Russell J., Advertising Manager, Ontario

Background:

Russell is an Advertising Manager at a company that offers internet marketing solutions in Ontario, Canada. He handles a team with an expertise in marketing and communications, advertising concepts and brand management. He also works as a freelance Marketing Consultant for various business firms.

Advertising return of investments in an acceptable level of risk, and he thinks not having enough budget should not hamper advertising success of small businesses. Despite this belief, he was still at a loss as to what would be the first course to take.

He stumbled upon Buy Legit Likes when one of his clients wanted a quick presence on Twitter in less than two weeks. Russel is known for his exceptional skills at marketing start-up businesses and local enterprises. He decided to buy Twitter followers for this particular client. His first purchase was a 1000 Twitter follower package for only $17 and was astounded by the warm and welcoming customer support. He was as much impressed with the services of which he was doubtful would work at first. Now he uses not only the Twitter services but the rest of the social media services as well.

The Story:

Advertising is one of the most important aspects of any business, whether they are new or have long been established. This is to enable them to gain a competitive advantage in the online market place. The competition is what drives Russell to try every strategy and tactic in marketing and the reason why he has always been successful.

But he hit a wall some months ago when one of his clients demanded an instant ad exposure on several social media networks such as Facebook and most importantly Twitter, with barely enough budget to cover the costs. Russel did not turn down the challenge because he believes that an advertiser's objective is to maximize advertising return of investments in an acceptable level of risk, and he thinks not having enough budget should not hamper advertising success of small businesses. Despite this belief, he was still at a loss as to what would be the first course to take.

He started with Facebook. At that time, his client already has a Facebook page, but it was poorly created and managed. The page has only 50 likes even when it was created 3 months ago. He felt disheartened that the client has taken little to no action to at the least improve the page. As well, he checked out the clients Twitter account and he saw its state worse than Facebook. Another problem he was faced with is the fact that he isn't too familiar with the ad work on either Facebook or Twitter.

Instead of learning the ropes and waste precious time, Russel did what advertiser's shy away from most of the time - quick and easy solution. He thought that the client's products and services needed attention and a boost first before it can build a strong foundation forged on deep brand-client relationship. In short, he aims to drive sales first before branding to make up for the marketing budget that the client seems to lack.

With that in mind, Russell started scouring the web for an immediate ad solution. Since the client wants social media exposure that is quick, he checked out social networks such as Twitter and Facebook and searched out people who claimed to be social media experts. Then he stumbled upon @arcodes and was drawn to the twitter description "We provide high quality social media supplies such as likes, followers, views and more. Contact us at 1-877-435-5955." Russell was intrigued if such market exists, and if it is effective.

After much thought, Russell called the number plastered on Twitter and the website of Buy Legit Likes to ask some questions. He was met with a welcoming and cheerful voice. The customer support he says is, "amiable and competent in answering inquiries." He was not only referring for a one-time encounter since he called several times before he decided to actually buy Twitter followers. He first bought the cheapest Twitter package, which is the 1000 Twitter follower package worth $17 dollars. Besides, he can actually get a refund if the promised service does not work, and the results are not achieved. He thought that either way, he had nothing to lose.

Strategy:

Russell employed a short-term solution to achieve a long term marketing plan. Since the client is short of funds needed to launch a proper marketing campaign on social media, he thought of getting the funds first for his client before proceeding to ad placements, search engine optimization and social media advertising such as promoted products (promoted tweets, accounts, and trends).

Results:

Now the Twitter account of his clients has received as much as 2000 Twitter followers, twice many to the followers bought at Buy Legit Likes. The great news is that, it has become much easier to push promotions cost-effectively to existing clients and to prospects.

Russell is now focusing with advertising campaigns via YouTube videos, giving out discounts and freebies. At the same time, he is trying to learn social media marketing, its ins and outs and how it influences branding and online exposure. According to him, "Social Media is not new, but it is for me in terms of marketing territory. I never really thought of social networks having merit in internet marketing. I only saw Facebook and Twitter as a waste of time and that people really don't click nor value ads on it."

Conclusion:

Internet marketing is not only limited to pay-per-click ads or affiliate marketing. Thus, it pays for a marketer or an advertiser to keep learning different ways to promote and advertise a brand or product. Social media is already at its peak when it comes to online marketing. Popular brands such as McDonalds and Coke are taking advantage of Facebook and Twitter. Even small enterprises or start-ups are making a quick name for themselves by merely being present and engaging in these social networks. Furthermore, buying Twitter followers is only one of the many social media marketing strategies online. There are a lot more social media tactics that can help in giving value to a brand's online exposure and Russell is slowly discovering and applying each one he finds.

