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Updated: February 13, 2024

22 Comments Reviews

Review: Tai Lopez Social Media Marketing Agency

A deep look at Tai Lopez's SMMA course

This is a review of Tai Lopez’s Social Media Marketing Agency (SMMA).

We bought the course and spent several hours going through the content and community.

Social Media Marketing Agency 2.0 – Key Points
  About

A video-heavy course that teaches you how to build a social media marketing agency.

💰  Price

Full price: $997. Often on sale for $197 or less. (check current price)

😍  Pros

Value packed and comprehensive training, taught by multiple experts.

😩  Cons

Poorly organized, outdated in places.

  Verdict

If you enjoy social media and are willing to work hard, this course will serve you well.

Overall Rating
4.0/5

Jump to…

Social Media Marketing Agency – Background Information

Tai Lopez’s Social Media Marketing Agency 2.0 is an online course that promises to teach you “how to start your own marketing agency with social media and get small businesses to hire you.”

According to a sales page for the course, more than 35,000 people have signed up to date.

See our quick video review of SMMA here:

The full program is organized into 4 main modules:

  • Phase 1 – Business Set-Up
  • Phase 2 – Mastering Social Media Marketing
  • Phase 3 – Acquiring Clients
  • Phase 4 – Automating, Servicing & Building Your Team 

There are also dozens of bonus lessons, archived monthly live calls, and an active Facebook group for students.

The full course consists mainly of video lessons from a variety of teachers, with 64+ hours of material available as soon as you sign up.

The dashboard interface of Tai Lopez’s Social Media Marketing Agency 2.0

This SMMA 2.0 review aims to help you decide if the course is a good fit for you.

To learn about our review process, click here.

This review is a joint effort between Niall Doherty (founder of eBiz Facts) and Michelle Daly (Harvest Software).

Our process:

  1. We paid $97 for access to the course, via a discount offer to Tai Lopez’s newsletter subscribers.
  2. We both went through the course materials and took notes.
  3. Niall joined the private Facebook group for members and had a look around.
  4. We discussed our impressions of the course, what we liked, what we didn’t like, etc.
  5. We agreed we were happy with the course overall and would not be requesting a refund.
  6. We searched online for other reviews of the course to see if there were any key points we missed.
  7. We wrote a first draft of this review.
  8. We sent the draft to our Freedom Business Builder community and asked for feedback.
  9. We made our final edits and published the review.

Note: We may earn a commission if you decide to make a purchase through referral links in this review. Read our full disclosure here.

Pros Of Social Media Marketing Agency 2.0

Comprehensive

There are more than 64 hours of video training inside the full program, making up 130+ lessons on all aspects of building a social media marketing agency, such as:

  • Naming and forming your company
  • Finding your niche
  • Building a website
  • How to build a following on all the major social media channels (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.)
  • Facebook ads
  • Google ads
  • Copywriting for social media
  • Email marketing
  • Building funnels
  • Search Engine Optimization
  • Retargeting
  • Finding clients / Lead generation
  • Closing the sale
  • Negotiation
  • Increasing lifetime value of clients
  • Outsourcing
  • Scaling the business
  • See a full listing of all the course content on the sales page

Within the program you’ll also find case studies from successful students, and the live calls keep you updated on new trends and best practices in social media.

For the most part, the videos are entertaining and easy to watch.

If anything, there may be too much content within the course, to the point where some students might find it overwhelming (more on this later).

Taught By Multiple Experts

Unlike The 67 Steps (reviewed here), a course where every core lesson is taught by Tai Lopez himself, Social Media Marketing Agency 2.0 is taught by multiple digital marketing experts.

In the 4 core modules alone, we counted 34 different teachers throughout the lessons, and at least a dozen more appear in the bonus sections and on the live calls.

While the many-teachers approach has some drawbacks (see below), the big benefit is that you get to absorb the expertise and perspectives of multiple professionals all within one course.

Click here to see a list of teachers within SMMA 2.0

List of teachers in the 4 core modules of SMMA 2.0

(Note that this may not be a complete list, as new lessons are regularly added/updated in SMMA.)

