A solo edition of Southern Social Media today due to scheduling conflicts.  Wes isn’t going to be happy, but sometimes ya just gotta take the bull by the horns, ya know?

Today, I focused purely on a recent Omniture report that discussed the “Value of Social Media.” Among the sections covered:

• Where people get information about your products
• Most effective social media strategies
• Most effective social media tactics
• Most accurately measured social media tactics
• Net budget spending . . . interesting results to mull over here
• Who is using social media
• Social media is most complimentary to . . .
• Biggest hurdles for implementing social media marketing
• Interesting stats on B2B vs. B2C use of social media
• Key takeaways

Yes, I packed this podcast with a LOT of goodies and food for thought. That’s what happens when you turn me loose to just roll with it.  I hope you enjoy it, and remember to share your feedback below.

A later edition of Southern Social Media due to hoops conflicts. College basketball has officially started, and it’s practically religion around Kentucky & Indiana regardless of who you cheer for (Go Cards!)

Amongst the topics Wes and I chewed on tonight:

• The southern definition of “beer”
• Wes showed gay porn to his church? You gotta listen to this to get the full story.
• How to disable related videos when you show a YouTube video on your site
• 5 Ways to Promote Your Facebook Fan Page (and why you need a fan page to begin with)
• How being controversial can further your cause and popularity
• How a popular video blogger has been banned by YouTube because of his stance against O’Bama (see http://la-gun.com/manning for an example of his “content”)
• Recap of some recent topics

A rather abbreviated edition of Southern Social Media today by our standards, but it’s still a productive one.

Topics of discussion include:

• Roger’s apology/clarification on StomperNet’s pricing practices (they have a good offer in place right now)
• Avaya’s $250k Twitter Sale (it sure pays to listen these days!)
• 3 more social media case studies
• How restaurants and salons can use social media to grow their businesses organically
• Making sure your company has a disaster recovery plan that isn’t based on the disaster occurring in the past
• Southern definition of “bayou”
• Social Media Mondays
• List Samurai program update

A “salty” version of Southern Social Media is in store for you today . . . I went on quite the rant about some recent happenings in the Internet Marketing world and some of the scam artists out there.

Topics include:

• The southern definition of “barrier”
• Two social media connections that have figured this stuff out that aren’t trying to get money from you . . . why they’re successful and how it can benefit your business.
• Perry Belcher – Forewarning: SERIOUS rant ahead . . . this guy isn’t the “good guy” we all thought
• StomperNet: buyer beware (why are they struggling financially if they’re getting $800/month and have “2,500 happy subscribers”? Something just doesn’t add up)
• Brad Fallon’s $100,000 spending spree (as it pertains to StomperNet)
• 5 Mistakes to Avoid with Social Media
• Employing someone to help your business utilize social media
• You might be a redneck . . . 3 full examples

From a personal standpoint, I feel 10 times better for getting this stuff off my chest, and I hope you listen in so that you don’t fall victim to some of the “mind control” marketing going on out there that is merely designed to mislead you and part your money from your wallet. While rants aren’t common, this one is sure to help you avoid some unsavory characters online.

Over the past couple of hours, I’ve been doing some digging to get the “real inside scoop” on why Perry Belcher “decided” to get out of Internet Marketing Training and the truth behind Andy Jenkins exit from Stompernet.

I’ll get to the latter first . . . Andy’s exit from Stompernet wasn’t as amicable as they’ve tried (poorly) to suggest publicly.  There was a lawsuit between Andy, Stompernet, and Brad Fallon–not exactly the way to part “amicably.” It appears that Brad bought Andy out to avoid facing a lengthy and likely ugly trial. You can look at Andy Jenkins’ claim filed with a Georgia court by clicking on the link. Turns out Brad Fallon wasn’t doing a whole lot behind the scenes except spending money so Jenkins’ hand was somewhat forced, and I always thought I smelled a rat when they made the hasty change announcement back in July.

For full disclosure: I have the StomperNet “Stomping the Search Engines” DVDs, and count me as unimpressed.  Not to be a honk, but my Search Engine Ninja program gives you much more SEO training for a lot less, and there isn’t as much fluff, flare, and theory involved . . . just good old step-by-step stuff you can implement, but I digress.

My personal prediction is StomperNet will die a slow but painful death over the next 12-18 months. If you read the filed complaint, you’ll see some verbiage that suggests the company is in serious financial trouble already so I don’t feel like that prediction is too “risky.”

As an aside: I hope Paul Lemberg keeps doing his thing . . . just with a different organization behind him because Paul’s stuff is really good.  I hated to see that he aligned with StomperNet for his Formula 5 training program, and that is the primary reason I didn’t get it although I always enjoy learning from Paul.

Perry’s “demise” is more of a matter of massively over promoting and over pricing an absolute garbage product (as it turns out).  There is another similar product currently being offered in the Internet Marketing space that hopefully will be next on the “fraud” hit-list.

Before you think I’m piling on Perry, I came to “like” Perry through our occasional interactions on Twitter (which his account is completely gone by the way . . . all 110,000 followers worth), and I THOUGHT he was a “good guy.” Then I started doing my private investigator work to find that he is a convicted felon for defrauding people out of hundreds of thousands of dollars over the past 10 years for bogus medical products. I’m not one to cast stones at others that I don’t know unless it’s warranted, and it’s warranted here.  Anytime you take advantage of people to that degree, get caught then go back for more . . . you ain’t a “good guy!” Sorry, Per.

As for the lessons to be learned from these cases . . . social media can build you up rapidly, but it can rip you down even faster. Think of all the time and energy Perry put into building a following of 110,000 on Twitter, the countless blogs he setup to rebuild his “reputation,” myriad videos, and all the exposure social media gained him as he was promoting his “Social Media Money System.” His “system” simply didn’t deliver on the promise to show people how to make money with social media or grow a business for it’s $997 minimum price tag. People probably wouldn’t have been that upset with him if the price tag were something more reasonable like $97 or $197.

Bottom line: it only took about a month to tear everything down that took years to build . . . thanks to social media.

Perry now has a metric ton of guilt to carry around . . . knowingly defrauding people out of millions of dollars as he masqueraded around as this “great guy.” As I always say, you can lie to others, but you can’t lie to yourself. Now Perry can’t even lie to others . . . he’s been branded as a fraud twice in very public forums. The very forums he used to rebuild his reputation from the last fiasco. That brings me to this: what would you do if you were in his shoes?

Final point: If you’re looking for help with social media for growing your BUSINESS, seek out those that are using it to grow their businesses today . . . not somebody who can show you how to win an online popularity contest. Advertising firms aren’t the answer either because they haven’t figured out how to monetize social media for their own firms so there is a lot of blind leading the blind right now.

Don’t get ripped off!!!