One of the few internet marketers I admire who will tell you what they really think, whether you like it or not… Jeff Walker is a force to be reckoned with..

I find his predictions interesting…some scary, some exciting. I actually wanted to share this post of his with you for posterity…I want to “see” and look back on his social media and Amazon predictions…and so can you…enjoy!

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1. One of the world’s 3 major economic systems (Europe, USA, Asia) will experience a MAJOR correction. Huge snapping sound propagates ’round the globe.

Where will the tsunami strike first? I don’t know, but some clues:

• Surely nobody needs to remind you about the Unstoppable Force (US government spending), vs. the Immovable Object (reality). The Unstoppable Force is not unstoppable and will hit a wall. The next wave of billionaires will be options traders who bet their money that sooner or later, reality will prevail.
• China is in a massive real estate bubble. A condo in Guangzhou costs every bit as much as a condo in downtown Chicago; in Shanghai it costs more. I have no way of predicting when this is going to end but it will.
• Britain’s debt is even worse than the US.
• Porter Stansberry’s famous “End of America” video (a contrivance of some truly brilliant copywriters) predicts the next apocalypse will come when the world suddenly decides to abandon the dollar.

The reason Porter is wrong is that the other choices are even worse.  Sort of like an election, where you vote for the person you suspect to be the least-evil puppet ruler. Karl Deninger said, “The US dollar is a hooker with crabs… all the other currencies have AIDS.”

2. Cost Per Impression for online marketing exceeds that of offline. Online offers no particular price advantage in thick niches; the advantage is in the bells and whistles and targeting. Well worth the money, by the way.

This trend is already firmly established with “Jugular Offers” (troublesome B2C categories like business opportunities, weight loss, alternative medicine) where Google bans are the norm.

This means ninja marketers now use Pay Per Click to test and perfect, then cut deals elsewhere for the big profits. (Funny…. hey, wasn’t I saying that 8 years ago?) Customers acquired offline are more loyal.

Online-offline integration is the name of the game. I know a surprising number of guys who are making big bucks with radio advertising. Almost all the best info marketers I know are using direct mail profitably.

3. Social Media as a hotbed of demographic and psychographic insight – not sales channel.

Yesterday I was eating corn chips and on the bag was the obligatory blue Facebook “F” logo. “Woo hoo!” I thought. “I sure do love Facebook, it’s where I interact with my favorite brands and learn about coupons and special promotions. Happy Happy Joy Joy!”

Before another minute was allowed to pass, I rushed to my computer and became a fan of Frito-Lay.

Seriously, Frito-Lay isn’t going to budge their sales numbers an inch with a Facebook Fan page. However they will get some fans anyway, and the psychographic information they can get from Facebook will tell them stuff about compulsive TV-watching snackers they’d never figure out from a focus group.

This is the whole idea behind our own Fanalytix™. Years ago you couldn’t have bought this information for any price; now it’s buried under your own mattress. Those who use it possess a decisive edge.

Oh, and even though Twitter has no business plan, they can topple Arab regimes. I believe the CIA secretly sends a white van to the alley behind Twitter’s offices and tosses bags of $1000 bills to a guy in an orange suit.

4. Massive Asia Middle Class. Between China and India, their middle class now rivals the entire population of Europe. Asia isn’t nearly the haven of cheap outsourcing that it used to be; people who used to work for 60 cents an hour now cost four bucks.

It also means Asia’s creme de la creme is 3 million strong and they have TONS of cash. I saw more Bentleys in China in 3 weeks than in Chicago all year. If what you sell is expensive and confers status, you need catch the next flight to Shanghai or Bangalore.

5. Facebook hits the wall w/ investors. I doubt this will happen in 2012. Maybe in 2013. But at some point, the money people will wake up and realize Facebook has been playing patty-cake with their kindergarten advertising system. Facebook’s gonna go public and public companies have to make money.

Facebook ads are still the wild west, where people rub sticks together to make fire. The good news is, there’s a lot of dry firewood.

Just as a major correction is inevitable, Facebook turns a corner and finally decides to get serious about advertising. Not a moment too soon.

(see our next post for the juicy conclusion and predictions 6-10!)

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Entrepreneur Magazine says: “Perry Marshall is the #1 author and world’s most-quoted consultant on Google Advertising. He has helped over 100,000 advertisers save literally billions of dollars in Adwords stupidity tax.”

He is referenced across the Internet and by The Washington Post, USA Today, and the Chicago Tribune.