My Twitter habits have been largely the same as they were in the weeks prior to this experiment.  I’ve been tweeting, re-tweeting, conversing and following/unfollowing in the same pattern I always do.  Literally the only change in my profile has been the addition of the word GURU.

I’m haven’t reached the coveted “Guru 100″ yet — Zarella says that those of us who use that word  in our Twitter profile have on average 100 more followers than others — I’m well on my way.  Check in next week to see where I’m at.

UPDATE SEPTEMBER 15th: 99 MORE FOLLWERS!  1 TO GO!

Unbeknownst to me, for several days, I was suspended from Google+ for having an unauthentic name.  Yep. Lisa Singelyn.  The name I took 20 years ago when I married my husband, and have used everyday since then without issue (except that no one can ever spell it, but I digress).

I now join the ranks of banned Google+ers like Facebook’s Blake Ross and the other William Shatner.  And I’ve joined a directory called Suspended Google Accounts.

I wanted to rebel, but since I make my living in social media, I had to accept defeat and beg for mercy from the cool kids.  As directed, I sent Google+ a copy of my driver’s license and a link to a website that would confirm my authenticity as, um, Lisa Singelyn.  I had to get a good dig in, so I sent them a link to my Facebook profile.

After a few hours, I received this letter:

“Hi Lisa,

Thank you for contacting us with regard to the name you want to use with your Google Profile. After further review, we have determined that your name is within our Community Standards policy. Thank you for your patience while we reviewed your profile name.”

The kicker?  It was signed:

Sincerely,
Duyen
The Google Profiles Support Team

With the advent of services such as Yelp, Twitter, Facebook and other social media platforms, customers no longer have to wait to get out the door to write a letter of complaint or praise via snail mail.  They can–and will– do it right there under your nose.  Anyone at any time can generate a social media post that describes you inaccurately or criticizes your performance, service or product. Social media sites make it easy to to trash everything from bad food to slow service, and that is not what you want potential clients to find online. If you’ve spent any time making a good name for yourself, keeping it so online is a priority.

We recommend you track what people are saying about you online at least once a week.  Here are our favorite free tools (there are many good paid services, as well):

Social Mention This real-time Internet tracking aggregates mentions about your brand from across the web (and the universe, they proclaim) to give you a snapshot of who is talking about you and what they are saying.  While it’s not 100% accurate (we find it sometimes pulls in other accounts if you have a common Twitter or Facebook name), it does a great job of finding blog forum and Twitter mentions.  While it dishes out some questionable metrics (Passion? Sentiment?), the lists of top keywords, top hastags and top users it returns is invaluable information for your social media monitoring.

MonitorThis is another easy search tool that  feeds mentions from 26 various search engines like Google Blogsearch, delicious, MSN, Yahoo News, Flickr and many others.  What’s particularly nice here is that it features a ‘Get as RSS’ button that lets you directly subscribe to a list of feeds it pulls up.

Board Tracker watches conversation in discussion forums and keeps you up to speed on mentions. Just set alerts based on your specific keywords and you’ll be notified any time your brand’s name is mentioned in a forum.

TweetBeep is a Twitter tracker that keeps track of conversations that mention you, your products, your company, your brand–and gives you frequent e-mailed updates.

Google Alerts are regular email updates of the latest relevant Google results (web, news, etc.) based on your choice of keyword or topic.

The real answer to online reputation lies in constantly building, updating  and maintaining your online brand. This way, any negative commentary is automatically countered by positive news and information you’ve already put out.

The social media response was incredible, time will tell if it will increase sales.

UPDATE: According to Nielsen data, Old Spice sales are up 107% in the last month.

We’ve encountered many firms that boast about their “genius” nineteen year-old social media hires. “They get this Facebook stuff,” we’ve heard. “They understand how to network through the Internet.” True. My older teen has hundreds of friends on social networks. He can easily find out the questions on the history test and where the best Saturday night party will be. He can connect girls to boys, not unlike traditional networking.

But what he can’t do—because he doesn’t have business training—is strategize, monitor and analyze a social media campaign. Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, and other social media platform use is a skill most teens and college grads have. But putting a tech-savvy teen in charge of your $30,000 website redesign and social media campaign is like asking my husband to do the laundry. He’ll gladly wash clothes, but they won’t be sorted, he’ll forget the fabric softener, and assuming they get folded, they’ll end up in the wrong person’s drawer.

A social media expert is much more than someone who knows how to use Facebook. We are like custom builders, creating a blueprint for your entire campaign. From audience analysis and content goals to editorial calendars and professional monitoring with ROI tracking, firms that specialize in social media have both the knowledge and expertise to make your online campaign successful.

