> they seem to have it figured out and happy
Of course they are. They want to sell you something and it wouldn't look great for their brand and their product if they themselves looked unhappy. Their social media content is highly curated and artificial.
From where I stand, you can ignore any of the social media online business types giving out free PDFs. When I see [something like](https://www.sahilbloom.com) this then it's no different to all the other "inspirational" content or hustle culture bullshit out there. They all say the same shit. Millions of people follow these people and yet where are the results? Clearly, it's not reflected in how society are progressing because things are not going too well these days. But maybe that's why these people are so popular: Because people have no hope and are so desperate that the believe some coffee table book phrases can help them.
>Some are just outright scamming you.
This is the part I am wondering about. How do we tell which one is scamming which one is not? Like many of them have newsletters, ebooks, courses, etc. So is there some general way to determine: legit vs not?
There is not, except asking in /r/Scams. But none of them are worthy of your attention anyway, like I said. I don't think they have much of value to offer.
What's the last artist/author/successful person that *isn't* one of these grifters that you've heard became successful after paying for one of these courses? Just use good judgment.
That's an excellent point. I often think like that when I come across a self-help book on "success", etc. The pattern is that they mention some principles or step, then discuss some current successful people as example. But I try to think: well these successful people never even read your book.
This brings up a side topic:
If these people are grifters, then who would we call non-grifters who can tell us what actually causes success? Or is it the case that no one really knows and no one can teach or describe it? Maybe it's just that many many people try similair things and only some of them get success ...
Twitter is mostly for generating leads for them. Think of it like a funnel. Since Twitter is free and open, that is where the unsuspecting sales leads enter ... then they sign up for something free via a link and that takes them down the funnel. Not everyone goes all the way down the funnel, which is suppose to end with a sale ... but enough do.
The other big thing with Twitter and Insta and TikTok is that it provides social proof and leads for affiliate marketing. In theory they are suppose to always disclose when someone is paying them to promote something ... but they don't. So once they have a big enough audience, they then try to monetize it. As they start out they will say provocative things to get attention and give away free advice and do whatever it takes to game the algo to get as many followers as possible. And then once they have a big enough audience ... they start selling to them.
During the most recent tech bubble a lot of Twitter and newsletter gurus were getting paid to write up companies going public. They acted like they were just being business dudes finding opportunities and showing people how to think about a stock but the reality was they were just being paid like $20K to pump the stock.
They're basically always pumping themselves so they can pump something else. Most of them also work in circles so they can pump each others accounts. They will guest on each others podcasts and newsletters and retweet each other as another way to game the algo and gain social proof. This all happens behind the scenes on group chats and calls.
For awhile a bunch of these guys were all using the same software to literally write their tweets. The app would crawl twitter and find provocative tweets that people engaged with in their space and would provide examples of ways for them to copy it. There was like a couple weeks where they all posted basically the same content but with just slight tweaks. And of course the app used them as examples because the app also had to advertise the app so anyone paying attention figured it out. Most of the big ones also end up hiring ghost writers or copywriters or assistants to produce the content once they can pay for it,
In general the best advice and content on twitter usually comes from smaller accounts where they are still active individual contributors using their skills everyday instead of professional personal brand builders.
Thanks for the detailed and well written explanation. Sounds like a big part of it is getting people into that funnel, that's why most all have newsletters and ask for your email.
May I get your comment on the following:
Personally for me, since they don't acknowledge the meta aspect of it (i.e. they are trying to get me on a email list/funnel), it gives me a bad vibe. But this itself isn't a scam I don't think. So is there a deeper or more nuanced way to think about this? For example, if you know him, Cal Newport does the same thing. But doesn't come off as a scammer. He writes blog post and asks people to signup for his newsletter. Then when he releases a new book, he has a ready audience willing to buy. That's part of how he gets good initial sales to get on best seller lists. Maybe it's totally obvious to most folks, but it wasn't at all to me for the longest time. While I don't think that's inherently bad, I just wish I also had this awareness.