Russell J., Advertising Manager, Ontario

Background:

Cassandra owns a small sandwich franchise in New York. She claims to offer the finest quality meats and toppings on freshly baked breads. At one time, she struggled to grow her network on Twitter but with the help of Buy Legit Likes, she now has over 5,000 Twitter followers. The great alternative to buy Twitter followers as complement to her marketing strategies has helped her business grow in so many ways.

The Story:

Cassandra's small business is already on Twitter and Facebook. She admits that the majority of her customers are not much into social networks and if some of them are, most of them do not know of the presence of her business on Twitter or Facebook. She already tried several strategies like including her business' Twitter handle and Facebook page on her calling card, but to no avail, the Twitter followers and Facebook fans barely moved from its 50 following mark.

She applied other ways to encourage her customers to follow her online. She placed the business' social networking accounts below the menu and invited most of them to follow her. It worked, and her following grew to over a hundred after three weeks.

It was her Facebook page that gained a lot of attentions and engagement. The Timeline feature did its best to secure a wide space for her sandwiches and promotions. When she released her "50 Shares for a Sandwich" promotion, she was able to get about a hundred more fans. But when she did the same on her Twitter account with "50 Retweets for a Sandwich," she was met with disappointing results.

Only a few people were interested. What was successful on Facebook, have a tragic result on Twitter. One can even say, no one really wanted the sandwich, and that people have more pressing matters to attend to than claim a sandwich won through retweets.

The problem with her campaign lies when she treated Facebook and Twitter the same in ways of promotion. There are several reasons that she now knew and have cited to be the factors of the promotional epic fail.

Cassandra explains, "Facebook has a more engaged audience because of the nature of the network of people on it. People on Facebook are connected in a personal level, thus, when one customer of mine shared the promo, her friends immediately liked my fan page and started joining the promo. I was able to gather more than a hundred fans. It might be a bit confusing why only a hundred liked the page. It's because I only specified share and did not include liking my fan page. So some people who came and claimed the sandwiches did not become fans. More or less, I lost more than a hundred fans, but it turned out well, because I was able to get more customers."

But why did the Twitter campaign become an even greater failure? Cassandra again emphasized the difference of Twitter and Facebook. Twitter is composed of diverse and fastidious individuals. They need to be courted and pleased first before they trust you and your product. Another factor that contributes to the failure is the fact that on Twitter, you need to have the number (a large following) in order to impress followers. Naturally, they weren't impressed with the following of Cassandra's business. So, only her regular customers were able to avail of her promo. What about her customer' followers, you ask? Most users on Twitter follow people they don't personally know, so the advantage she got on Facebook was absent on Twitter.

Strategy:

When Cassandra browsed through the internet looking for tips on how to get more Twitter followers, she came upon the Buy Legit Likes blog. She read through several posts on social media marketing and took notes on some of them to apply to her business plans. And then she realized that the website owning the blog sells Twitter followers and other social media products. Immediately, she checked out the website, and the packages offered. She then called customer service to verify its legitimacy and to ask a few questions to set her mind at peace on her planned purchase.

According to Cassandra "The customer representative was very kind and patient, even when I asked too many questions and some which I repeatedly asked. I was afraid to be deceived. Buy Legit Likes does have an excellent offer, so I decided to buy Twitter followers."

Cassandra bought the 2,000 Twitter followers package for only $32. She was able to make up for all other expenses on advertising such as the reprints on business cards, menus, and flyers by just a single purchase of Twitter followers.

Results:

Today, Cassandra has over 5,000 Twitter followers on her account. 3,000 of her followers are actively retweeting and engaging with her funny and promotional tweets. Not only that, her business is receiving more customers and because of this, Cassandra has decided to expand and is thinking of franchising opportunities.

Her Facebook fan page is growing at a steady pace as well, alongside her Twitter business account. In fact, she gets most of her traffic from Facebook. Yes. Cassandra already got herself a website, where she can display all her mouth-watering sandwiches.

"If I haven't discovered Buy Legit Likes, I can only sit and wonder why I am not getting any more of the social following that other small businesses have. Buying Twitter followers is the best move I have ever done for my business. With less effort and time, I'm able to expand my Twitter network and build my credibility online. Simply, with a little help from Buy Legit Likes," admits Cassandra.

Conclusion:

Cassandra did not lose focus on her goal, which is to get more customers coming, even when she targets to grow her social following. It is true that buying Twitter followers can help reach a wider audience for a business, but if it is not augmented with genuine interaction and engaging online activities. The number of followers will remain a number and won't do anything to help her business grow.

