After being featured in countless of “daily’s” made by people via paper.li, I cannot say anything else but that I was curious and very skeptical. Yet, my curiosity won and I created my own “daily”, though for now it is called What’s up!

Honestly, I have not really figured out the benefit with it yet, exempt for giving people who don’t have Twitter a place to read many of the things I read in a place with nice layout. If you have twitter and/or google reader and follow me you get a screened version of what I read… I only share what’s worth sharing after I read it my self. This streams everything that people I follow share, of which for most people is information overload.

Anyway… I will give it a real shot, after all, I did not see the point of Twitter either from the very beginning. ;)

ps.. here is the address http://paper.li/AnnelieNaes

Do you remember all the comments, groups and pages that used to be when every Facebook made any significant changes? With the home feed o the profile? When they moved, added or removed things? Which made the users have the relearn what they knew. There have been quite a few of them.

This time, however, I have seen none. I’m talking about the introduction of the new profile. This could have been because people just got used to not having an impact on the development of the network, but I don’t think this is in. I thing it is because of the changed roll-out logistics. Instead of changing profiles in bulk (And let the swedes wait ;) they let the users decide on when they wanted to update their profile. Which have lead to people actually asking on how to make the change.

This is how twitter did it too a while back when they started rolling out the new layout. But as their changes have rarely (since I got on twitter at least) caused any big fuzz, this way of changing did not make as big of a difference on the reaction.

So what conclusion can we make from this? Quite a few, letting the users make the change have quite a few advantages:

• The geeks (me) that are not in the first bulk change does not feel left out.
• We do not risk any crash by rolling it out to everyone at the same time.
• And bet of all the users that is normally skeptical towards changes, feels like they are the one making the change.

Of course there is other time when this can be applied even when we are not talking about the bigger social networks. It could be a good thing when launching a website or a new product. – Add the new, but have the old one there for a while in the beginning.

Today Twitter added a new interesting feature which is common on other networks like Facebook and LinkedIn, where you are suggested who to follow. According to the twitter blog the suggestions are based on several factors, including the people you follow and the people they are following.

I find this feature very interesting, especially for twitter users who are still new and who have not yet got a hang of it. It has sometimes been difficult to find interesting people to follow that you do not know from before. At least from my experience I usually follow the writers of the blogs I read and the people that I meet in real life. I rarely sit on twitter and try to find people to follow. But maybe that is just me?

Twitter also added the feature “if you like this person, you might like these as well”. Interesting, but I wonder what will happen if it starts suggesting organisations and people that you don’t want to be associated with.

Anyway, in the right menu you can see the users suggested, and you can also press “view all” and see come to a new page where you see a longer list of suggested people. In the right menu you get to see their name and a picture and have the option to follow them in directly from the right menu. Most of the time these features are in beta when they are first published, so they might have more coming on this one. But here are three things which I would like to see in the feature which would make me use it even more.

1. Tweeter rollover – displaying; location, latest tweet, bio, followers, website etc.

In the “normal” feed you can get more information about the tweeter by rolling you mouse over his/hers screen name, this I feel is very useful when you want more info about the person you are following. This is even more important I feel when it comes to people that you are not following and that you might want to learn more about to follow. If I’m going to follow someone by pressing follow in the right menu, I want this info there as well.

2. The reason – why should I follow this person?

Twitter says that the suggestions are based on several factors, I want to know which one. Am I recommended this person because we live in the same city? Or because my friend follow her? Or is it because she tweets about the same subjects as I do? I think this information would make me more interested in following this person.

3. Variables – give me an option to choose what people to are shown – perhaps depending on language.

I rarely, or almost never follow people because they are from the same city as me or live close to me. So I would like the option to turn of that factor. On the other hand I love to listen to people who tweet about social media, marketing and business development, so then I would be nice to have the option to be suggested people two tweet a lot about this keywords.

So far the best thing with this feature, if it works, is that if you “click “hide,” and we’ll try not to suggest that user again.” However, could this could be bad if you click it unintentionally and cannot find the person again.

Everyone makes mistakes, and those who have made them, tend to have a desire of not wanting others to do the same. Personally I’m some where in between when it comes to blogging and social media. I’m still learning but I’m experienced enough to teach others. So I thought I would start by sharing a few things about what NOT to do. Some are mistakes I’ve made myself and others are mistakes which I see other making.

