m publishing later this year is 80,000 words long. That’s a standard length for a regular novel.
It took me about six months to write the first draft.
Three cents a word on an 80,000 word manuscript is $2,400.
Even if you could write one such book a month, it would amount to little more than minimum wage. Three cents a word was the lowest pay level for pulp fiction writers: back in the 1930s. You read that right — that is what they were paying for low-quality pulpy writing these guys banged out on typewriters almost a century ago.
According to one of the leading freelance writing platforms, “Most freelance writers charge between .10 and $1.00 a word.” There is no professional writing association that considers 3 cents a word to be “professional” pay.
When I questioned Mr. Whale about this low pay and exploitation, I was ejected from the group. I was the rude one: not the man who was making, I kid you not — what this group markets as a “retirement plan” of earnings out of someone else’s desperation. What person would take on months of work for $2,400 or do a “tryout” for free for the privilege?
Only a desperate or deluded person.
Anybody could work at WalMart, Starbucks, or any grocery store for a better wage. There’s also no forward career advantage to doing this type of work.
The only reason a skilled writer does ghost writing is money: enough to pay their bills and keep a roof over their head. Realistically, someone could probably write four books like this a year. The pay would amount to less than $10,000. I’m sure Mr. Whale will be quick to say: that’s a good living in Croatia. And by the way, how horrible I was to have abused him!
Frenemies to Enemies
Even though I know the pattern in big business, I somehow neglected to apply it to the local friend group.
We began to witness inexplicable behavior. Events were scheduled, then cancelled. Group rules became ever more complex. And the group seemed to revolve exclusively around its founder. If events weren’t “her” events, they were not only not promoted, many were downgraded or disappeared from listings with no explanation.
Events also grew more elaborate and expensive. Themes were getting more and more extreme.
Low-cost or no-cost events still continued, but at a much slower pace.
Yeah, just like high school, cliques formed.
Slowly, I realized that the group wasn’t about just friendship. It wasn’t about get-togethers with others.
It was about the group’s founder. First, foremost, and only. Sure, some money was involved, but in this case, the model:
A-Attract
E-Exploit
E-Extract
E-Extinct
Was about attention as much as, or moreso, than cash. This was a bit of a reversal from the publishing group, where the focus was on money-earning. Not for the thousands of members, mind you. Just the limited number of “whales” atop the —
I bet at least 200–300 of them are using ChatGPT to “write” these tomes and dump them into the Amazon ecosystem.
Our friend group had and continues to have a “whale” that has little to no interest in actual friendships or positive activities among members. It’s more about likes, clicks, and in-person worship — by now it is definitely getting Jim & Tammy Faye Bakker-ey.
I’ve Often Been The One To Say It
But I’m not the only one to think it. And that’s why I am writing this.
AI “writing” isn’t going to take over the world. It’s just forcing groups like this digital publishing scheme to pivot to maintain cash flow for the founders.
I heard the other day that cable news stations are in big trouble, losing hundreds of thousands of viewers and facing a rapidly-aging viewership.
The same is true of the overall social media platforms, from TikTok to Facebook/Meta to Twitter.
The situation with our local friend group changed quickly as members recognized that the group they thought they were joining and participating with was not what they’d signed up for. I don’t think many people would have signed up for a fan club for a local celebrity. Everyone joined because they wanted to meet friends with whom they shared interests.
It’s the clash between the common, easily understandable motives and behavior of the majority of people and the attention economy social marketing business model.
These social-based organizations don’t have members’ best interests at heart any more than Big Ag, Big Food, Big Pharma, or Fast Fashion. Some of the group leaders and founders can be motivated by a desire for personal attention, making them focal points for the attention economy. Others may be motivated by money, using their groups as sales funnels for big-ticket items and programs.
Of course there are genuine community organizations that have been around for years: social groups, youth groups, self-help groups.
But I would say at least 70% of online “communities” fit into the A-Attract, E-Exploit, E-Extract, E-Extinct business model.
And everyone is becoming aware of this pattern. They are becoming aware that getting involved with these types of organizations is usually going to result in an expenditure of their time and money with little to nothing in return.
At least the one guy was paying 3 cents a word. Most of the rest of them don’t pay anything.
It’s about time we turn the final E — Extinction — back on its head toward the exploiters.
I see people growing spines left and right these days. We are losing patience with the bullies and users of the world. They’ve had it their way for far too long and cost us all incalculable time and money.
I’ve addressed this on an individual level. On a society-wide level, here is a link to an excellent resource from the MIT Sloan School of Management that proposes new, different social media models.
"We are losing patience with the bullies and users of the world."
Yes. And losing patience with these people is what liberates us from them. Not just in writing/publishing - but across the board. If that is - in fact - an evolving trend ... I welcome it with open arms! Thanks for the post.
AEEE is a great concept, and nicely builds on Microsoft's "embrace, extend, extinguish" practice they invented in the 90s. Over time, it hasn't worked out the way Microsoft (and namely its chief architects, whose names you know) intended, but they're still on top anyhow, with many broken--and superior--companies, people and ideas crushed beneath them. Technology's capture by bullies is certainly a factor in the rise of "social media", which when viewed critically, is anything but.