Digital marketing is hard– there is so much to learn and so much to do that it can be overwhelming.
Too Much Freedom
Plus, you have all this freedom, which is easy to abuse.
Not that you are lazy or do not want to work– but because friends think you are “available” all the time, they invite you out to do things.
So you want to be nice to friends and hang out, thinking you will get back to your projects later tonight or tomorrow.
Except that never happens, and you fall further behind– since more distractions come up, all from well-meaning people who think you are not doing anything.
A shift worker does not understand a digital marketer since their view of work is like a factory job when you show up at a certain time for your shift.
If you are at home sitting on the couch, why not text all day, play with the dogs and goof off?
They do not realize you have project deadlines— team members counting on you and clients putting their business in your hands.
Once Things Start Catching Up With You
So when you realize you are behind, feeling “all by yourself” in your home, it is easy to go into excuse mode.
“Let’s see… what is the best excuse I can come up with?” is what you are used to doing. We can usually think of something since if you look for something bad, you will find it.
And that excuse might legitimately cover you for a day or two, but not for the months you have continued to struggle.
So then you get caught in a loop of being so far behind, team members and courts chasing you down, and feeling unmotivated.
I would rather watch Netflix and play video games to avoid the situation that is only getting worse.
Allow this to continue and the clients will fire us. The team will believe you are not reliable and do not care.
Communication and Discipline Instead of Excuses
The root of this is you not having learned team communication skills and not having the discipline to work in an environment that does not have physical supervision. Sure, you would be more reliable if you had to drive to an office and be there by 8 am each morning and have a rigid schedule. There is much good about being a wage slave.
But if you can learn the discipline to work in digital marketing, you can have amazing time freedom and be wherever you want.
You have to decide if you are going to focus on excuses after the fact or whether you are accountable and proactive.
Do you want to be the receptionist or factory-type worker that responds only when someone comes to the counter or calls? Or are you a leader who takes charge instead of moving only when someone tells you to?
It’s Not Too Late for You
If you are reading this, you have fallen into the most common trap of new digital marketers.
The good news is that it is an easy trap to escape from, as thousands have learned on their path from beginner to pro.
My friend, are you wondering why I asked you to visit this post?
If you haven’t figured it out yet, it’s because we didn’t hear from you for a few days. We tried to reach out to you, but you failed to get back to us.
And when you finally responded, you most likely attempted to justify your absence and lack of communication with a “valid” reason.
That’s why you’re here.
I created this post to show you where I’m coming from. I hope that by now, you understand why I am so critical about good communication.
This blog post is my best attempt to explain this most painful problem. I hope that starting today, you will work on your weaknesses so that we can get back on track.
Why Don’t You Start Now?
Do those five things, and you will see your teammates start applauding you instead of chasing you.
And you will be able to experience the awesome freedom of digital marketing instead of working in a dead-end job in some place you have to drive to each day and back, doing the same boring thing in an endless cycle.
If you want to grow, you are in the right place. And you should expect that learning new skills is a challenge you should be up to.
Now let us get going since the team and our clients are counting on you and rooting for you!
Wondering how some people rise above the noise and get a high following on their social media accounts? Let me show you how I grew Gavin Lira’s account from 12 followers to 18,000 using the “Facebook for a Dollar a Day strategy.”
How did I do it?
I used the Dollar-a-Day strategy to boost his best tweets. I boosted any tweet that I felt had a lot of value for his core audience for $1 a day, just to generate engagement.
He was in Pakistan speaking at a conference, so I boosted his video to the attendees there. On Twitter, people follow what’s popular. So, I shared crowds following him plus shots with well-known people.
When you start to go viral, you can rely just on organic growth. But to get the initial conversations going, I had to spend $70 to boost 10 tweets for $7 each over a week. I boosted 10 tweets because I wanted to let the algorithm tell me which ones are winners since we are always wrong as humans.
Your audience wants to relive highlights, so boost those.
Who would have thought that this picture with @darrylleeisaacs would get a lot of personal injury attorneys following him?
How do you know you have a winner?
Tweets that got over 20% engagement are winners— meaning 2 in 10 people clicked on it, viewed his profile, commented, etc. Normally, he got 2-3% engagement, which is why I needed to tweet 100 times to find approximately 10 winners.
