What is the difference between Viral/Social Marketing and pyramid selling?
The short answer is very simple: Viral/Social Marketing is a legitimate business model, offering all participants the same opportunity to build a residual income in a flexible way. Pyramid selling is an illegal scam, where the people at the top benefit from the financial suffering of those they introduce into the organisation. Both utilise the power of exponential growth, but they use this principle in different ways and for very different ends. When people talk about pyramid selling, they may be thinking of many different business models. Most people will not be able to precisely define an illegal pyramid if you ask them, regardless of how strongly they claim that viral/social marketing is the same. In reality, the difference between the two is very clear and well-defined, and it should become obvious why this distinction is so vitally important. In the standard model of a pyramid scheme, people are rewarded purely for introducing new people to an organisation. They are often charged
