Social Marketing Suite [review]
POS:
Very low costNEG:
Poor interface, cumbersome to use, of questionable valueA lot of you know that I have used, written and promoted Facebook tab builders in the past. In fact one of my most popular products has been a full suite of Facebook tab apps (Tab Engine). However as most of you know a few months ago I removed the WSO for Tab Engine and […]
A lot of you know that I have used, written and promoted Facebook tab builders in the past. In fact one of my most popular products has been a full suite of Facebook tab apps (Tab Engine). However as most of you know a few months ago I removed the WSO for Tab Engine and I stopped actively promoting it (even though it does much more than just build apps). Why? Because statistics show that fan page apps are of little value anymore, since the vast majority of your fans will never actually visit your fan page.
Still some people still like to create apps on fan pages to use as landing pages for their Faceboook ads. They feel that Facebook gives them a lower CPC if they keep a user inside of Facebook. Well first let me say that I have never seen any evidence for this. In fact I have never seen any real evidence that there is any advantage over linking to a app / tab inside of Facebook as opposed to linking to a website. Really this is just a myth that keeps getting perpetuated. Everyone just believes it blindly, because everyone says it.
Still I know that there are a lot of people who are going to be enticed to create Facebook tabs on their fan page and are going to be tempted by the very low cost of Social Marketing Suite, so I decided to take a look at it for myself.
First of all its important to point out that this is not a ‘marketing suite’. Its really a single app. Its just a tab builder. Other ‘suite’ of apps have other apps besides a basic tab builder. But that’s all this is. Just a single app.
The product creators claim that this is an easy to use drag and drop system. However I have found that the interface is very cumbersome and difficult to use. First of all its not really a visual builder. You cant see what you building. Instead you drag around / add etc these little drop down boxes to build your page. You then have to hit the preview to see what its going to actually look like. Need to make a tweak. Go back to the generic view to make your change, then preview again. This is such a pain and is so time consuming.
Further I noticed that while this is technically a drag and drop system the drag and drop itself is not very good. You have very little control over the position of elements. Everything snaps into predefined areas and I found that I could not get things to be where I wanted them to be. Honestly this looks like out dated , low quality tech. Like the kind of system that would have been produced a few years ago.
In the end I got sick of trying to build my test page and just published their template with no changes just because I didn’t want to suffer through using that builder anymore.
Now people are going to be tempted by this because of its very low front end cost of only $17. But really why would you want to spend any money on something that has little real value and is difficult / cumbersome to use? Your just throwing your money away. I’m going to give this one a thumbs down for two reasons. First they really missed the boat. Fan page tab builders are not what they where a couple of years ago. A few years ago they where of use. Today they are questionable at best. Also as far as tab builders go this one is low quality, cumbersome and really is not even worth the $17 they are asking for it. My suggestion: pass on this one.
**Update: 1 hour from launch and there is now a FAQ section. However its obvouse that the FAQ is something they put up with little thought as it really just parrots features. It does not seem that this FAQ are based on actual questions from users (such as from beta testers). At this point there are still no tutorial videos.
A quick note about the reviews I do on this site. The product vendors give me access to their products for free in order for me to do my review. However I make no promises to them regarding the results of my tests or what I will write in my review. Should you click a link that takes you to a sales page for a paid product for sale this link will be an affiliate link and I will be paid a percentage of the sales price should you decide to invest in it.
About the Author
Wish I would have received this email about 10 minutes ago. Now I will have to go and ask for a refund. Thanks for the review and honesty.
What a relief these reviews are Brett. Every spammer and their dog is emailing about this one. Thanks for the heads-up.
Yea this thing really is janky. The interface is very cumbersome. Also there are finally training videos up. A whole 2 of them now. 1 that is 1:48 long and the other is 2:17 long. A whopping 4 minutes of training. Yikes. My favorite thing is when you go their website though. Its just a generic “your site has been setup” landing page.
Who is behind this product? I was on the launch webinar this morning but missed the first minute. I asked but got no answer. I originally assumed it was Karthik Ramani but it was Chad of ChadNicely that performed the presentation. It was also NOT promoted as a tab “engine” or application. The presentation was enticing.
Thank you for your work Brett.
Daniel
Its a fan page tab builder for sure. And a poorly done one. Chad Nicely and Karhik Ramani are both the creators of this product. I believe Karhik did the coding and Chad is the promoter.
