The UK has been a strange place to be over the last week.  No-one could have predicted the bizarre turn of events that saw Cameron and Clegg shake hands on the steps of Number 10 before going in together to make a start on running the country.

And while it didn’t turn out to be the ’social media election’ that was originally predicted, the constant hum from twitter and blogs has, for me and I’m sure many others, provided a fascinating additional layer of commentary, opinion and wit.

In the tech/social media world, there has been just as much going on.  Rather than try and pull it all together into one post, I’ve gone for more of a listing, highlighting some of the more interesting stuff.

• Twitter confirmed it was beta testing its new business centre, which along with @anywhere and the ad platform underlines it’s determination to encourage business to sign up.
• Location based apps & content continue to increase in importance; Foursquare saw it’s 40 millionth check-in while Facebook announced it was teaming up with McDonalds to launch its own geo-location app.
• HP launched Gloe, an experimental app that allows you to map specific web pages onto geographical locations (I really like the look of this, it could open up so many interesting services).

So in the future when people ask you, “where were you when?” you will probably be able to tell them down to the exact spot.

Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/vidiot/69073063/

My take – yes of course, Twitter is about people, as I've said before that's exactly why it's so popular.  But it's not as simple as saying there's no place on Twitter for brands or companies, otherwise why do accounts like @overheardatmoo work so well? Because there is still a person behind the brand.  And that's the key.  I really do believe that as long as your tweets have personality there's no reason why you shouldn't tweet as a company or brand but you have to have something to say.  And you have to want to do it.  I wonder if some of the reason digital agencies aren't tweeting much is because the individuals who feel comfortable with Twitter already have their own accounts and they don't have the extra time, or inclination to try and run another one.

1.  Set up google alerts for terms of interest – even generic ones like 'online PR' or 'social media' can bring you back some interesting results.

2.  Get FeedDemon or similar RSS feed and start subscribing to blogs.  If you're not sure which blogs to read or how to find them, your google alerts will give you a starting point and once you've found a blog that interests you, have a look at their blog roll and before long you'll be subscribing to a long list. 

3.  Join Twitter.  Honestly you have to.  The common sequence of events with a new Twitter user is a) they join b) they announce that they just don't "get it" c) never use it again. The best way to get started with Twitter is to follow some of the bloggers that you read, look at who they're following and off you go.  Like any social networking tool, the more you use it, the more you get out of it.

4. Start a blog – it gives you an idea of how blogs work, etiquette etc which is vital if you're a PR person hoping to target influential bloggers.

That's it.  No mystery, no smoke and mirrors. You just have to dive in.