This is his best post, getting penny engagements, and 5% of people who saw it followed him. @sunnyaliEC is the most loved entrepreneur in Pakistan.
I’ll bet you have dozens of pictures on your phone with someone well-known, where you can honor them with gratitude. The most connected people in any industry are the conference organizers— honor them!
The Misconception
Some people think Twitter is only text. But his videos often get over 50% of people stopping to watch. And then when I boost, my cost-per-view is fractions of a penny.
I literally grab pictures and videos straight from my camera roll. For example, this book was given to him by @kfreberg–the #1 PR professor in the US. I tagged her and boosted it to her followers- super relevant for both of them.
It’s just as hard to go from 10 followers to 100 followers as it is to go from 1,000 to 10,000. Use $1 a day to speed up the beginning of that curve. Promote a friend’s company like @blusharkdigital so they share your posts.
Watching the magic of the Dollar a Day strategy unfold
A week later, he hit 15,000 followers and also got a blue check. This increased his engagement rate by 30%–more trust. If a post would have gotten 100 likes, he’d get 130 likes.
Unlike other networks, no extra cost to post a pic.
I also found content that worked elsewhere and repurposed it into Twitter. Reddit is my favorite source, followed by blog posts he’s written, snappy things I overhear friends say, and Facebook. Build threads like this to stack engagement.
Dollar-a-Day works wonders!
I invented the Dollar-a-Day strategy 15 years ago and works on all social networks.
You might say it’s like “throwing raw meat to the dogs,” which is partly true. Yes, I’ve shared posts that received a lot of attention (for example, 1,000 likes on a post honoring freelancer friends in Pakistan), but if I didn’t also tie these posts to his expertise, his followers would be low-quality and random.
I used high-engagement posts to break through the noise, allowing people to see that his expertise is worth looking at and listening to.
It is a relationship-building strategy called FGF— Find, Give, Friend.
You may be posting really good tweets, but when you have no followers, nobody will see your stuff!
Unfortunately, he failed to take care of what I had built for him because of unacceptable business practices. If you’d like to know more about that, read the two articles below.
With Harrison Gevirtz, founder of Ringba, at the Lead Generation World Conference
At the Lead Generation World conference, I recently met with Harrison Gevirtz, founder of Ringba, the call-tracking solution provider and arguably the smartest man in the internet marketing space who sets the highest standards for himself and his team.
We discussed the pay-per-call space and his company.
Pay-per-call space continues to grow and evolve. People have been buying leads for 20 plus 30 years.
Why buy a lead when you can buy an engagement; when a warm, hot lead is on the phone, ready for you?
When Harrison Gevirtz first started Ringba, people would go, “Calls? Nobody picks up. Nobody calls.” However, people now realize that’s not the case. People are calling way more, and while the call space is growing, the lead space is declining because they see the value in those warm, engaged, ready-to-purchase customers.
Factors Behind Ringba’s Growth
First and foremost, credit for the growth goes to their ambitious team, who always tries to find new clients to become part of the Ringba community.
They have a huge trade show presence and built their business around sponsoring and participating in these trade shows around the country and in different categories.
When you’re a new software company and go to a trade show, the first year, everyone walks past your booth. No one’s interested. The second year they go, “Oh, they’re still in business. That’s interesting.” And the third year, they go, “Maybe I’ll talk to them next year.”
And after three years, when people want to come on board and see what you’re doing, now.
Ringba has been around for six years and has almost become a money gun.
So, if you own a software business, you can’t just judge one trade show when you’re looking at the revenue you generate from the show.
Your social media is failing because you’re not showing yourself doing the thing you actually do.
If you’re a garage door technician, show yourself working on a garage door.
If you’re a health and wellness practitioner, show yourself treating patients.
You can certainly have talking-head videos as voiceovers on top of the actual doing.
Use “Authenticity” to Succeed on Social Media
Recipe to Succeed on Social Media
Showing what you’re doing is trickier for digital marketing agencies. Because who wants to see Zoom calls and emails?
So my agency friends do the following things:
Show high-authority content on social media. Show yourself hanging out with leaders that people in your industry respect.
Publish a book, interview people on your podcast, and then turn it into a book.
People fear that AI will ruin marketing, but only for those who write generic articles that a robot can write.
Therefore, show real stories of what you do with your clients on social media.