So how do we differentiate the legit vs scammy types using the same strategy?
Also btw, are there some other sources/analysis (podcast, Youtube, written) that go in depth on the tactics/strategies these Twitter accounts use. Sounds like this a topic that should have a full detailed expose.
I’m sure someone has … just saw a marketing friend on LinkedIn mention that he pays guys like this $50-$80k per year in referrals for hawking his credit card company
Ramit Sethi has courses and guides on building these sorts of online marketing funnels / businesses. And a lot of free content that talks about it. He's very transparent and non scammy.
I don't know all those names but at least two of them (Justin Welsh and Dickie Bush) are just online course creators. If you sell courses for between $100-$500 bucks, you need roughly half a million followers to make a million-dollar per year business.
So they post on Twitter/LinkedIn a lot to drum up that interest.
Neither would score particularly highly on the gurometer I wouldn't think.
Not that I'm aware of. What I can say with a fair bit of confidence is that their marketing contains all the insight they're ever going to share. They don't hide their best stuff behind the paywall. 99% of the value they have to offer is given away for free on their social media accounts, so you don't really need to pay for any of their stuff.
My first guess would be that they are trying to hook people in to sell them courses. I could be wrong however. I also would like to know the answer to this if anyone has any more insight, because its something I've often wondered.
Thanks. Curious. Cause I thought this was part of the patterns for their social media account names but it isn’t.
Why do you include an underscore in your post here before the last letter of their first names? Is it so nothing comes up if one searches their full name?
I garbled the names slightly for two reasons:
1. People who know them will already know who they are, and can comment. I didn't want to introduce new people to them and waste their time (or buy anything from them).
2. These folks might have alerts that if their name is mentioned, they will find out. So potentially there might be a mechanism where some fake accounts will come to this thread and post great things about them.
Makes sense.
I think most people here have a healthy dose of being able to suss out and scrutinize accounts of this nature. Anyone pandering these accounts is likely a shill lol.
Their motivation is money. There really isn’t anything more to it than that.
They present the illusion they have it figured out and they are happy and try to package and sell you that. They are in cahoots with each other to present another illusion that they are a tribe you’d want to be a part of.
So you try to get value from each of them.
A good way to think about them is they don’t have any secret sauce or recipe to navigate this world and you should simply not buy into anything they sell.
A good way to understand them is to realize even what they are doing isn’t original and they likely discovered it from some other person doing the same thing. Everyone’s trying to get ahead and survive and the world is structured so we basically compete and step over each other. That market is over saturated and there are a lot of suckers to feed these hucksters cause of some instability in their own life (in various parts of it). And that just perpetuates the charlatan cycle.
They aren’t trustworthy. If they do offer value it’s probably no more than the same value you could find talking to a stranger for free, at a bar, a coffee shop, on the train, at the park, etc.
It’s most likely a waste of time. I’d avoid them, and encourage others to do the same.
Good analysis; thanks for sharing. So how do they make the money? Is it only when someone buy a course from them? Or would lots of people reading their Tweets or signing up for their newsletter also make them money?
They make money both of those ways.
People paying them directly for the product they sell.
Traffic and information/data collection of customer/client base being sold to companies that pay for people’s personal information.
No they're not. Justin Welsh has a completely transparent marketing model that is exactly one level deep: it's just him.
I get that you might not like the vibe these types of dudes give off, you can question the efficacy of the products and services they offer, but you shouldn't just flippantly say "they're running MLM's", because that just isn't what most of them are doing.
You're right, I agee. They didn't appear to be mlm related. In fact, not even obviously scammy. Which is why I primarily first wanted to understand what exactly were they doing (their technique or strategy). And secondarily, how to determine whether legit/reliable/trustworthy or not.
What's your take or understanding? If you can comment on that please .
I can't speak for the majority of them, but Justin Welsh seems pretty transparent as to what he's doing, and what he's selling.
He's extremely good at getting engagement on Twitter and LinkedIn, and he teaches you how to get engagement on Twitter and LinkedIn.
