Some of the best advice I ever got was from my dad. He said to me, “Neil, look at what people DO, not what they SAY they do”.

This came in very handy when I was learning about online marketing.

I’d see lots of internet gurus talking about the latest online fad such as, Facebook marketing, LinkedIn, Twitter, MySpace or Pinterest.

They talk about it… and then they’d sell a course on it 😀

BUT –

How do the social media gurus market their services?

What do they use to get new clients for their business?

Let’s take a look shall we:

Let’s start with LinkedIn. Well, the latest LinkedIn guru is a guy called Lewis Howes His course Linked Influence has sold a tonne of copies on Clickbank.

So you’d think that Lewis would be all over LinkedIn for marketing right?

Wrong.

Ok that’s a bad start… not a single LinkedIn button. Hmmm… I know, let’s go check out the Facebook gurus!

That’s bound to be different right?

OK, so the current Facebook guru is Mari Smith

This should be great because it’s as easy as pie to put a Facebook button on your site 🙂

Let’s take a look.

Bugger!

Still no link! Just boring old email. Hmmm… this is getting irritating.

Surely one of the social media gurus MUST use their own platform as their preferred method of getting new clients!

Lets try Pinterest!

That’s pretty bloody sexy right now. That will do it, I’m sure.

Amy Porterfield is the Pinterest queen, so let’s see what she does.

Well, this is embarrassing!

OK last chance, Twitter.

Paul Mahony is the Twitter king 🙂

This is it folks! Look for the HUGE Twitter icon on his home page…

OK, I hope I’ve made my point here… My point is not to say social media gurus don’t follow their own advice; my point is to ignore fads and trends and focus on what works instead.

We use social media – but – it is NOT our No 1 strategy for getting new clients. Our No 1 strategy is networking. That’s an offline thing.

So although we’re an online digital marketing agency, and we’re bloody good at lead gen, our most successful strategy is getting out there and meeting people.

As I said, watch what people do not what they say they do.

Our online lead gen works! It forms 70% of our revenue across the board, i.e. utilising Google AdWords, Facebook marketing, social media, LinkedIn etc. etc.

Email marketing is ‘old skool’ but it works!

Networking is ‘old skool’ but it works!

By having a variety of lead gen techniques you’ll grow your business much faster and save yourself a fortune in Guru fees too 😉

Neil

P.S Inga our social media expert here at ROARlocal takes an integrated approach to social media. She uses social media to increase trust and awareness for clients so that our other marketing activities are more successful, and judging by the money we make for our clients, she’s bloody good at it!