Posts by David Stopher

When you look at a social media campaign, specifically Twitter, you will look at how many followers you have. To achieve good followers you need to firstly show that you know what you are talking about, and also follow influential people in your industry.

This could range from local to national or even international Twitter users in your industry.  There is a wide range of ways to find these followers, but in this blog post we will show you the ones we use at Just Search.

Twitter Lists

Since last year when Twitter Lists were created and implemented, they have been a brilliant godsend for a lot of people who want to discover the right people to follow in their industry. These lists are managed in such a way that they are easy to develop, use and share.

Listorious

One of the main Twitter list websites that is used is Listorious. This website basically allows you to list Twitter users in specific industry lists – or even self-created lists.

Listorious is the easiest way to find people to follow in your industry or your interest area. This can allow you to discover people in the industry that you may not have been familiar with previously.

Twibes

Another option for you is Twibes. This websites allows you to search for lists or people with common interests. The only real difference is that you can only show industry-related tweets. For example, if you follow people in the SEO industry you can place terms that will shows tweets, e.g. SEO, Search Engine Optimisation and Internet Marketing. It will then only bring up tweets relating to these keywords from Twitter users in the lists that you have created.

Twitter directories

The other route you can look at is Twitter directories. These are basically bigger lists but defined by the website and not by the user.

One of the main ones, and the most well-known, is Wefollow. Wefollow basically allows users to search users by location or topic. This is an easy way to see the most influential people in the SEO industry.

This is fast becoming one of the leaders for Twitter directories as others cannot offer the same features as Wefollow.

There are loads more features that can be used to find relevant follows in the industry, but these three Twitter-related websites are the first ones to look at.

Dave’s View

Even 12 months ago Twitter was a force to be reckoned with, but is now even stronger and more powerful. There are a lot of people who now use Twitter as an advertising tool. If you look at anyone who means business in social media then you will see that they put a lot of time and effort into Twitter.

These tools that are all over the internet for Twitter can be used to increase your presence and influence. This is can only help you in a successful social media campaign.

Ahmed’s View

Trying to manage all your social profiles (especially the number of different Twitter accounts) is a difficult task however it will prove fruitful for your business. To ease this task, using tools is a must and using the right tools is even more so important. My advice is to spend time researching all the tools and find the right one for you!

Authors: Dave Stopher, Ahmed Bhula.

You can follow Just Search on Twitter @justsearching

More and more people are signing up to social media sites every day with Facebook set to hit the 500 million user mark imminently. The issue with all things on the internet is that some subscribers are more technically savvy than others. Many of the people who sign up to sites such as Facebook and MySpace are not aware that they could be sharing their personal information with anyone and everyone. This poses massive questions about privacy and keeping our details safe. In this post we will look into what the problems are with these social sites and if and how they are trying to improve things.

The Problem

Facebook made big news at the beginning of the year when it was hit with lawsuits over its privacy settings. While stating that it had improved the privacy facilities on the site it had in fact made them more complicated. The new ‘privacy’ settings changed so that by default more of user information such as photos, friend listings and geographic information

was publicly available.

Many users were unaware of this and the new complicated opt-out process made it difficult for those that were aware to protect their personal information.

The lawsuit at the time alleged that the privacy settings were exposing users to “identity theft, harassment, embarrassment, intrusion and all types of cybercrime”.

As you’d expect many people who were previously unaware were shocked and angry to hear the news, but what has happened since with these social media sites? Has anything changed?

How have other companies reacted?

Although the Facebook issue was a major issue and source of anger for many users, other social media sites benefited from this greatly. Each and every existing social site and every new site have made user privacy a top priority and have invested in this more than ever before.

Windows Live:

Microsoft recently rolled out their excellent updates throughout their Windows Live services called “Live Wave 4”. One aspect I noticed right away was the level of privacy customisations a user can put in place. It is likely no other service online give’s this much flexibility:

Google Buzz

I’m sure most of you have heard of the recent Google Buzz ‘privacy buzz’ where a user’s profile, updates etc. was open for all to see. After the numerous complaints, Google forced users to choose their privacy options before they could use the service.

MySpace

MySpace have had lots of privacy issues in the past and are continually doing so such as a user to be able to view the picture of someone who’s profile is set to private etc. MySpace have recently made updates to their site and user profile’s which would likely have included lots of privacy fixes.

Facebook Reaction

With the barrage of complaints and lawsuits landing on Facebook’s door step they had to act swiftly and get back in the good books with their users and complainers. They took a number of steps to achieve a happy medium.

Popup for Privacy Setting

At the turn of the year all users of Facebook were greeted with a popup box that advised them to update their privacy settings. If a user did not go through these 29 settings then a user’s account would be available to the public. This obviously was not the best solutions and caused all the stir of complaints and lawsuits.

Privacy explained

To counter act the complaints Facebook created a detailed page on how to easily change and amend your account setting. This was aimed at trying to prevent any confusion that had been created through the initial privacy settings procedure. This failed in its attempts and Facebook had to come up with a simpler way.

Simpler Privacy Settings

Facebook have now agreed on a simpler process allowing users change their privacy settings. Below is an example of the privacy settings that you are now presented with.

As you can see there are now only nine settings that need to be amended to either make your profile

publicly available or to increase your privacy so that only friends can see your profile. This is much simpler than the original version that was a major part of the original complaints that were aired.

Conclusion

As the big players (namely Facebook, Windows Live, Google and MySpace) have all investing heavily in Privacy, this has set strong criteria for any new social site in the future to be successful.

Ahmed’s View

Privacy on the web is still in its infancy and one small mistake could lead to a wealth of information about yourself being made public web. Privacy issues are just the beginning and it’s likely this will lead to many more problems with social sites in the future. If you own a company website, then it’s vital to ensure and promote how you protect customer data; otherwise you will lose customers and users.

Ahmed can be followed at http://twitter.com/topnotchseo

Dave’s View

Facebook have had to put their hands up when it comes to the privacy issues that they have been faced with. I know that there are articles out there stating that the Facebook brand is tainted and Facebook have had to do a lot to try and rescue their image. To be honest though I don’t think that the Facebook brand is going to be harmed by a small issue like the privacy problem. I think that it would take something massive to knock this brand to its knees.

Dave can be followed at http://twitter.com/davestopherseo

Gemma’s View

Although many of the social media sites have made improvements in the area of privacy I think they could go a step further and make your personal information private by default. This is especially important for children who use the sites. Parents need to know that their children are safe when using the internet and that when using social media sites they are only in contact with people they know and trust.

Gemma can be followed at http://twitter.com/seofocusuk