Once again Saved Me Money! Probably received over dozen emails already promoting this one, must be one Hell of an affiliate contest…Thanks again Brett…..
$2000 for the top seller. And yep lots of people are rushing for it. You see this is a low cost front end. So its an easy sell for affiliates with a decent $2K top affiliate prize. Because of this people will promote the heck out of it, even though most of them probably never even used it.
Today, John Thornhill released Likepagebuilder software.
Brett, will you review this please?
Send me a link to it and I will have a look.
Well, BrettI got this a little late. I brought the whitelabel product. My I can’t believe that there are still a few honest/upfront IMers left. I will have to ask for a refund. I can’t afford to put my name on something that is not worth me buying. My would definitely lose my reputation by selling this product. I thought very highly of Chad until now. This not the first time a I believe respected IMer has disappointed. He and Karhik are officially off my list of go to people online,
Give me Tab Engine any day. Tab Engine leaves this thing for dead and Tab Engine support is A+
Thanks, Brett. I saw the promotions coming the last couple of days and looked at a video right up to the point where I could see it was a tab builder, and at that point I bailed out. Your previous review of ZoSocial told me everything I needed to know about why I didn’t want to do it. Keep up the good work!
Hey Brett,
I would like to commend you on running such a professional and impartial service. You have not only helped me distinguish the “wheat from the chaff”, but also the reason to unsubscribe from a number of accounts.
I would like you to know that I have bought “Notification Pro” and also recently “Post promotions” Both are very impressive and they will be playing significant roles in my upcoming campaigns.
Great job mate
Brian
Brett, I bought this product and once I got the hang of it I was able to build some nice squeeze pages to send FB ad traffic to. I think the lower cost per click justification is still a valid reason for using tabs, especially squeeze pages in tabs.
I do agree that it’s not what it’s cracked up to be. I had to do a lot of “customization” to get it to do what I wanted it to. The end result isn’t perfect but it’s better than I expected and very professional.
That being said, one of the main reasons I bought it is because I realize that setting up an SSL on my site is expensive and quite complicated. Do you know of another product that solves the SSL problem but has a cleaner and more robust user interface?
Thanks!
Ron
Ron where are you getting that ‘lower cost per click’ justification from? Did you do any actual testing to confirm that you really get a lower cost per click or are you aware of any? I’m asking because I would personally like to see data on this as I have never seen any real evidence at all.
I own a software that creates tabs on fan pages though I dont promote it anymore at all. Its fully drag and drop, but honestly I dont see any benefit to tabs on fan pages which is why I no longer actively sell it. (though I do still and always will maintain it for customers). If you really want to put landing pages on Facebook you might try my newest release which will soon go out to the general public. This does not put tabs on pages but instead makes actual apps on Facebook that are the landing page. The big advantage being that they work on mobile devices without having to do those crazy ‘smart link’ redirects.
Interesting Brett! I’m looking forward to the release.
Regarding the stats… wow. There are so many products in the IM world that state that FB likes it when your ad destination URL keeps users on FB… and therefore the clicks are cheaper. However, after reading your reply, I searched high and low and I can’t find any legitimate evidence of this!
I guess there are other good reasons to still use tabs, but cheaper clicks isn’t one of them:
Thanks for opening my eyes!
Ron
Ron, ever notice that everyone who is saying that you get cheaper clicks is also selling a tab builder. Yet as you just found out no one else is saying this.
I removed the link from your message but most of those reasons that where listed by that article to do Facebook tabs are also not relevant anymore when you consider one other fact. 99% of your fans have never and will never even go to your fan page. Honestly tabs on fan pages are outdated and worth very little anymore.
Can You Please Tell Which Software You Used To Create ‘Tabs’ On Fan Pages ?
And also When Your Product Will Be Released ??
Thanks
I use to sell a fan page creator, though I dont promote it much anymore because as I said several times I dont believe that fan page tabs are very useful anymore.
The one I created and use to sell is tabengine.com
What product release are you referring to? My latest one is SqueezeMatic, which has a general launch date of 8/7/2014
This One From Above Reply:
….If you really want to put landing pages on Facebook you might try my newest release which will soon go out to the general public. This does not put tabs on pages but instead makes actual apps on Facebook that are the landing page. The big advantage being that they work on mobile devices without having to do those crazy ‘smart link’ redirects.
That would be SqueezeMatic Siva, general release will be on the 8th of Aug.
Just to let everyone know, I put in to for a refund. Surprise, no response. No problem, off my list for everything.