AI uses a sample of the world’s collective knowledge to create content. I learned from interviewing top AI SaaS founders that AI is not fundamentally designed to map relationships and events.
Facebook is closest to this approach, but they are trying to beat TikTok by showing users the ‘best’ content instead of just what your friends are doing.
I believe that Facebook will continue to outperform TikTok in generating local leads because it lets friends and neighbors know what other people are up to.
Digital marketing is all about connecting and building relations.
These influencers are everywhere, trapping as many people as they can.
Yes, I’m talking about the FAKE financial gurus and influencers. They are on fire and trending these days.
They are showing their luxurious lifestyle to gather all the attention they can to trap all the wantrepreneurs and make quick money.
They are always flashing their wealth to sell you the CRAP they call coaching/courses or training.
Whatever they call it, it’s all FAKE; they want to make a profit.
If they make more money from selling courses or coaching than an actual product or service, that’s a clear sign that it’s completely baseless.
People who don’t even know the basics of digital marketing are selling their courses.
They try their best to show that digital marketing is super complicated and are the only ones who know the GREAT SECRET to succeed.
The lies they come up with!
Here are the top 10.
1) Generating attention = more money.
I know many folks with over a million followers and blue checkmarks. But, unfortunately, they are flat broke, driving Uber to pay rent they’re late on.
2) Go LIVE every day.
Well, that’s what they do, But we are business owners who don’t make a living on social media, selling social media. Instead, social media is a channel we use to drive us more clients.
3) If you don’t hop on the latest trend, you’ll miss out,
FOMO – Fear of Missing Out – is powerful. I’ve talked about the TikTok craze– where TikTok itself is hot, but the courses are pure trash.
4) You need to go viral.
If you’re teaching a course, you better have proof. But if you’re a real estate agent, lawyer, dentist, or chiropractor– you need only clients and patients. Ranking in local search in your city is what matters– not global stardom.
5) The “secret” technique.
I have oceanfront property in Nevada to sell you. If you believe this, the next time you see a heart surgeon or a pilot, ask them if there’s a “secret” to what they’re doing.
6) Fake it till you make it.
Pose like you’re successful and you’re 90% there. I met the founder of Voodoo Donuts last night in some sleepy beach town in Costa Rica. You’d never know. That guy you see with the Lambo is probably broken. And the Lambo is rented.
7) You’re just one funnel away, one lottery ticket away from millions.
They use this because it’s the trap that wantrepreneurs fall for– and will continue to fall for decades.
8) If you keep making content, eventually, you’ll win.
That donkey isn’t going to turn into a unicorn, no matter how many miles it runs on a treadmill. Sheer force won’t open the vault. But systems, processes, good people, and a solid product/service will, over time.
9) Rags to riches (also known as the “hero’s journey”).
The classic story of how they were struggling, just like you– but then stumbled across a magic lamp (everyone has their version of the secret object). And now– BOOM! Lambos, boats, and mansions!
10) Anything with “figures” seven, eight, etc.
I know some folks who generate seven figures in revenue– but when you factor in ad costs and labor, they are losing money.
I’ve been in this field for decades, trained countless people, and made countless courses and training. So, when I see all this fake stuff going on, it infuriates me. So then the question is, how can we succeed in digital marketing?
I’ve already explained, very simply and clearly, how we can do successful digital marketing. It’s not a money game anymore.
Digital marketing is all about connecting and building relations.
It’s not one of those manifesting secrets; if you believe it, it will happen to you. So building up these meaningful connections will give you that multiplying power.
Recently I’ve talked about the top 5 ways we can build meaningful relationships. Marketing isn’t rocket science. So much of it comes down to people and how you interact with others.
Your brand needs to relate more deeply to those you’re trying to attract. Anyone promising a shortcut is undoubtedly trying to sell you something.
And we all know how many get-rich-quick marketing “gurus” are out there.
Marketing “hacks” are nothing but a buzzword. But, unfortunately, there is no such thing as a single action that can grow your brand overnight. These things take time.
I thought I should share some of (what I call) the hard truths about what is going on these days. Of course, this is just the tip of the iceberg, but I promise we will cover everything in the future.
You can visit us at BlitzMetrics.com to see what we do and how we do it.
So what are some of the most common lies you know about? I would love to hear from you guys. So you can let me know in the comments. Thanks!
