Facebook has now attracted those smarmy, get rich quick folks. It’s getting quite gross, but whenever something is hot, there will be some who will jump on the bandwagon to make a quick buck.

As I look at all these tall claims of making thousands on Facebook in just 6 hours, it seems too good to be true. Typically it is, however, the claim isn’t untrue.

In the 5 years that I’ve been writing my own sales copy and reading others, I now understand what these “claims” really mean. Here are some examples to illustrate my point.

Thousands of Dollars in Just a Few Hours

Here’s one that I see on Facebook:

“You can make 6 figures in 48 hours.”

This claim is probably true, however, the sales copy doesn’t tell you that it took 6 weeks to promote the product or event. And because humans tend to procrastinate, the majority of your sales will come in with the last 2 days before your deadline.

This happened to me during the Social Media Telesummit. About 80% of those who registered for the Telesummit did so in the 2 days before the start of the event.

So, if I stated on my sales page that you can use a virtual event to make 5 figures in 2 days, I wouldn’t be lying. However, I also need to tell you that you need 3 months to plan and promote in order to turn this type of money in just a few days.

Make Money on Facebook or Twitter

Here’s another that I see:

“You can make $1000 from Facebook and let me show you how.”

This too is probably true, however, what the person neglects to tell you is that he directed people to a sales page to buy something after promoting it on Facebook or Twitter. In essence, the person made money indirectly from Facebook through referrals.

You can make money from social media, but it’s indirect. Blogging and podcasting tends to be the exception as you can use ads and sponsorship to make money directly from these 2 online media.

In my book, Podcasting for Profit, I defined indirect monetization as:

making money by referring people to your products and services on your website

So, unless I’m selling text ads directly on my profile page on Facebook, I can only make money indirectly by pointing people to my website or shopping cart to buy from me.

Other Internet Hype 

Any other Internet hype you’d like to debunk? If so, leave it in the comments area below.