Creating accounts that you don’t use

When it comes to personal accounts most people are very forgiving when they find account that people don’t use. It usually says more about the network than the person. The problems start how ever, when you leave accounts that you have been using without a word. For example an old twitter account, people might not realise that you have stopped tweeting and is wondering why you don’t answer. Which puts you in a bad light, this goes for emails and everything else. Be careful with “looking active” where you are not. I have also seen this done by companies which I find even worse.

Not having any contact information

This one I’ve stumbled upon a lot since I’ve tried to get to know the people behind the blog etc. But many ‘forget’ or choose to not put up a contact form or an email address. I wonder just how many opportunities are lost that way.

Automated messages

Automated messages is one of the things which I really oppose. First of all you “represent” things that you cannot control. Second, people think that you are around and you might not answer. Third, people might start questioning your motives if you just send out a feed. If you want to be around in social media, make sure that you are around and not some robot version of who you are.

Not follow up on replies

This goes for both social networks and blog comments and any other communication online. If people are trying to communicate with them do not leave them hanging. Even if you don’t reply until a few hours later, make sure that you do reply because people will remember. I have unfollowed people that I’ve tried contact who have not answered many times. With some it is understandable because they have too many followers, but for the people like me, I find it as rude as not responding to a hello when you meet IRL.

Promoting yourself to much

This is one of the lessons I read about most. And which I’ve been good at following because you can read it in any book about social media and personal branding. People wont listen to you if you only talk about yourself. There is not much more to that point. Try to promote other peoples stuff and to talk with people and not only write and share your own content.

After talking with a few people on Twitter about this posting I figured I would add two lessions to this post.

1. Be careful with information related to employers or clients

This suggeston came from Gert Lambers on Twitter, and I could not agree more. It is important to seperate your own opinions from your employeers. Either you can state it in a sentence “my opinions on twitter does not reflect my employer”, but also make sure you think twice when you post something which has any relevance to your work.

@GertLambers  “Being careful with info related to employers or clients would be wise, 1 should make sure to be compliant with employers rules”

2. Listen more than you speak

The second tip came from Adrian Chira, who says it all, we have 2 ears and 1 month and should use them accordinly. Listen more than you speak. And I would says that listning twice as much as you speak is not an exaggeration at all.

@adrianchira I would add that we have 1 mouth and 2 ears and we should use them accordingly so first try to listen more than you speak

Everyone makes mistakes, and those who have made them, tend to have a desire of not wanting others to do the same. Personally I’m some where in between when it comes to blogging and social media. I’m still learning but I’m experienced enough to teach others. So I thought I would start by sharing a few things about what NOT to do. Some are mistakes I’ve made myself and others are mistakes which I see other making.

Creating accounts that you don’t use

When it comes to personal accounts most people are very forgiving when they find account that people don’t use. It usually says more about the network than the person. The problems start how ever, when you leave accounts that you have been using without a word. For example an old twitter account, people might not realise that you have stopped tweeting and is wondering why you don’t answer. Which puts you in a bad light, this goes for emails and everything else. Be careful with “looking active” where you are not. I have also seen this done by companies which I find even worse.

Not having any contact information

This one I’ve stumbled upon a lot since I’ve tried to get to know the people behind the blog etc. But many ‘forget’ or choose to not put up a contact form or an email address. I wonder just how many opportunities are lost that way.

Automated messages

Automated messages is one of the things which I really oppose. First of all you “represent” things that you cannot control. Second, people think that you are around and you might not answer. Third, people might start questioning your motives if you just send out a feed. If you want to be around in social media, make sure that you are around and not some robot version of who you are.

Not follow up on replies

This goes for both social networks and blog comments and any other communication online. If people are trying to communicate with them do not leave them hanging. Even if you don’t reply until a few hours later, make sure that you do reply because people will remember. I have unfollowed people that I’ve tried contact who have not answered many times. With some it is understandable because they have too many followers, but for the people like me, I find it as rude as not responding to a hello when you meet IRL.

Promoting yourself to much

This is one of the lessons I read about most. And which I’ve been good at following because you can read it in any book about social media and personal branding. People wont listen to you if you only talk about yourself. There is not much more to that point. Try to promote other peoples stuff and to talk with people and not only write and share your own content.

After talking with a few people on Twitter about this posting I figured I would add two lessions to this post.