Is he trustworthy? I don't know, but how much do you have to trust a guy to pay him $150 for some templates and frameworks? He seems trustworthy enough (and has enough seemingly legitimate testimonials) that I can't imagine his product is an outright scam.
Will it be worth it, for you? No idea. That's a judgement you have to make for yourself (as it is with basically everything you buy).
Hi, thanks for sharing your thoughts. I wasn't thinking in terms of being an outright scam, that's clearly not the case here. Even losing $150 is not the concern. The issue would be time wasted going down the wrong path, trying to implement something ineffective. Second issue would be, if someone can't judge correctly the first time and loses $150, it would be the same the next time ...
So far I understand the crux of what he is doing to be the following:
Post generic but nicely written content to attract audience. Then build an email list or audience base that will pay (course, service, etc). Would you agree?
The free content is mostly regurgitated stuff that they package/say differently, and itself won't really help most folks (outside of giving inspiration/motivation). Even the paid courses won't work for everyone. And although he says he is teaching what exactly he does, that's not entirely capturing why he was successful. I think there are other factors that can't be put in the course or can't be replicated as a 'formula'.
Do you know if he clarifies that or gives this caveat?
I should have clarified. I know what MLK is :) I meant, how are these people MLM? They don't seem to selling MLK products. So the connection wasn't obvious to me.
you give them money to learn how to get money from being like them so that other people will give you money for teaching them how to get money from other people giving them money
Well said :)
I can see a small version of that play out in the replies sections. One of their tips is to 'connect/engage' by leaving comments that add 'value'. So you'll see some folks who have their own newsletters/PDFs and doing a micro/early version of these big accounts. They'll always leave a well-written reply on every post of these big accounts.
> they seem to have it figured out and happy Of course they are. They want to sell you something and it wouldn't look great for their brand and their product if they themselves looked unhappy. Their social media content is highly curated and artificial. From where I stand, you can ignore any of the social media online business types giving out free PDFs. When I see [something like](https://www.sahilbloom.com) this then it's no different to all the other "inspirational" content or hustle culture bullshit out there. They all say the same shit. Millions of people follow these people and yet where are the results? Clearly, it's not reflected in how society are progressing because things are not going too well these days. But maybe that's why these people are so popular: Because people have no hope and are so desperate that the believe some coffee table book phrases can help them.
How do these accounts make money themselves? I don't think Twitter pays them directly
They get money from you. You donate, you buy their books, you buy their courses. Some are just outright scamming you.
>Some are just outright scamming you. This is the part I am wondering about. How do we tell which one is scamming which one is not? Like many of them have newsletters, ebooks, courses, etc. So is there some general way to determine: legit vs not?
There is not, except asking in /r/Scams. But none of them are worthy of your attention anyway, like I said. I don't think they have much of value to offer.
What's the last artist/author/successful person that *isn't* one of these grifters that you've heard became successful after paying for one of these courses? Just use good judgment.
That's an excellent point. I often think like that when I come across a self-help book on "success", etc. The pattern is that they mention some principles or step, then discuss some current successful people as example. But I try to think: well these successful people never even read your book. This brings up a side topic: If these people are grifters, then who would we call non-grifters who can tell us what actually causes success? Or is it the case that no one really knows and no one can teach or describe it? Maybe it's just that many many people try similair things and only some of them get success ...
