Every marketer and the whole world  seems to tell you, that you need to be all-in and engaged in social media, building a following on every platform, advertising on every platform, and so on. They want you to do it all right?

Oh, and to completely dodge the ROI question, they tell you that this is what good, engaging brands do. Right? They tell you it’s all an important part of a balanced marketing breakfast? A natural part of the mix, or so they say. And there’s billions of dollars in keeping the game going, the services to automate posts, engagements, following, advertising you name it. A discerning person might think of it as one big bubble. Only this one is inflating big businesses and bankrupting the little guys.

Playing the game as prescribed is crippling business resources. All those white hat, organic efforts to play by the “rules” aren’t really being played by the winners.

We’ve put together a no-nonsense, NSFW, Dark Arts Guide to Social Media. This is the guide for winners.

In this guide, you’ll learn the following:

• Over 40 app recommendations to add to your toolbelt.
• The 3 metrics you really need to pay attention to in order of priority.
• 2 Epic Autopilot tools you can use with Instagram / Twitter / Pinterest
• 13 Apps that will help you rapidly grow your following – THIS IS WHY YOU CAME! DON’T LIE!

We define winning differently.

Winning is not letting the cost of acquiring your customers (CAC) exceed their lifetime transactional value (LTV). Do you even know how much all the time, energy, attention and money you’re spending to acquire a customer? Do you know their (LTV)?

Winners are discerning. They don’t trust others to define key performance indicators. Winners prioritize metrics they can track based upon criteria in the sequence of generating actual business, not indicators of indicators, nor equivocating in the mildest click with a strong commercial commitment.

Winners don’t win by wasting time and money trying to convince everyone to follow them. Winners command value and attention through method, mechanism and bending their surrounding environment to their will.

So if you’re not getting positive results, maybe the light and fluffy best practices aren’t the best use of your resources, maybe it’s time to redefine the goals, the metrics, everything. Maybe it’s time to stop playing nice. Maybe it’s time to learn through the lens NOT DEFINED by the people who’ve been draining your marketing budgets for the better part of the decade. Maybe it’s time to stop playing by their rules and embrace the so called dark arts.

Check it out here.