I’m afraid that this blog isn’t really going to answer this question, but I was intrigued whilst at BrightonSEO yesterday when I was asked “how do you get people to like you on Twitter?”

I don’t consider myself to be a social media expert, although I do like being social – I like to talk to people, find out interesting or fun titbits of information about peoples lives, share useful knowledge between people for the betterment of all of them

I also don’t think that I am exactly one of the most famous tweeters in the world, or all that widely known/liked just yet – whilst it is a terrible measure, I have only just gone past 700 twitter followers, and growth in that respect has been dwindling a little bit of late.

What I do think I have that perhaps the person asking does not, is quite an engaged follower/following relationship. I tweet quite a lot, about all sorts of topics ranging from SEO, music, film, I crack jokes and stories with people and probably, most of all, I tweet about Food and Rum

These are all things that make me, me! I love cooking, so I talk about it – quite a lot of people in my Twitterverse also seem to like food, and I think its somewhat expected of me now (I know my co-workers ask about it if I don’t tweet about food for a while).

I like a lot of types of music too. I listen to some blues and jazz music from time to time, and some of my twitter friends do too – The same goes with some of the rock music I listen to, or the hip hop that I put on from time to time. Over the last year, Twitter has become the main method of me finding new music to listen to – through word of mouth recommendations from people that I have spoken to enough to realise common interests.

I think that to get the most out of social relationships built up in these spheres you have to take the time to tweet – if you don’t have those conversations with people that draw you closer together, you limit the possibilities of how much influence them and how they can help you increase visibility of anything that you are trying to get visibility for.

I follow a lot of people in and around the SEO industry, but at the end of the day, many of the relationships I have formed with people have begun in completely unrelated conversations – you can then always talk about more work related issues at another time. Start the conversation somewhere that you have some middle ground to meet at, and build from there.

Sometimes it’s not going to work out perfectly – I know that some of my flippant tongue in cheek comments have been misinterpreted at times, and no doubt I will have ruffled some feathers along the way, but that was never my intention. I have cringed a couple of times reading back tweets, but thats just a part of the journey.

Ultimately, I doubt that there are many cut and dried rules about getting people to like you on Twitter, especially if you have to “try” to be liked – but my main 2 rules for my activities on social media platforms are:

1) Treat people the way you would like to be treated

And

2) Be yourself!

I’ll finish this post with a tweet I received from Nichola Stott after finally meeting her at BrightonSEO yesterday:

I fully intend to

I recently emailed my MP Mike Hancock,of the Liberal Democrats as like many Internet aware users, I have been very concerned about the rushing through of the Digital Economy Bill.

The bill is wide ranging, although I’m not going to go into great detail here as there is a good start to information about this on the BBC.

I raised some specific concerns as well as using the Digital Economy Bill letter template from 37 Signals – particularly in relation to the methods that would be used to determine who file sharers are – for instance, as I write this blog, there are a number of unsecured networks that I could use to go online with, and download copyrighted material. Then there are issues with business and schools being responsible for any downloaded copyrighted material.

I was also concerned that websites accused of breaching copyright, could with no due process be blocked from being accessed. In short a hell of a lot of power, with very little accountability to prove infringements.

My MP’s response was as follows:

Dear Mr Handley,

The Digital Economy Bill is wide ranging and covers issues such as a new remit for Channel 4, the classification of computer games, plans for switchover to digital radio and the future of regional news on ITV as well as the issue of illegal downloading.

The Liberal Democrats support the creative industries and believe that many aspects of this Bill are vitally important to the continuing success of our radio, television and content industries.

We are also concerned about the financial implications of illegal downloading of copyright material and recognise the importance of protecting intellectual property.

A report published on 17th March 2010 predicted that a quarter of a million jobs in the UK’s creative industries could be lost by 2015 if current trends in online piracy continue.

Commenting on it, Brendan Barber, General Secretary of the TUC, said: “The results of the study stress that the growth of unauthorised file-sharing, downloading and streaming of copyrighted works and recorded performances is a major threat to the creative industries in terms of loss of employment and revenues. The scale of the problem is truly frightening now – let alone in the future if no firm actions against illegal file-sharing are taken.”