Anyone can get your business pages followers and likes. The question is: Do they know how to attract the right people, and do they know what to do with them? Can they track real-time and trending results—and do they even know what that is?

Nothing against teens. I have a few myself.  And they are experts at socializing. But please, for the sake of your online reputation and your hard-earned dollars, leave your all-important social media marketing to the experts.

A report was released today from Nielsen and Facebook that confirms that social impressions are more than fabulous, they increase someone’s intent to purchase.

“The Value of Social Media Ad Impressions” study measured the impact of 3 types of Facebook ads and how their coordinated usage affects ad recall, awareness and purchase intent. They “analyzed survey data from more than 800,000 Facebook users in response to more than 125 Facebook ad campaigns from 70 brand advertisers.”

Here are the three Facebook ads they looked at:

The study results showed how the combination of paid media (ads) and earned media (wall posts, likes, shares) significantly increased all three measurements (ad recall, awareness and purchase intent) than paid ads alone.

Combining paid media with earned media created:

• 9% increase in awareness
• 6% increase in purchase intent

These numbers are compelling. But what does it mean for your business?

People are influenced much more by their friends than our ads alone. Engaging in social media is your way to bridge the gap to share directly with your customers and, in turn, your customers’ network will grow your business.

Use ads in the right places to reach the right audience but be sure to engage with your customers where they are already (Facebook, Twitter, etc.). Create conversations and share relevant information that makes it impossible for your customers to not talk about you, like you and share your links.

Are you taking advantage of social media impressions?

This company is far from alone.  Though Facebook doesn’t release stats on inactive business (or personal) pages, I come across them daily.

To me, this is akin to training all season for the championship game and then dropping out in the first quarter.  Why would you spend all that (insert: time, money, effort, frustration) building a social media network and not use it?  Would you build a custom home and not move into it?

Facebook is free.  It’s easy.  And it tells people more about your business than you may realize.  A stale Facebook page says a) you’re no longer in business; b) you’re too busy to care about your fans or c) you don’t keep up with technology trends.  All three scenarios are troubling and lead me straight to your competitor(s).

Even if you’re not the cool kid on block-al la Victoria’s Secret PINK, consumers today expect you to be a player.   You don’t need a pimped-out Facebook or Twitter page just to stay in the game. 

Social media “housekeeping” should take small companies no more than 30 minutes a day, tops.  It can be done by anyone with knowledge of your company or products. Toss the excuses.  If you don’t have time, your secretary or intern does (and they’re probably young enough to understand the process).  Make a commitment now to spending time daily to keep your fans updated and engaged.

After all, if your online pages are slowly rotting away, then so is your reputation.

photo by Gideon Tsang

I understand the point the article is trying to make — Where are the results? I was promised if I engage in social media, I’ll be successful. Where’s my pot of gold?

Marketing and advertising are the means to gain awareness of you, your brand or your product. Yes, opinions are made on marketing alone but it’s highly unlikely that just marketing and advertising close sales. That’s the job of your website, sales people, store, phone reps, sales process.

You can have an incredible campaign (social media or otherwise) that drives traffic and grows awareness but if you can’t seal the deal, you’re out of business. If you’re using social media or email marketing get traffic from them, be sure to measure your results. What percentage of visitors are converting into customers?

What can you do to increase this rate? Look closely at your product, sales process, website, follow through. What can be improved? How do you share your benefit and value? Could your website landing page use some optimization? Does your online form look unwieldy? Are leads getting followed up on quickly enough.

If your traffic is growing but your sales aren’t, don’t shoot the marketing medium. Look in the mirror and see how you can take advantage of your traffic win.

How are you taking advantage of your social media marketing?

This is wrong on oh-so-many levels!

1. Why would anyone consider that my $7.58 spent at Subway today be considered newsworthy in any way?  Unless you own Subway stock, this tidbit is about as exciting as my Twitter “friends” who broadcast their daily coffee count each morning.  What could one possibly gain from knowing not only where I buy my java,  but what I spent on it?

2. Why would I give my credit card to a group of 20-something (if that) web developers who have dropped out of Stanford and are working out of a leaky basement in East Palo Alto?  I could trust a white-collar felon more than I’d trust a group of shabby, hungry frat boys looking for a meal ticket.

3. People can not only see how much the purchase cost, but also a detailed list of what was bought.  Sorry, but there are people I don’t want seeing “Rite Aid.  Feminine products. 4.92″

4. The Colbert report calls Blippy “More exciting than old receipts!”  ‘Nuff said.

Do you have any of your own tips that you’ve used in your business or any that you’ve used from Get Connected! or Inc.com’s list?