Name Title 1
Tai Lopez Social Media Expert + Investor
Terry Tai’s head consultant
Nicholas Kirchner Founder of Pixsuls
Chin Gregory Founder and CEO of CGM Group
Peter Wang Project Manager, Knowledge Society
Adam Torres Author & International Speaker. CEO of Century City Wealth Management.
Joe Soto Social media agency specialist
Franziska Iseli Author and Co-founder, BasicBananas.com
Nathan Chan Founder & Publisher, Foundr Magazine
Dan Fleyshman Author, Angel Investor of 24 Companies
Raymond Duke Sales Funnel Copywriter
Alex Mehr Entrepreneur, Investor, Start-Up Advisor
Sean Vosler Joint Venture Manager at Knowledge Society
Chris Record CEO & Founder, Tecademics.com
Jeremy Haynes CEO/Founder Megalodon Marketing
Nick Unsworth Founder & CEO of Life On Fire
Felix Hartmann CEO of Fund This, author
Anthony Morrison Author, Entrepreneur, AnthonyMorrison.com
Adrian Morrison Author, Online Marketer, AdrianMorrison.com
Bryson Hilton CEO & Founder of Lead Experiments, Investor
Mike Arce CEO & Founder of Loud Rumor, theGSDshow.com
Rohan Sheth CEO of RohanShethConsulting.com
Josh Earp Multi-Billionaire Consultant, Business Growth Strategist
Michael Crouch CEO of BlueCamp.com
David J. Woodbury Entrepreneur, Affiliate Marketer
Peter Dulay Conversion Giant
Braydon Ross Owner of Ross Consulting, Investor, Public Speaker
Paul Getter The Internet Marketing Nerd, Marketing Expert
Jaiden Gross Social Media Marketing Specialist
Zach Johnson Founder of Funnel Dash
Austin Distel Founder of Remote CEO
Billy Gene Paid Advertising
Grant Cardone Author, sales trainer, social media marketer
Jennifer Baca CEO of Knowledge Society

Active Facebook Group

Also in contrast to Tai’s 67 Steps program, SMMA 2.0 has an active Facebook group, with ~22,000 members and dozens of posts every day.

Tai Lopez social media marketing agency: Facebook group
The SMMA private Facebook group

While many of the discussions in the group tend to be rather basic, and there doesn’t appear to be a lot of moderation going on, for the most part we found it to be a supportive and encouraging community, and a nice add-on to the SMMA course itself.

Real Success Stories

We’ve learned to be skeptical of success stories displayed on course sales pages, but we can’t discredit the numerous success stories we found posted behind closed doors in the SMMA private Facebook group.

We screenshotted a few below, with names/identities hidden for privacy.

Tai Lopez social media marketing agency student success
Tai Lopez social media marketing agency student success
Tai Lopez social media marketing agency student success
Tai Lopez social media marketing agency student success
Tai Lopez social media marketing agency student success
Tai Lopez social media marketing agency student success
Tai Lopez social media marketing agency student success
Tai Lopez social media marketing agency student success
Tai Lopez social media marketing agency student success

Again, those are all reports from students of SMMA 2.0, posted within the program’s private Facebook group, so only other students who had already paid for the program could see them.

(Also: given that there are so many Tai Lopez scam accusations out there, we made sure to check out the profiles of all the people sharing those success stories, and yes, they all appear to be real people living real lives.)

Excellent Value For Money

We’ve seen reports that when SMMA was first released in 2016, the price tag was as high as $997.

Nowadays the “everyday price” is listed as $697, but you can usually find it available for $197 or less, and for that price it’s great value.

We ended up paying $97 for access, and while the course isn’t perfect (see below), we certainly feel we got our money’s worth.

We’ve yet to come across another course that offers such comprehensive training from so many experts, with a thriving private community and dozens of believable success stories to boot.

If SMMA is priced higher than $200 right now, your best bet is to sign up for Tai’s newsletter, where you’ll be notified of any future sales.

Cons Of Social Media Marketing Agency 2.0

Poorly Organized

Perhaps the initial release of SMMA was well structured and organized, but the 2.0 update in 2018 seemed to muddle things up quite a bit.

A few examples to illustrate:

  • There are two welcome videos for the course: one from a guy named Terry – who never appears in the course again – seems to have been the original intro; and another from Tai Lopez himself, introducing the updated version of the course.
Two welcome videos in Social Media Marketing Agency
  • Phase 3 of the course is entitled “Acquiring Clients,” but there are multiple videos in Phase 2 (“Mastering Social Media Marketing”) on the topic of acquiring clients, including one lesson called, “20 Ways To Find Clients.”
  • You’ll often find two or more teachers covering the same topic in different lessons, and occasionally contradicting each other. For example, Peter Wang recommends building your website on Squarespace or Weebly, while Sean Vosler later recommends building your website on Wix.
  • There is a whole section beyond the 4 core modules/phases entitled “Facebook Marketing,” which features 6 lessons from Nicholas Kirchner. It’s hard to tell if this is the definitive material on Facebook ads within the course, or if the several other lessons by different teachers on the same topic should take precedence.