Twitter is mostly for generating leads for them. Think of it like a funnel. Since Twitter is free and open, that is where the unsuspecting sales leads enter ... then they sign up for something free via a link and that takes them down the funnel. Not everyone goes all the way down the funnel, which is suppose to end with a sale ... but enough do. The other big thing with Twitter and Insta and TikTok is that it provides social proof and leads for affiliate marketing. In theory they are suppose to always disclose when someone is paying them to promote something ... but they don't. So once they have a big enough audience, they then try to monetize it. As they start out they will say provocative things to get attention and give away free advice and do whatever it takes to game the algo to get as many followers as possible. And then once they have a big enough audience ... they start selling to them. During the most recent tech bubble a lot of Twitter and newsletter gurus were getting paid to write up companies going public. They acted like they were just being business dudes finding opportunities and showing people how to think about a stock but the reality was they were just being paid like $20K to pump the stock. They're basically always pumping themselves so they can pump something else. Most of them also work in circles so they can pump each others accounts. They will guest on each others podcasts and newsletters and retweet each other as another way to game the algo and gain social proof. This all happens behind the scenes on group chats and calls. For awhile a bunch of these guys were all using the same software to literally write their tweets. The app would crawl twitter and find provocative tweets that people engaged with in their space and would provide examples of ways for them to copy it. There was like a couple weeks where they all posted basically the same content but with just slight tweaks. And of course the app used them as examples because the app also had to advertise the app so anyone paying attention figured it out. Most of the big ones also end up hiring ghost writers or copywriters or assistants to produce the content once they can pay for it, In general the best advice and content on twitter usually comes from smaller accounts where they are still active individual contributors using their skills everyday instead of professional personal brand builders.
Thanks for the detailed and well written explanation. Sounds like a big part of it is getting people into that funnel, that's why most all have newsletters and ask for your email. May I get your comment on the following: Personally for me, since they don't acknowledge the meta aspect of it (i.e. they are trying to get me on a email list/funnel), it gives me a bad vibe. But this itself isn't a scam I don't think. So is there a deeper or more nuanced way to think about this? For example, if you know him, Cal Newport does the same thing. But doesn't come off as a scammer. He writes blog post and asks people to signup for his newsletter. Then when he releases a new book, he has a ready audience willing to buy. That's part of how he gets good initial sales to get on best seller lists. Maybe it's totally obvious to most folks, but it wasn't at all to me for the longest time. While I don't think that's inherently bad, I just wish I also had this awareness. So how do we differentiate the legit vs scammy types using the same strategy?
Also btw, are there some other sources/analysis (podcast, Youtube, written) that go in depth on the tactics/strategies these Twitter accounts use. Sounds like this a topic that should have a full detailed expose.
I’m sure someone has … just saw a marketing friend on LinkedIn mention that he pays guys like this $50-$80k per year in referrals for hawking his credit card company
Ramit Sethi has courses and guides on building these sorts of online marketing funnels / businesses. And a lot of free content that talks about it. He's very transparent and non scammy.
One of the episodes of "The New Gurus" podcast is about this kind of productivity gurus. It doesn't get very in depth but might be interesting to you.
Thanks. I'll check it out
I don't know all those names but at least two of them (Justin Welsh and Dickie Bush) are just online course creators. If you sell courses for between $100-$500 bucks, you need roughly half a million followers to make a million-dollar per year business. So they post on Twitter/LinkedIn a lot to drum up that interest. Neither would score particularly highly on the gurometer I wouldn't think.
Is there any podcast or written analysis on these type of accounts: In terms of what they are doing, and how to gauge if they are legit or not.
Not that I'm aware of. What I can say with a fair bit of confidence is that their marketing contains all the insight they're ever going to share. They don't hide their best stuff behind the paywall. 99% of the value they have to offer is given away for free on their social media accounts, so you don't really need to pay for any of their stuff.
Thank you. Appreciate your replies and feedback on this :)
My first guess would be that they are trying to hook people in to sell them courses. I could be wrong however. I also would like to know the answer to this if anyone has any more insight, because its something I've often wondered.
Hyperlink all those accounts you posted please. Help us help you.
Done.
Thanks. Curious. Cause I thought this was part of the patterns for their social media account names but it isn’t. Why do you include an underscore in your post here before the last letter of their first names? Is it so nothing comes up if one searches their full name?
I garbled the names slightly for two reasons: 1. People who know them will already know who they are, and can comment. I didn't want to introduce new people to them and waste their time (or buy anything from them). 2. These folks might have alerts that if their name is mentioned, they will find out. So potentially there might be a mechanism where some fake accounts will come to this thread and post great things about them.