1. Be careful with information related to employers or clients

This suggeston came from Gert Lambers on Twitter, and I could not agree more. It is important to seperate your own opinions from your employeers. Either you can state it in a sentence “my opinions on twitter does not reflect my employer”, but also make sure you think twice when you post something which has any relevance to your work.

@GertLambers  “Being careful with info related to employers or clients would be wise, 1 should make sure to be compliant with employers rules”

2. Listen more than you speak

The second tip came from Adrian Chira, who says it all, we have 2 ears and 1 month and should use them accordinly. Listen more than you speak. And I would says that listning twice as much as you speak is not an exaggeration at all.

@adrianchira I would add that we have 1 mouth and 2 ears and we should use them accordingly so first try to listen more than you speak

I don’t know if you have seen it yet, or if everyone get to experience it, or perhaps if it depends on how frequent you use it. But I have seen a change in the openness of people via Twitter, people are becoming more accessible and more open on Twitter. This could of course be because I have changed my behavior on twitter, or, in other words: I have gained more guts.

So what am I talking about?

Lately, on Twitter, I have made real connections which I have learned a lot from. I have set up two thesis interviews, connected with a famous speaker before his speech at my office and got my English improved. And that is only some of the things I managed to do via twitter.

Here are my Twitter connecting stories:

Twitter connecting story 1: Setting up interviews

I’m, as you might know, writing a thesis on marketing via location based services. A subject which I knew very little about, before I started to write. Therefore I have connected with many experienced professionals in the area to get a clearer picture and learn what you cannot read your way to. The only problem was that I did not know how to connect with this people, so I tried twitter, and two out of three responded and has now contributed to my work.

Twitter connecting story 2: Connecting with speakers

When I found out that Kevin Lampe was going to give a speech in my office, I was beyond exited. He was going to speak about the health reform in the US, which I knew a bit about, yet I wanted to be prepared so I could get the most out of the experience of listening to him. So I wrote to him on twitter and asked if there was anything I could read in preparation, he answered no, but that I should come armed with questions. Which I did and I got many of them answered. Later I of course thanked Lampe via Twitter and he told me to keep in touch. Because of Twitter I was no more an anonymous person in the audience.

Twitter connecting story 3: Improving my English

As you may know I’m an English and Business student. Many might say that I’m fluent in English and depending on what you are comparing to I am, but sometimes my knowledge combined with a dictionary is not enough. When this happens I go to Twitter and more often than not someone like @paulidin or @nobatteries or someone else, help be improve my English by answering my questions and explaining them.

Asking questions have in general given me some good Twitter connections. I think that to many people use Twitter as only a way to “receive” and forward the news. But it is really a social network where you can initiate and start relationship which can help you a lot.

I hope that these stories have inspired you to take you Tweeting to new level and I hope you share your Twitter connecting story below.

I’ve read about the earthquakes, the tsunamis and the other disasters and how social networks have been used to keep families and other informed about what is going on. Still, because I have been lucky enough to never know anyone in any of these catastrophes I never really understand how big of a difference they make. Until today…

This morning there was a train crash in Brussels, or actually outside of Brussels (But the initial reports in Sweden did not say so). The current numbers say that 18 people died and over 50 were injured. Because of this my phone started beeping with messages and calls from worried friends and family members who wanted to check if I was okay.

Therefore I put it in my Facebook status that everything was alright and that I was not in the crash. This was very appreciated by others who were concerned. My friends here in Brussels also did the same which gave me less to worry about.

With cell phones many might not find this necessary, but if someone of my Swedish friends did not have my Belgian number, because we mostly speak on Skype they did not have to worry, neither did those who had run out of credit on their phone and could not send me a text. For these and many other reasons the Facebook status update became invaluable.

Thus, now I really understand the importance of using social media to update my family that I’m ok!

But social media helped in other ways too, on Twitter people who were at spot of the accident uploaded pictures that people could follow to see what was going on. Most information was easily available on the hashtags #brussels and #traincrash.

Most bloggers agree that is more fun to write when you get comments and reactions to what they have to say. Because of this, there are lots of different reaction possibilities on most blogs such as; thumbs up, share on Facebook or Twitter, give points to the post or write a regular comment.

While comments themselves are interesting and encouraging, discussions in the comments section between several people are even better. But it is worth remembering that most people today are living with a tight schedule, therefore one particular feature on you blog, might make things easier for them to get into such discussions. Namely, a feed that send you the comments on the blog post via RSS, or even better, the opportunity to receive the feed via email.

