The Twitterverse is an all-encompassing realm of social media. You have your followers, direct messages, and now..online newspapers? Paper .Li newspapers have become the hidden gem of this social media platform and the key for Twitter recognition and popularity. Paper .Li newspapers are a great way to become a recognized thought leader in your industry by taking content from Twitter and featuring tweets as various articles in your paper. By giving credit to the authors for their content on your page, people will start to re-tweet, direct message, and thank you for featuring them.

Wondering how a Paper .Li newspaper can make your company stand out from the crowd?

In addition to just tweeting excellent content I know you have in hopes of being featured in someone else’s .Li paper, why not create your own? .Li papers can be created for any and every industry. Technical writing papers, technology papers, even scientific-focused papers; it’s totally up to you what you write about and whom you feature. After all, you are the author and creator of your own paper so YOU decide whose content you are featuring from Twitter! If a person in your industry is active on Twitter, you have free content for your newspaper right at your fingertips. Once you begin featuring other people’s content regularly and establishing new online relationships, you may even begin to acquire some regular readers! Check out one user’s story about her experience with .Li newspapers.

So what are you waiting for? Get Paper .Li’ing and see your Twitter popularity and activity increase overnight! Comment below and let us know your thoughts on the concept of Paper .Li newspapers!

If you have a Twitter account, you are most likely following brands or individuals that are relevant to your industry. Similarly, if you have a Facebook account, you probably have “liked” brands that you use, musical artists that you listen to, and even general places you have been to. LinkedIn must have felt out of the loop because on February 27, 2012 the professional social networking platform launched their first tool to connect users with their favorite companies and brands. Welcome to the new LinkedIn“Company Follow” button!

Connecting with consumers and providing potential customers with information, contests, and updates about your brand are essential for businesses to succeed with social media. If a brand generates enough unique and relevant content to their industry, people will start noticing and take interest. That’s where the Company Follow button comes in.

A recent article from Mashable states that internal research shows 70% of LinkedIn members currently follow or would follow a company on LinkedIn and 60% would expect industry news from the companies they follow. Begin following businesses to establish new relationships with your favorite brands or even better, feature a company follow button on YOUR LinkedIn business page! Think of LinkedIn as another social channel to plant your content through and watch that seed grow over time! With enough watering (and interactions/updates), your business will have plenty of LinkedIn followers in no time!

Are you following brands on LinkedIn yet? Let us know below how you like this new feature!

Technology is a wonderful thing. In this past decade, we’ve seen the world continue to change at an increasingly fast pace. Gadgets and the internet have successfully penetrated our lives and become an integral part of communication, information and life in general. Our generations may be the last to remember what I like to call “simpler times;” Times before Facebook, Google and even cell phones.

We’re mostly addicted to these converging mediums, and there are an increasingly smaller number of people that can’t answer a question like, “what’s a tweet?” All of this technological integration may be great for the adopters, but for the shortsighted- not so much. As we run unbounded in this new landscape, our digital footprints leave a distinct path. Where the tracks point can have lasting implications for your relationships, careers and even your legacy as a person.

Consider this: If you wanted to learn about a distant relative, your best bet would be government documents, historical records and if you’re lucky, family tales. Websites like Ancestory.com make millions of dollars trying to help you put a face to a name on family tree. Even with all of these tools at your feet, it’s unlikely you’ll ever know much about who that person was. We as people are excellent at filling in the blanks and idolizing and romanticizing what is actually unknown. 100 years from now, I’m willing to bet there will be little left to the imagination. Great-grandchildren will see exactly what you were up to, the people you associated with and the times you had; both pleasant and unpleasant.

Now some may say “so what?” Is it such a bad thing to break down the walls between obscurities and facts? Though we all like to imagine our privacy settings prevent us from being snooped on, it’s certainly not the case. Data is floating around all over the globe, stored on computers and servers forever and there’s not a thing you can do to prevent it from existing, short of disconnecting from the world. Companies are even being created try pry open your life and expose your true self to prospective employers. The loose ends of conversations and actions can be pieced together across a multitude of websites to create a comprehensive look at who you are. Buyers beware; don’t post things that you wouldn’t want everyone to see. And by everyone, I mean family, friends, employers, children ect (here’s a great example of a girl who ranted about her parents on Facebook and her consequences). It’s best to think twice before saying or doing anything that is unbecoming of the legacy you want left behind. I suppose that’s a good life lesson in general, but now the stakes are higher.