This is a random mishmash of people I know both IRL and I’ve met recently on Twitter. Hope you enjoy…and have a great holiday weekend!

@cruiter I met Mike through my friend @MichaelStern, first on Twitter and then IRL at #SMBChicago. He’s a recruiter (hence the clever Twitter handle at Paladin and we’ve had some pretty fierce conversations about how social media is closing in on his job and possibly making the whole headhunting field irrelevant. He’s a Chicago improv legend and he’s tall, dark, and handsome. Worth the follow!

@jwillie Jeff and I first connected on Twitter and met IRL when he visited us for wine:thirty. How can you not like a guy who shows up to a company, not knowing anyone, and joins in for the best part of the week? Jeff is a BIG personality. He’s an extrovert to the nth degree – if you are afraid to ask someone for something, I suggest asking Jeff to do it for you. I’m pretty sure nothing scares him. If you want to run a marathon, connect with Jeff. He’ll coach you!

@makarlin Melissa, like Jeff, showed up one random Friday afternoon for wine:thirty. Her bio reads, “I say things that I think are funny. Usually they are not.” Of course, that intrigued me immediately. I mean, no pressure or anything. She had us ROLLING during wine:thirty. She is FUNNY! So funny, in fact, that we were all still talking about her during our staff meeting the next Monday. If you follow her, ask her to introduce you to Leroy.

@philipnowak First, Philip is a die-hard Bears fan LIKE ME! So if you don’t want to hear/see us talk about how great the Bears are between now and February, don’t follow. But we’ll throw in some commentary on other teams, too, so it might be worth it to see what we discuss. He is helping a politician with his social media strategy…following in the footsteps of our President!

@krisschindler Kris is a brilliant PR mind in Wichita. She is a partner at Start-Thinking, an integrated PR, advertising, and marketing agency. Want to know one weird thing about her? She like rutabaga! I think that must be a Kansas thing.

@peterfaur I actually met Peter through LinkedIn because we both have the same professional alma mater – Fleishman-Hillard. Since meeting Peter, I’ve been intrigued with his social media display…mostly because people in our profession with his kind of experience shun the online world. Peter has embraced it and will be on the forefront of how our industry changes while his peers wonder what happened to their jobs.

@launchgum I met Justin because @SarahRobinson and @unmarketing can’t stop talking about him. I had to see what the big deal is…and now I know. He founded this cool little company called Launch Gum, which is about seven energy drinks in one can of gum. I’m not a caffeine addict so I’m afraid to try it, but I might order some for the team here to see how long it takes to peel them off the ceiling (don’t worry – I’ll video it and post to our Facebook fan page).

@laurascholz I don’t remember how Laura and I first connected, but she has quickly become one of my favorite online friends. I love getting to know her personally on Facebook – probably because we’re both women, both PR pros, both athletes, both enjoy wine…wait! She might be my twin!

@lindsaymallen Lindsay is another fellow PR pro who lives in Michigan. We often exchange misery stories of how cold it is already…we were hitting 40 degree overnight lows in AUGUST! She recently had a birthday and wrote a great blog post on the things she’s learned in her 30th year. You can see it here. If you follow her, ask her if she’s ever won a spelling bee!

@daveisbell I hate to tell you this, but Dave sent me a Starbucks gift card because we’ve not been able to meet in person and have a latte together. Don’t expect he’ll do that for you, but that immediately endeared him to me. If you look at his LinkedIn profile, you’ll see he is a master networker and is brilliant at discovering how you can help his friends and vice versa. He’s in Michigan so maybe someday we’ll actually get to have that latte in person.

Past #FollowFriday recommendations:

August 28

August 21

August 7

July 24

July 17

July 10

July 3 (which is a culmination of the previous five weeks)

For an easy way to follow everyone here, plus those on earlier lists, you can copy and paste the Twitter handles into NinjaFollow.

Yesterday morning I moderated a discussion on social media measurement at #SMBChicago. We started the discussion with some of the free tools I blogged about a couple of weeks ago (see it here).

Then we spent some time discussing additional tools. They are as follows:

* su.pr: I personally love this URL shortener because it’s much more accurate than bit.ly, plus it shoots your content into StumbleUpon, which helps with your search engine optimization and search engine marketing.

* Double Click: I don’t know much about Double Click from my own experience, but maybe @earthbelowus can guide you.

* Hootsuite: There is a debate between Hootsuite and TweetDeck for a desktop application. I use TweetDeck, but have been playing with Hootsuite. The only reason I haven’t fully gone Hootsuite is because I have too many groups set up in TweetDeck and it’ll take me a full day to transfer them. But those in the discussion today swear by it!

* TubeMogul @Big_Teeth was telling us he uses this to track video users.

But the biggest take-away was not in the free tools we discussed, but in the five areas that offer the most ROI, measurement, and dollars and cents:

1. Brand awareness: Hard to measure straight to dollars and cents, but you’ll know from siteVOLUME, Google searches, popuri, and other tools whether or not your brand awareness has increased. You’ll also be able to tell from gut, if you’re really paying attention.

2. Thought leadership: You’ll know whether or not this is successful if you’re invited to speak at conferences, on panels, interviewed for stories, or people are linking to your blog/Web site when they publish content. Unless you eventually get paid for these things, it won’t automatically translate to dollars and cents, but everyone wants to work with the popular, smart kid and the more you’re out there, the more business you’ll drive.

3. Prospecting for new business/customers: Create referral networks or (as much as I hate them) affiliate programs to drive business to you. Use social media just like you would a networking event. Go often, network, connect, and find people to work with. This is the best way to drive dollars and cents because new business means added revenue and bigger profits.

4. Recruiting new talent: I’m sorry to headhunters out there, but social media is going to put you out of business. You absolutely can recruit new talent just by being open and transparent about a day in the life of your company, what your culture is like, and what the vision is for the business. You’ll attract people who want to work with you just by being out there.

5. Brand loyalty through engagement: It doesn’t matter what your business is – B2B or B2C – if you’re engaging with your customers, you are creating loyalty. Today people EXPECT to have a personal relationship with the people who work at the companies they buy from, including the CEO. And if people are loyal because they have a personal relationship with you, you can make a mistake, apologize, and not lose the customer.

Thanks to @monicaobrien, @Big_Teeth, @tamcdonald, @julibarcelona, @tektitegroup, @lindantonio, @cgrab34, @earthbelowus, @dockane, @chiarchitecture, and Akanksha Hoskote, for the lively, and informative, discussion!

Do you have additional measurement tools that you use?