In short, while there is a ton of helpful and insightful material in the course, it seems to have been thrown together in haphazard fashion, and it’s left to you, the student, to resolve all the disorder and contradiction.

Outdated In Places

The original course content – approximately 40% of the course material – was created in 2016, and given how fast digital media evolves, it’s become quite dated already.

For example, you’ll still find videos of Tai talking about the “new” iPhone 7, and there’s no mention in the course of GDPR.

The live calls do help to offset the outdated material, but it’s left to the student to check for themselves if the best practices and recommendations in each lesson are still valid.

Which, in fairness, is easy enough to do via the private Facebook group.

Some Teachers Much Better Than Others

As noted, there are at least 34 different teachers in the 4 core modules of the course alone, and the quality of their material and delivery varies quite a bit.

Some teachers, like Tai Lopez himself, come across unprepared, long-winded and overly informal 1, whereas others offer very practical and concise tips and recommendations.

It can also be a little disconcerting to see a new face every lesson or two, requiring you to adjust to a different style of teaching/presentation each time.

It’s also worth mentioning that out of those 34 teachers, only two are women. So there’s that.

Mostly Video, Little Text

We didn’t expect to see a full written version of the material covered in each video, given that Tai Lopez is known primarily for audio-visual content.

But it would have been nice to see at least a few bullets below each video, summarizing the key points and linking to relevant information and resources.

The best you get though is the (very) occasional timestamp listing, like this:

A rare example of timestamps listed below a video. Most lessons only have a 1-2 sentence description below the video.

Given that, it can be frustrating referring back to the course material to find a specific recommendation or piece of advice. You often have to rewatch long stretches of video to find what you’re looking for.

8 More Things You Should Know About Social Media Marketing Agency 2.0

  1. When signing up for the course you may be given the option of buying a “Quickstart” version of SMMA. Note that the quickstart version contains only about 20% of the course materials, but it’s easy to upgrade to the full version later.
  2. While it is promoted as a “4-month training program” you get access to all the course materials as soon as you sign up to the full version of SMMA 2.0. The only thing you can’t access immediately is the private Facebook group, which you have to request access to via email. The SMMA support team took 3 days to reply to our request to join the group.
  3. One selling point of the course is an “official certification” once you complete all the lessons 2. It looks like this:
Example SMMA certificate of completion, sourced from the private SMMA Facebook group. Name blurred for privacy.

However, we’ve seen many comments within the SMMA Facebook group from students saying no client has ever asked if they were certified. As one student put it:

“Certification means nothing. Just like a college degree doesn’t guarantee you a job. Solving problems & being valuable to others will get you paid.”

  1. While you can get started implementing what you learn in the course right away at no extra cost, it is recommended within SMMA that you spend more money on registering your business, buying various tools, etc. As a general rule, you should expect to invest more money in your business the bigger/faster you want to grow it.
  2. If you’re not happy after buying Tai Lopez’s Social Media Marketing program, well, tough luck. As per the terms of use, you are not entitled to a refund:

Unless otherwise stated on the specific Product’s or Service’s sales page and order form and/or in these Terms, there are no refunds allowed for the purchase of the Social Media Marketing Agency Program.

  1. We did request a partial refund on our purchase however. We bought the course for $97 in a promotion via Tai’s email newsletter, with the understanding that the price would soon be going back up to $697. A couple of weeks later, we checked the SMMA sales page and saw the program available for only $19. So we contacted support and requested a refund for the difference. Instead they offered us free access to Tai’s Ecomm Agency program, which we accepted.
  2. With the above in mind, we strongly advise you hold off buying SMMA 2.0 until you see it priced at $197 or less (sign up to Tai’s newsletter and he’ll notify you when there’s a sale happening). It’s still decent value at the “everyday price” of $697, but get it for less than $200 and it’s a steal.
  3. Extroverts and natural born salespeople will find it easier to succeed with this course, as finding and closing clients is a key part of the process. There is quite a lot of content within SMMA teaching sales, but we know from personal experience that salesmanship comes much easier to some people than others.

Do We Recommend Tai Lopez’s Social Media Marketing Agency 2.0?

Yes, we do recommend SMMA 2.0.

We’ve yet to come across another course that offers such comprehensive training from so many experts at such a low price – provided you buy it on sale – with a thriving private community and dozens of believable success stories to boot.