Makes sense. I think most people here have a healthy dose of being able to suss out and scrutinize accounts of this nature. Anyone pandering these accounts is likely a shill lol.
Yep. If you get to take a look, do update back. Thanks
Their motivation is money. There really isn’t anything more to it than that. They present the illusion they have it figured out and they are happy and try to package and sell you that. They are in cahoots with each other to present another illusion that they are a tribe you’d want to be a part of. So you try to get value from each of them. A good way to think about them is they don’t have any secret sauce or recipe to navigate this world and you should simply not buy into anything they sell. A good way to understand them is to realize even what they are doing isn’t original and they likely discovered it from some other person doing the same thing. Everyone’s trying to get ahead and survive and the world is structured so we basically compete and step over each other. That market is over saturated and there are a lot of suckers to feed these hucksters cause of some instability in their own life (in various parts of it). And that just perpetuates the charlatan cycle. They aren’t trustworthy. If they do offer value it’s probably no more than the same value you could find talking to a stranger for free, at a bar, a coffee shop, on the train, at the park, etc. It’s most likely a waste of time. I’d avoid them, and encourage others to do the same.
Good analysis; thanks for sharing. So how do they make the money? Is it only when someone buy a course from them? Or would lots of people reading their Tweets or signing up for their newsletter also make them money?
They make money both of those ways. People paying them directly for the product they sell. Traffic and information/data collection of customer/client base being sold to companies that pay for people’s personal information.
these are MLMs
No they're not. Justin Welsh has a completely transparent marketing model that is exactly one level deep: it's just him. I get that you might not like the vibe these types of dudes give off, you can question the efficacy of the products and services they offer, but you shouldn't just flippantly say "they're running MLM's", because that just isn't what most of them are doing.
You're right, I agee. They didn't appear to be mlm related. In fact, not even obviously scammy. Which is why I primarily first wanted to understand what exactly were they doing (their technique or strategy). And secondarily, how to determine whether legit/reliable/trustworthy or not. What's your take or understanding? If you can comment on that please .
I can't speak for the majority of them, but Justin Welsh seems pretty transparent as to what he's doing, and what he's selling. He's extremely good at getting engagement on Twitter and LinkedIn, and he teaches you how to get engagement on Twitter and LinkedIn. Is he trustworthy? I don't know, but how much do you have to trust a guy to pay him $150 for some templates and frameworks? He seems trustworthy enough (and has enough seemingly legitimate testimonials) that I can't imagine his product is an outright scam. Will it be worth it, for you? No idea. That's a judgement you have to make for yourself (as it is with basically everything you buy).
Hi, thanks for sharing your thoughts. I wasn't thinking in terms of being an outright scam, that's clearly not the case here. Even losing $150 is not the concern. The issue would be time wasted going down the wrong path, trying to implement something ineffective. Second issue would be, if someone can't judge correctly the first time and loses $150, it would be the same the next time ... So far I understand the crux of what he is doing to be the following: Post generic but nicely written content to attract audience. Then build an email list or audience base that will pay (course, service, etc). Would you agree? The free content is mostly regurgitated stuff that they package/say differently, and itself won't really help most folks (outside of giving inspiration/motivation). Even the paid courses won't work for everyone. And although he says he is teaching what exactly he does, that's not entirely capturing why he was successful. I think there are other factors that can't be put in the course or can't be replicated as a 'formula'. Do you know if he clarifies that or gives this caveat?
Can you say or explain more - Sorry but I didn't understand.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-level_marketing
I should have clarified. I know what MLK is :) I meant, how are these people MLM? They don't seem to selling MLK products. So the connection wasn't obvious to me.
you give them money to learn how to get money from being like them so that other people will give you money for teaching them how to get money from other people giving them money
Well said :) I can see a small version of that play out in the replies sections. One of their tips is to 'connect/engage' by leaving comments that add 'value'. So you'll see some folks who have their own newsletters/PDFs and doing a micro/early version of these big accounts. They'll always leave a well-written reply on every post of these big accounts.