The latest craze these days involve “free” webinars by a variety of Social Media Marketing firms that promise to get you all the business you can handle by allowing them to manage your business on Social Media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Plaxo, etc. I can’t speak to all these companies, but I can pass along my experience with one in particular. It seems as though all you hear are glowing reports about what these companies have done for individuals…but I have to wonder are these people real, have they been compensated in some way??? I guess it may work for some, but I strongly urge you to be careful before giving up your hard earned money. Let me tell you my story…
I have been involved with Social Media for a while…some sites for personal use, others for business use. I was never very successful on the business sites and decided to attend a webinar that I was invited to on one of my business sites. The company is SOCIAL MEDIA MAGIC. The webinar was about 1 hour and then about 30 minutes of Q&A. I was blown away by the presenters. This seemed like the way to go. I was very excited and decided after a bit of due diligence to sign up for the program. Using smart marketing, the webinar attendees were told that the “fast track program” was just about sold out…only one or two spots were left. The “special offer” that was being made to attendees of the webinar was $199 setup fee and $497/month. I carefully read through the “Terms of Service” and noticed they were offering a 60 day money back guarantee. If within 60 days you were unhappy, they would refund your monthly fees. Of course any work done for you would be reversed. I thought this was fair…I was being given 60 days to see if the program would work. During the webinar we were told, and on the website we were told we should start seeing results after 30 days.
So, it was full speed ahead for me. I was going to get all the business I could handle starting in about 30 days. I paid my set up fee and the first months fee and waited to hear from them. I did get a questionnaire to fill out which I did immediately. The phone call I was supposed to get within 7 days never happened. It was about 10 or 11 days before I heard from any one. We were supposed to have about a 1 hour phone “interview” for my specialist to get to know me and my business. After about 20 minutes we were done. The next steps were to begin setting up accounts and finding those clients. I sat and waited and waited and waited and nothing got done. I finally contacted my “team” and after I explained we were more then 20 days into the month and NOTHING had been done, they were gracious enough to extend my billing date and work started soon after that. Accounts were set up on Social Media sites that I had not been aware of and some very limited work was done on the sites I did have accounts on.
The BIG idea was to start my own group on LinkedIn…which, after consultation with me, my specialist set up. Quickly, my circle of friends/business associates joined the group. My specialist then started copying some of the articles from my website and put them into the group discussions. He wrote some text to introduce the topics and I was kind of mortified that there were spelling errors. I try to double check everything I do because nothing bothers me more then seeing spelling errors. And since the introductory text was from me, I was not too happy. But, I had my eye on the prize…more business then I could handle starting in 30 days (We were already at day 25).
I was given user names and passwords to sites that may be up and coming, but right now are deadly quiet. After about day 40, I paid for my second month figuring now is the time. Basically, besides some additional sites being activated, and receiving lots of reports of setting up accounts, nothing occurred. I asked a question and didn’t receive a response for over a week. No one contacted me with direction as to what I should do to help the process along. During the webinar I remembered hearing how my group on LinkedIn would quickly expand to 60 to 100 members who ASKED to join my group. Besides the first 10 who I knew, no one asked me to joing my group. I took it upon myself during this time to join other groups, to try to network, but curiously (?) what I discovered is EVERYONE on these networks is looking to FIND business. EVERYONE wanted to sell me something. None of these sites had companies go on them looking to PURCHASE. Now I understand that eventually, even those businesses that wanted to sell things would need to buy things, however it was not their priority. Many of these businesses are rather small and don’t need the services many of us offer.
At this point I felt I wasn’t going to see “all the business I could handle” and began to doubt the ability of SOCIAL MEDIA MAGIC to deliver on what they claimed they could do for me. So I decided I was going to bail out of the program. After all, I had 60 days to test the waters. I understood I would lose the $199 set up fee, but fully expected to receive back the 2 monthly payments I had made. I contacted SOCIAL MEDIA MAGIC and told them I would like to cancel my account and like the monies paid to be returned. That’s when I was contacted by someone from the company saying she wanted to have a phone conference to go over next steps. I guess they figured they should do something to try to save the account. When I declined, I was informed that there was no 60 day guarantee and I would not be receiving anything back.
I checked the terms of service again and realized they had been changed in the 60 days since I had joined. MY big mistake was not printing out the terms of service I had found when I first considered using their services. Well, at least I learned SOMETHING from this experience. I may be getting old, and the synapses may not be firing like they used to. However, I am NOT delusional and KNOW what I read in the terms of service. I decided to do a little more checking and have decided these guys may not be so good in delivering on what they promised however they are geniuses in figuring out how to get and keep your money…
I went back onto the site today to see what they were currently offering. They show an artificially high price on their website, I guess hoping that some unsuspecting person will want to sign up for the ridiculously high price of $1997 for set up cost and $997/month for their services. If you go to their webinar “offer”, they save you an incredible amount of money by offering a deal…$997 in SET-UP Fees, First month FREE and then $597/month after that. But this is ONLY good until 5pm tomorrow nite…I bet it will still be there next week. OK, that’s their deal…now this is where it gets interesting. On their website they say their products are backed up by an “iron-clad satisfaction guarantee”. So I went to see what the LATEST guarantee is…and here it is: At any time during the first 30 days, you may decide to cancel the program and you will receive a refund of your first months payment…but…any set up fees will NOT be refunded. Their deal is $997 SET-UP Fee and first month FREE…so, if within the first 30 days you decide to opt out you get back absolutely NOTHING. This has got to be the greatest guarantee in history. This company has figured out a way to offer a guarantee and then when you aren’t satisfied not have to return any of your money.
I screwed up by not printing out the terms of service…I hope you will be more careful than I was. There are many of these Social Media Marketing companies out there. Prices seem to be all over the place…it really is a blind item, so be careful before you buy and make sure you understand what you should be getting. What you can do if you do not get it or what will happen if you want to stop it.