Are you on twitter? Have you heard of what is known around the internet as “Twitter Chats?” No? Ok, well twitter chats are one of the most useful aspects of using twitter because they connect you with like minded people on topics you have in common.

For example, if you’re interesting in public relations (any aspect) there is a perfect chat for you called #pr20chat that is a discussion for where PR is heading. It happens on Tuesdays from 7-8pm CST and is moderated by @bethharte @JGoldsborough @prtini. They talk each week and generally have a theme that refers to public relations and those working in it. It’s incredible helpful as a career development tool, and it connects you with hundreds of people that you could learn from or share your knowledge.

There’s another one called @prstudchat that connects PR professionals and students. If you’re a professional, this can be just a mentor situation. These students are learning the newest and best ways to get to an audience faster and more effectively – so while they may learn a thing or two from your experience, you may learn a thing or two from their fresh perspective.

Twitter.com is a great place to check a profile but it is not exactly the best place to go to actually use twitter to its full extent. The best places to go are Tweetdeck, Hootsuite, Echofon, Seismic, Brizzly, etc. They allow much more functionality for the average users.

However, for a chat, the best options to follow a live chat, are tweetchat.com or tweetgrid.com. They allow for real time results and all the same functionality. Chats can go by extremely fast, so using these system takes a little bit of practice and communication savvy.

Good luck!

It’s been a pretty big year for Facebook. This past week they achieved 500 million users worldwide. The bigger staggering fact is that means 40% of the world’s internet users now have a facebook profile page. How crazy is that?

If you’re using Facebook professionally, however, it can all be really confusing. In the last 6 months Facebook has had yet another makeover and now includes Community Pages as well as Business pages (formerly Fan Pages). Both are used differently and mean different things.

What is the difference?
Business Pages – These are the pages that everyone goes around the internet liking. When you “Like” a brand either on Facebook or on the Internet it goes back to their page from your personal profile. It will now show up in your newsfeed with updates, contests, links, and whatever else they decide to post for their fans to see.

Community Pages – are a bit new and unusual. When you had previously set up your Facebook profile, you could enter in various forms of your interests such as Hobbies, Music, TV, Books, and Movies. What this now did was take all of those and enter them into communal pages. So if you “Like” the activity “Hiking” it will now be added to your profile in your Activities section and you can check the “Hiking” page to see who else is talking about Hiking. Or your favorite tv show, author, or movie, etc. This automatically happened if you had anything in your profile when the changed happened. Now, anyone can see the things you enjoy, unless you delete it from your profile and make your profile private.

So there is a very big difference if you are a business. You will want a business fan page and to keep that up. Do not confuse either of these with groups, which are made by various individuals and do not show up on your newsfeed. They serve more of a discussion and interest section of facebook.

Enjoy!