For these reasons we do believe that some action is needed and must form part of the Digital Economy Bill.

However, we have opposed – and helped defeat – government proposals (contained in Clause 17 of the original Digital Economy Bill) to give itself almost unfettered powers to act against copyright infringement.

Further, as a result of debates instigated and amendments passed by the Liberal Democrats in the Lords, the government’s original proposals relating to illegal peer-to-peer file-sharing have been significantly improved.

As a result, no action to introduce “technical measures” (whether temporary account suspension, bandwidth throttling or whatever) can be introduced until;

1. soft measures (letter writing) have been used
2. an evaluation of their effectiveness has been undertaken
3. an evaluation of the need for, and likely effectiveness of, technical measures has been undertaken
4. further consultation has taken place
5. proposed legislation is brought before parliament for decision, and
6. there is an explicit assumption of innocence until proved guilty

The Liberal Democrats remain concerned by some aspects of the system for tackling peer-to-peer file-sharing being introduced in the Bill and will take further action in the Commons to scrutinise and improve the legislation. In particular, we are concerned that there will not be enough time for in-depth consultation on the initial code that Ofcom will draw up. We also feel that there is currently inadequate protection in the Bill for schools, libraries, universities and other businesses offering internet access to the public.

We are also unconvinced of the merits of the various technical measures that have been proposed, including bandwidth shaping and temporary account suspension. For this reason we have amended the Bill to ensure that any such measures cannot be introduced without proper consultation and not until evidence has been produced to prove that this is the best available option. We are further seeking to ensure that any measures brought before parliament will be subject to maximum scrutiny in both Houses and that it will be possible for changes to be made to them before a final decision is made.

We are urging the creative music, film and video games industries to work more vigorously to develop new business models which will make it easier and more affordable for people to legally access their products. We hope that this combined with “soft measures” and an effective education campaign will mean that further action will not be required.

Liberal Democrats have agreed at their Spring Conference to establish a working party to address these issues. With at least a year before there will be any attempt to introduce “technical measures”, this will provide an opportunity for the party to consider the outcome of research into the effectiveness of the early stages of the implementation of the legislation in the digital economy Bill.

The Bill has now completed all stages in the Lords but cannot proceed unless it has, as a minimum, been debated at a “Second Reading” in the Commons. We believe that many of the measures in the Bill that do not relate to illegal file sharing are important and must be allowed to go into law. However, in respect of those that relate to illegal file sharing we will not support them in the Commons if we are not satisfied that the procedures in place are fair and allow for full consultation and scrutiny before their introduction in the future.

Best regards,

Mike Hancock MP

Today, I have done 3 things on the Internet, that have either helped people, or put up a fight for a cause that was worthy of fighting for.

The first, was the disgusting behaviour of the Ian fella at Holborn on the Tube - this was terrible treatment of a paying customer – and ok – staff shouldn’t be abused, but neither should staff abuse clients (and if they are going to do it – don’t do it in public!).

I’ve worked in retail – and if I had spoken to a customer that way and be caught in the process, I would expect to be sacked. In fact, not even just in retail – I would expect to be sacked in my current job for speaking to a client like that – it’s just not on.

It’s very fortunate that Jonathan MacDonald had the thought of taping the exchange – and this created a storm on Twitter (and probably elsewhere too, but Twitter is where I followed it).

Next was the Stephen Gateley bashing by the Daily Mail – pretty similar – and the anti-gay vibe was sadly so predictable from the Hate Mail – I can’t understand the mentality behind the readers of this rag – but then maybe, I’m just too nice a person to understand the mentality.

I didn’t “get” Twitter for ages, but I am really enjoying the engagement that I have with the medium now – and it has allowed me to feel part of a real community (though whether or not I imagine that I don’t know).

Finally, I helped my friend pay his rent - and was one of many friends or fans of his work that contributed – well I couldn’t let the guy just be homeless.

Time now to get off the computer and enjoy some weekend! Thats all folks!