Social Media Marketing
Yes, I feel like I am at war with Social Media scammers.
War is a horrible word and even worse a horrible action.
Let me take you back.
Around 1998/99 search engine optimization – SEO - arrived as a more mainstream way to build a business. The nerds lost control and the big business realized that this could make them rich.
People wanted to go online and search. If you could win the search engine war you could win the prize of many buyers.
Danny Sullivan and Bruce Clay to mention just two did incredible work in paving the way through the noise. I loved their work and followed weekly updates and changes.
At that time I had both my sites and hundreds of pages from each site … www.SalonPunk.com and www.OrangeBeetle.com all at the top of Yahoo, AltaVista and smaller engines like Night Owl and Northern Light and many more.
Sadly so did the gurus and scammers. Suddenly everyone and anyone was now a search engine expert. This resulted in a lot of people making a killing and a lot of businesses losing their business due to bad advice and bad direction.
As time went on and I worked more and more with real businesses like yours I endlessly heard horrific tales of rip-off, no results, and downright fakery from SEO experts.
Happily and eventually that died down. The con-men moved from SEO to becoming YouTube experts and any other kind of expert online taking cash where they could from business owners like yourself whilst leaving a trail of destruction.
Sickeningly the rise of the great Social Media Swindle arrived. Everyone that is anyone became an expert. The money passing hands has been huge. Promises of likes, promises of shares, promises of higher connections to consumers that will ‘probably’ devour your sales or services – probably!!!
And it sounded like it makes sense. Go where the people are.
Over a billion now on Facebook and literally hundreds of thousands registered with LinkedIn, and Instagram.
So it’s obvious right – go where the crowds are?
So the social media swindlers do what they always do.
Sign you up.
Take your cash.
Spend months preparing you
Post on your social media timeline
Buy you FAKE likes to spike your numbers
Put you into their circle of deceit where one likes another in return for the same thing.
And it makes the scammers rich and in some cases very rich.
But
Probably
Obviously
Intentionally
Sadly
Bastards
They take your cash whilst generating no leads, no sales, no nothing, not even a scrap of paper with a signature… SOD ALL!
Clearly, I never swear but frankly, this makes me a little angry.
Three months ago I spoke to a guy that has spent …
£400,000 on his new retail website in the motorbike industry.
The digital swindlers built it for him. In my opinion, as someone that has generated well over 100 million for my clients online, I will tell you what it was and what it isn’t.
It is a website.
It isn’t a sales machine with a system built in.
It’s a total rip-off.
But here’s the funny bit if you are his agency… he has spent over ONE MILLION on social media marketing with not a single sale from the website.
Shocking
Sickening
True
BAAAAAASTARDS!
I have been asked to advise and create a sales machine that shifts faster than his latest Suzuki roadster. I can do that because I’ve always done that stuff.
So why am I telling you this?
I tripped and fell into marketing. I never think of the word. For me here is how it is.
My business works or it fails.
Middle grounds isn’t an option for me. Fail isn’t an option for me. It has to work even if some parts fail. Fail is the education and work is the reward.
To feed babies, to live a life, have holidays, build houses and create my life the way I like my life takes results. No results and I’m living in a box. I demand results and work my brains out until I get them.
Now.
Know this.
New social media marketing hasn’t brought results for my business.
New social media marketing hasn’t brought a result for my client's businesses.
New social media marketing is a myth that I am yet to see deliver cash in the bank.
I had a client that was happy to use LinkedIn and LinkedIn only. We spent ages going through direct mail, email and a handful of really strong powerful strategies designed to sell direct.
It was cool
It was researched
It was workable
And best of all the strategies were tested time and again.
He stuck to LinkedIn because he would get around 2000 likes on his posts. The crazy thing was he had never had a single sale from LinkedIn.
THAT’S INSANE!
Yet it feeds the driver called recognition and significance but the problem with those is they don’t pay your bills.
Likes mean nothing.
Shares and all that other crap will not drive you into success.
Now listen close because this is true.
Not one of my millionaire clients uses social media – NOT A SINGLE ONE.
And why?
They are too busy building their business.
Social media is an unproven test bed that I am still not seeing delivery in terms of sales from for good businesses.
I LIE.
Because I created a system so powerful that one of my customers generated over £300,000 every month from one social media strategy we put into place.
How?
By doing the opposite to what the swindlers do.
By carefully researching
By carefully testing
By carefully watching results every morning and every evening.
Once the system was ready we switched on the machine until he was hitting over £300k every month.
He is the extreme or the unusual or the one that got away. Another client of mine that has not only bought himself a new Aston Martin last Friday as a treat has finally hit his £12 million a year.
We haven’t done a single thing on Social media – not a peanut!
Do this or die (not you literally but your business)
Get a big idea
Turn that big idea into magic
Find a successful model
Model the model
Make changes
Do it better
Go to the buyers
Make an offer they cannot refuse
Hire experts (not morons I mean real experts like me)
Research the details
Get into the conversation
Create great Ads
Test everything
Hit numbers that make you smile
Ramp up
When you hit your goals go and buy yourself something you’ve always wanted.
And of course… be sexy and confident as hell as you do this.
So please, avoid these swindlers and start asking more questions. Yes, you can get good advice but you ultimately must make decisions.
Choose wisely and carefully otherwise you could simply end up on the long list of closed businesses that took the Social Media Scandal and Swindle before you.
Alan Forrest Smith