Even if you only watch the videos and take half-assed action, you’re going to get a whole lot more out of 20 hours invested in SMMA than 20 hours binge-watching Netflix.

Who Should Buy SMMA 2.0?

  • Anyone interested in building a social media marketing agency
    It’s not the most concise training, or the most up-to-date, but it is comprehensive and very good value for money (assuming you buy it on sale). If you enjoy social media, and are willing to work hard, SMMA 2.0 will serve you well.

If SMMA is priced higher than $200 right now, your best bet is to sign up for Tai’s newsletter, where you’ll be notified of any future sales.

4 Tips For Getting The Most Out Of SMMA 2.0

If you do decide to buy the course, these tips will help ensure you get your money’s worth…

  • Start the damn thing. Tai Lopez has said that 10% of people who buy his courses never even log in. 3 Don’t be one of those people.
  • There are 64+ hours of video in the course. You can get through them much faster without losing comprehension using this speed hack. (We watched many of the videos at 2x speed.)
  • Take notes as you go through all the materials. This will force you to pay more attention, you can jot down tasks and ideas as they occur to you, and it makes it easy to find and refer back to parts of the course later.
  • Answer the questions at the end of each lesson.

Do You Like The Sound Of Social Media Marketing Agency 2.0?

If so, click here to join or learn more about it.

If not, here are some other resources you might find helpful for building a social media business:

Read more about Tai Lopez

This article is part of a 9-part series:

Have you bought Social Media Marketing Agency?

Please consider leaving a review below  – good or bad – doesn’t matter so long as it’s helpful to our visitors.

Thanks for your support!

About The Author
Niall Doherty – Founder and Lead Editor of eBiz Facts Born and raised in Ireland, Niall has been making a living from his laptop since quitting his office job in 2010. He's fond of basketball, once spent 44 months traveling around the world without flying, and has been featured in such publications as The Irish Times and Huffington Post. Read more...

22 thoughts on “Review: Tai Lopez Social Media Marketing Agency”

  1. Hi Again, Niall,
    Glad that u wrote in depth review….
    I belong to India
    Is it possible to get clients from other developed countries and maybe outsourcing it to other developing countries to keep the net profit like the way 4HWW says….do they teach how to do it?

    Reply
    • Hi Biswas,

      What you describe is possible. You’d be running an online agency. They do teach you how to build that kind of business in SMMA, but don’t expect it to be easy, especially if you’re new to working online.

      Also, if I were you I would forget about the 4HWW approach. That book is inspiring but it gets a lot of people thinking too much that success comes easy if you can just find the right approach or hack. In my experience, you have to work hard for many years to achieve a legitimate 4-hour workweek with lots of passive income.

      Reply
  2. Hi Niall, it was an awesome in-depth review of the course. If the price is low, do they do a lot of upsells or only we have to pay a little amount of money when the price is low?

    Reply
    • Hi Biswas,

      They change it all the time so I’m not sure what upsells (if any) they have right now. But, generally speaking, if the price is low you should expect there to be a bunch of upsells after you buy. I’d recommend ignoring them and just going straight through to start the course.

      Reply
  3. Hey Niall, I found it very interesting creating a SMMA, because I see it like a good boost for my future businesses, but is there any course of SMMA better than from Tai? Thanks a lot, greets

    Reply
  4. Is it up to date now a days? I imagine if it was outdated almost a year ago right now it’s probably really outdated and not worth to buy it anymore..

    Reply
    • Hey Albert,

      I haven’t had a chance to look at it the last couple of months but they recently released version 3.0 of the course. I haven’t bought that yet but I just checked in the private SMMA Facebook group and it doesn’t sound like 3.0 is much different than 2.0…

      Tai Lopez SMMA 3.0 comment

      You can apparently join SMMA 3.0 for only $1 now (via this page) but be prepared for lots of upsells!

      Reply
  5. Hi Niall, thanks a lot for this extensive and very detailed review on Tai Lopez SMMA course. I’m currently working in a consultancy firm and the other day I saw an Ad on YouTube from Tai Lopez new program called the “Cashflow System” where he says you could partner with him and make money from the program as well. Lately I’ve been thinking about joining that program and found this review online https://ecommerceunderdog.com/tai-lopez-cashflow-system-review/ but I’m not sure if this program is worth the investment or not. What are your takes on it? Do you know if this is a legit program to invest my money in? or should I look for better options elsewhere?

    Thanks in advance for your help and congratulations on a great blog!!!

    Reply
    • Hi Maria,

      Thanks for the comment. I haven’t seen inside Tai’s Cashfloww System so I can’t give you a lot of insight here.