Naresh M., Internet Marketer, New Delhi

Background:

An Internet marketer in New Delhi, who offers freelance SEO services. Naresh once had problems with client websites not receiving enough traffic and experiencing a high bounce rate. He discovered Buy Legit Likes and then tried to buy Twitter followers. Now, he uses the service to build his clients' traffic and social media presence.

The Story:

Naresh is a small time, freelancer who offers SEO services to clients from the United States and the United Kingdom. He does well on providing great back links from article directory submission websites and blog networks like BuildMyRank or most commonly referred as the BMR. However, after several Google updates/algorithm changes, he began receiving complaints about devalued links and unranked keywords. This placed his source of living down the drain. Let us hear how Naresh brought his position back up as a search engine optimizer through an interview.

When did you learn about the problems of your clients?

I already have an idea that complaints will be coming in, especially from those clients I have SEOd before. You see, I have read about the Panda update all over the internet the moment it hit. The Panda update (which you should know too) targeted link farms as well as those links from less valuable sites. Most of the clients I received complaints from are from those times when reciprocal linking is still a very potent search engine optimization strategy, albeit it leans toward the black hat way (methods not approved by Google and other search engines).

I always keep myself updated on Google's algorithm changes. Despite the updates, I still thought I could get away with it, so I never heeded what the whole SEO community is talking about. Then I paid the price and was long absent from the business trying to grasp how the new and grey hat SEO works. I still don't believe the white hat way is the only effective way (laughs).

Can you explain exactly what you were doing when you weren't optimizing websites?

I have several websites of my own, so I tried to do split testing. One website, I tried what most search engine optimizers commonly recommend, which is social media and on the other website, I continued to do link exchanges but in lesser numbers, and I tried to be very careful in choosing the websites I change links with. I also got one of my other websites optimized for the two strategies, social media and link exchanges.

What is the result of your split testing?

Surprisingly, the social-media-tested website and the website with mixed strategies showed positive results, so I ditched the second strategy and continuously observed the effective ones.

How did Buy Legit Likes fit in your story?

Ah, Buy Legit Likes did a great job for my websites. Since these two websites were treated with social media, like shares, tweets, plus ones and social bookmarks, I achieved easy traffic on my websites. However, I have to eliminate the first test with pure social media strategy applied, since Google placed only enough value to traffic from social networks, which for me is not really satisfactory. I think Google or the search engines still rank websites with credible back links better.

Buy Legit Likes helped me in securing one thing I don't have the luxury of time to do, seeing that I have to make up for my income loss. I stumbled upon Buy Legit Likes through a Facebook friend who commented on a fan page. The discussion was intriguing, about how social media increases ROI and web traffic, so I followed the thread. At the later part, when I clicked on a link, I realized that the website that owns the fan page sells Twitter followers.

It was that time when I have ventured to several time consuming tasks like social media exchanges, follow Friday and mass following and have yet to reap the benefits I expected. So I tried the service and bought Twitter followers.

What happened after you decided to buy Twitter followers?

After I tried the Twitter service, I immediately received an increased traffic to my website, probably the followers checking out who they were following. I surmised that the service offers real followers because I experienced several unfollows but that was okay and was a proof that I wasn't cheated by the Buy Legit Likes team.

My Twitter engagement also increased with most of my followers asking me about SEO stuffs, which I gladly shared information on. That was when I started marketing my SEO expertise again with a great idea formed on my mind.

Results:

Naresh continued his freelance job at providing SEO services, now with social media as a complement strategy. He is a regular client of Buy Legit Likes and is one of the first to sign up to the reseller program, giving him a cost-effective way to build his clients' social media presence, especially on Twitter. He is a valued customer of Buy Legit Likes and is one of the many people who proved that social proof is a huge asset in acquiring traffic, conversions and sales. Naresh buys Twitter followers not to resell them at profitable rates, but to use the followers to support the marketing campaigns of his clients and their websites. He also uses it to continue expanding his network of prospects for his SEO business. He already revealed plans of creating a small company that offers SEO.

Conclusion:

Search engine optimization is not the only successful method in internet marketing. In fact, social media is gaining leverage over search optimization, since most of the online population relies on social networks to get information, updates, news and entertainment rather than do countless searches on search engines. Businesses know of this slow shift as Naresh also discovered. Thus, they are maximizing the benefits that these social networking websites provide. Buy Legit Likes also knows of the trend and has used it to gain advantage. Clients, like Naresh, seek to buy social media services to hasten their online exposure and concentrate more on the important aspects of business, which are engagement and sales.