More about Jeff Johnson and his Tube Traffic Secrets
Last week I wrote about Jeff Johnson and his Tube Traffic Secrets. Making YouTube videos seems to be the latest flavour of the month in the MMO industry.
I had to break my article into two parts because it was too long for one blog posting. The product sales pitch itself was presented in one video.
- Part 1 – in Part 1, we learned that “get started today for only $97” meant that the product actually costs 3 x $97 instalments. YouTube is a major player as a search engine (and they’re owned by Google!) and they want to send you traffic if you approach the task in the right way.
- Part 2 – in Part 2, I described how Johnson had identified 15 specific factors (unspecified at this stage) which you must consider if you you want to get YouTube traffic. Then he outlined his “Seven Simple Steps” to success, and told you how his course materials and bonuses are worth thousands and thousands of dollars.
So, that’s a reminder of what happened last week. Now let’s have a look at what happened next.
A few emails arrived from other well-known “Internet Marketers”. They’re all raving about this great new system. How can they know it’s so great? If it’s new they can’t have tried and tested it yet. Right? Surely it couldn’t be that they’re all buddies and they’ll earn affiliate commissions for promoting each other’s products?
Then I received another email from Jeff Johnson telling me about all the free training I should be looking forward to getting.
More high-quality free training is on the way.
In future training you’ll also learn how to grab free traffic from several of my favorite sources including YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter.
Plus I’ll show you how to leverage the power of YouTube to practically force Google to send you free traffic, even if they don’t want to.
You’ll also learn a few of my proven secrets for turning YoutubeTraffic into Money.
Well, that certainly sounds exciting. I’m just a little confused about all these offers of free training because I thought I had to pay $97 to get started. Whatever. There was a link to this: “Video #1 reveals 15 Quick And Easy Ways To Grab More Free Traffic From YouTube… Step-by-Step!”
Let’s have a look at the video. At first it sounds exactly like the sales spiel we had earlier, but I persevered with it, and at almost 9 minutes in, he lists the 15 factors which you must consider if you want to get your free traffic from YouTube, Facebook and Google. (If you want the list of 15 factors, then you’ll need to watch the video. There is also a link to download a free copy of the 15 factors cheat sheet as a PDF.) The remainder of Video 1 talks you through each factor, what it means and how you should use it to maximise the amount of free traffic you’ll get from YouTube.
Despite always wearing my “cynical old sod” hat when looking at any MMO products, I have to admit that a lot of this info seems quite useful and interesting. There was only time to cover the first five factors in Video 1. The later videos will cover the secondary ranking and discoverability factors.
And the following day, Video 2 arrived. This one “is geared towards people that don’t understand how or why they should get started with YouTube to promote their business.” So, let’s have a look at that one.
First we get a recap of Video 1. Then he reminds us that with YouTube marketing your goal is not to get numbers of views – it’s getting the viewers to take action that counts. (This reminds me of what I’ve been saying all along that traffic isn’t the goal, it’s what that traffic does which matters. Traffic is useless unless you can convert it to take some kind of action, even if that action is only clicking away via an advert.)
The video goes on to describe a case study of how YouTube marketing worked for a small business. You need to figure out what problems your clients typically have and make videos about solving these problems. Much of your success will come – or not – according to how you set up your own YouTube channel. The training teaches you how to do that. Video 2 also shows you easy tips and tricks about how to rank at No. 1 on YouTube and even also on Google video search for your key phrase.
Jeff Johnson is very, very convincing. I feel as though I must be missing something – where’s the catch?
Well, what if his “secrets” became well known and everyone was using these tips and tricks? And they will become well known because he’s doing a heck of a lot of promotion for this product. And we can ALL sit in the No. 1 slot, can we? But chances are, if you’re early enough into the game – early to market – then this probably will work, at least for a while.
Much of your success on YouTube will depend on your incoming links so you should run a full-blown campaign to get those links in. YouTube loves them, as does Google. Is anyone else raising their eyebrows at this? Didn’t Google recently penalise for “unnatural linking”? Isn’t it likely that YouTube (a Google-owned company) will take similar action to prevent themselves being gamed in such a way? The last few minutes of the video are spent on talking about the next five of the 15 factors. And finally, there’s a quick trailer for what’s coming in Video 3.
The following day, an email arrived from Ryan Deiss with a somewhat alarming message to tell me that Jeff Johnson is closing the doors to new students on his Tube Traffic Secrets system. Why is it that even a mention of the name Ryan Deiss makes me shudder? I was starting to find Jeff Johnson quite convincing, but if he is in cahoots with someone such as Ryan Deiss, that pretty much has me running for the hills.
The following day, I received another few warnings, including from Jeff Johnson himself, that he would soon stop accepting new students on his training course. What the heck is this attempt at artificial scarcity? The course consists mainly of videos, a private members’ forum, and some live Q&A calls. What would it matter if he has 15 or 15,000,000 students? I quite liked Jeff Johnson up until now, but I wrote a book about how to detect MMO scams recently and Johnson is starting to tick a lot of the boxes for me.
And now onto Video 3. This one is about his “Seven Simple Steps”. Then we get a recap of Videos 1 and 2. One of his students was so successful with his videos that Johnson even gave him a job. Er, did I miss the point here? If the guy was so successful with his videos, then why the hell would he want a job?
Video 3 is mostly a rehash of what we’ve already had before, plus a case study in the “How to Meet Girls” market. And a silly warning that if we’re offended by pictures of hot women in tight little outfits, then we should click away now. I admit that I’m not salivating over my keyboard at the thought of this enticing prospect, but I’m willing to persevere for the sake of this report.
Oh no! Instead of the promised sexy pictures, we get some boring stuff about how to use the Google Keyword Tool. Yawn. But I thought he’d said earlier that the YouTube algo was different from the Google algo and you needed to use different strategies. Please can someone tell me why everyone does their “market research” by going straight for the Google Keyword Tool? Bah! Anyway, Dave (my husband) had pricked up his ears at this mention of sexy pictures of women and was sneakily looking over my shoulder to see what would happen next. He was somewhat disappointed because when a picture of a scantily clad woman did appear onscreen the “interesting” bits were hidden by a box of text with stuff about keyword research. LOL.
It’s all just a rehash of what he’s told us before, and some stuff about how to trick people into clicking things. If you post a picture of a sexy woman and make it look like a video then more guys will click on it. There’s also some advice on how to spam forums without looking like a spammer. The trick is to mention other people’s videos before you mention your own. You can even outsource this activity. What utter nonsense. Any forum with switched on admins and mods will smell this a mile away, ban you, and maybe even get you blacklisted elsewhere. This is a tactic I definitely would NOT recommend you try on any high quality forum.
And after all that, we’re told to watch out for his next video which will take everything from the first three videos and multiply it by a factor of at least a thousand.
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