Some comments applications, such as disqus gives everyone the opportunity to subscribe to the blog comments for a particular blog via email or rss, whether they are users or not. Those who are in fact users of Disqus can also choose to automatically subscribe to comments from the posts that they comment on.

So whether you have your own domain or use wordpress or blogspot, etc. Make sure to find a application that allows for this functionality. If you have trouble finding one for your blog, you can always send a question here, and hopefully I can help you find one.

I about 80 % of the time, I tweet, blog and communicate online in English. Though most people know English is not my mother tongue nor do I live in a country where English is the official language. Still I choose to communicate in English, simply because more people can understand what I am saying.

Even when it comes to sharing information it is usually easier to just communicate in English because if I refer to others work or writing, people do not have to be confused when it is in English. Many might disagree and just share in what every language the information is available, and that’s fine for them.

Either way, Chris Brogan’s post today about Geo-targeting on Twitter really made me see the possible solutions for sharing in multiple languages from the same profiles, without confusing people.

Basically all opportunities for targeted tweets would be useful for various reasons, especially when you have got a couple of hundred followers. But let’s take a closer look on what we could to if Twitter allowed language-targeted tweets.

How language targeted tweets could be set up:

There are a few different ways to set this up.

One idea is to choice the spoken and understood language in the settings. Then the receivers will get all the tweets that the people they follow send out on those languages. To manage the individual tweets there could be a box where you choice language that you tweet in. Preferably with a default language, as there will most likely be a preferred language. This way the set up would be easy, and after the set-up it would only “bother” the people who actually want to have this opportunity.

Another way takes a bit more setting up, but works the same way with the tweeting. But basically you choice what languages you want to follow a person in, when you begin following that person. This mean that you do not have to follow all people in all languages, only the one’s that you are particularly interested in.

Possible ways to use language-targeted tweets:

The more obvious benefits are that you will be able to answer @replies in multiple languages; still only send them out to the people who understand that language. You can also share links and other information which is written in another language than your default, and be sure that people do not end up on pages they do not understand.

For companies with offices in different countries this might also be a good solution to handle customer service instead of having many twitter accounts which could confuse the clients.

But I’m sure that the uses of language-targeted tweets would create many more possible functions than the ones that I just mentioned.

What could you use it to? To you see any advantages or disadvantages of this? Or perhaps you have a better idea on how to set it up?

Lately, Twitter scams have become a big problem. Twitter scams are for example tweets containing links to sites that have viruses etc. Not only have normal internet users been fooled by these scams but also some of the pro-users have become victims.

This issue has developed along with the increased use of URL shortening services, such as bit.ly and tr.im

A while ago Bit.ly announced that they are making an effort to prevent this, since they are the default link shortening service for twitter.

To you avoid clicking on shorted links or checked, I recommend that you use a web browser add-on/extension that automatically shows the “real” link instead of the shorter version. This way you see the correct Url for the site that the link is taking you to, and it is easier to determine whether it is a site that you trust or not.

For those of you, who just occasionally click on shortened links, I recommend that you check the links at websites who lengthen links, such as LongUrl.com.

Here follow a list of plug-in for Firefox  and Chrome, that will help you avoid the scams by using Long Urls:

Chrome
ChromeMUSE – Shorten and expand URLs with different shortening service providers.
Explode – Expand shortened URLs (e.g. TinyURL) with LongURL
Bit.ly – (shorten, share, and track your links (only bit.ly))

Firefox

LongURL Mobile Expander 2.0.0
Long URL Please 0.4.1 (Article about this addon)

Internet Explorer

Since I do not use IE, I have not tried any IE extension that solves this problem. Unfortunately search did not help me either, so my tips to those of you who use internet explorer are to use one of the universal services that does the same thing.

Check your URLs no matter what browser you use

In case you do not want to use any of these plug-ins you could always use LongUrl.com which is a universal way to show were the short links are taking you. It will take more time to check the links this was as you have to enter the website. But that might be time you’re willing to offer as you do not want the links to be leading you to the wrong place.

General Online Safety

Internet gives us a lot of opportunities and makes things easier, you can save both time and money with the internet. But as it develops faster than many out there has time to follow, I encourage you to stay updated on the news threats that emerge for you as internet develops, and hope that you encourage your friends and families to do the same.