      What I will say is that it seems overpriced given that I was able to join Tai’s affiliate program at the start of the year for no cost. Now he’s charging for access, bundled together with some training.

      His guarantee for the course caught my eye as well. Apparently, if you don’t make $2500 in the first two months as an affiliate, he’ll give you your money back. I’ve reviewed a bunch of affiliate marketing courses, and NOBODY promises those kinds of results so fast. I sincerely doubt Tai’s training is vastly superior. More likely, he knows that most people will not achieve such results but a good % of them won’t bother asking for a refund.

      That review you linked to seems very general and overly positive. And the reviewer doesn’t share any results he or others have achieved with the program. So I wouldn’t put much faith in that.

      As an affiliate for Tai Lopez myself, I didn’t earn anything near $2500 in my first two months, and I’ve repeatedly had issues with my account that they have been very slow to resolve. I’m a member of many affiliate programs and I have to say that Tai’s is the least professional I’ve seen. If I could start over, I’m not sure I’d bother signing up.

      You can see what affiliate marketing courses I do recommend here.

      I hope that helps!

      Reply
    • Yes, you’re right. The price is back up to $997 right now, but just wait a while and I’m sure it will come down again. Yesterday it was selling on an annual plan for $77 per year and another $89 (I think) up front.

      Reply
  6. Hello, so I just started the course and I am in phase 1. The second video Tai talks about how the first meeting with your potential clients should go and he gives a script for an in person meeting. However, he says he is also going to talk about how to send email and give us a generic email we can use but he never did. Did I miss something? Thank you.

    Reply
    • Hi Ahmed, thanks for the comment.

      I couldn’t find the script within the SMMA course either, but there are tons of files and scripts shared in the SMMA Facebook group. Are you a member of that already? If not, contact Tai’s live chat support and ask them to add you to the group, then go to the Files section in there. You’ll find a number of cold email and cold calling templates.

      Reply
  7. Hey, I’m also in this course. I’m trying to figure out how I get my certification. I’ve completed the following:

    Phase 1: 2 Videos Remaining
    Phase 2: Complete
    Phase 3: Complete
    Phase 4: Complete
    Facebook Advertising: Complete
    The Vault Past SMMA Live Calls: 53 Remaining
    SMMA Lifestyle Bonuses: 19 Remaining

    Reply
    • Hey Kevin,

      Contact Tai’s support team via live chat and ask them about the test. I’ve seen multiple people in the SMMA private Facebook group report that you need to ask support and they’ll give you instructions for taking the test.

      Good luck!

      Reply
  8. Hey! I am actually in the course — pretty good stuff. I was wondering if you knew where to find the contract/agreement (template) to sign up new clients? thanks!

    Reply
  9. Sounds interesting!
    What sort of work would you be doing for your clients after completing this course?
    Content marketing, posting on social media, managing adds on Facebook and Google?
    Do you have to do calls or face to face sales or does it teach how to do it all via email if you’re not a sales person?
    Would love to offer some kind of service on a monthly recurring fee where I can land clients via email. Do you think this program would help?
    Thanks,
    Joe

    Reply
    • Hey Joe,

      There are a lot of things you could do for clients after taking the course. They show you how to find and post engaging content on social media and how to manage that for clients, but also how to set up complete sales funnels for them, with landing pages, email sequences, etc. There is a lot of stuff covered in the course so you can pick and choose the parts you like the sound of, become proficient in those, then sell to clients.

      You don’t have to do face-to-face sales. They do have scripts in there for cold email, and there’s a bonus lesson showing you how one student created an automated system for client acquisition (impressive stuff).

      That said, you’ll need to develop sales skills if you want to succeed at this, or partner with someone who handles sales while you take care of providing the service afterwards. 50% of the job is social media management. The other 50% is selling. No way around that really. Even if you automate a lot of the client acquisition stuff, at the very least you (or a partner) will likely need to jump on a call with qualified prospect to seal the deal. You’ll have to close them.

      There is quite a lot of sales training in SMMA, but like we noted in the review, extroverts / natural salespeople will find that stuff easier.

      I’d still say it’s worth your while doing the course. At the very least you could use the skills you learn to get a good remote job. You could do SMM for an agency for a monthly salary. Their sales people would find the clients, so you wouldn’t have to worry about that side of things.

      One other good thing about learning SMM is that you can also use it to get exposure for your own projects. For example, if at some point you create your own product, you’ll have the know-how to market it effectively via social media.

      Hope that helps.

      Let me know if you have any other questions.

      Reply

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