Having upgraded the Travel Notes Blog to match the recent TravelNotes.org website changes - and made sure it looked fine in both IE8 and Firefox - I started reading around some of my favourite travel blogs and stumbled on the NetworkedBlogs Facebook application.

Now I can easily keep an eye on Facebook users who follow the Travel Notes Blog, and hopefully discover some more interesting travel-related blogs to read.

NetworkedBlogs also works as something of a blog directory and is easy to browse by Topic, Popularity or Region.

I've even added their search results to the Travel Notes Toolbar.

Hopefully, this will be my last blog post about Twitter. If I want to add anything else, I'll just edit this post or create a page on the Travel Tweet Directory.

Looking through (mostly) travel-related Twitter profiles it seems I could probably offer some of the people who follow me on Twitter a little advice.

For most people, it's pretty clear; they are on Twitter as themselves. They have a decently cropped photograph as an avatar, use their real name, fill in location and add a short bio.

Some people even jazz up their profile page with an interesting background image.

Perfect.

Far be it for me to tell you 'how to' use Twitter but if you're reading this, then you might be looking for some 'branding' tips; or at least my thoughts on them.


Your Twitter Profile

The first place most people will look, if they're thinking about following you, is your profile. So make a good impression; or at least the impression you want visitors to your Twitter profile page to have about you.

Remember, 'Honesty is the Best Policy'.

Of course, there are those who may just follow you automatically, through various websites and software applications that use the Twitter API. Or because it's what they do.

I wouldn't really class these as followers but number generators. The numbers might make you feel good but I'm sure you'd feel better if the numbers were lower and the people following you were genuinely interested in at least some of your tweets; maybe even replying to you and passing on (or referencing) some of your tweets to their own followers.


Username and Real Name

Account Settings is where you can make your changes.

The 'Username' will be on the Twitter URL - and changing this can create broken links, if other websites are already linking to you.

It's one thing having a Twitter username that relays what you're about, but unless you're representing a well-known brand, tourist destination, or large hotel, it's probably a wise choice to reveal your real 'Name' in your profile too.

This will help people connect to you, on a more personal level.


More Info URL

If you have a web presence, this is the place to link to 'more about you' or your website/blog front page.

I don't really understand why people link to their Twitter profile here, as it's the page we're already on.

I can't really get to grips with why people link to a LinkedIn page either, unless they don't have a web presence (outside of all their 'social' media haunts).

Add a link to your Twitter profile from LinkedIn (if you use it) by all means, but if you have an online property, then why not create an about page on your own URL as well - and send your Twitter profile link to there?

At least this will bring people directly into your own Internet space from Twitter, then link to LinkedIn from your own domain (if you must).

Let LinkedIn work for you, sure, but make your Twitter profile work for you before it works for LinkedIn.


One Line Bio

'About yourself in fewer than 160 chars' - Now how hard is that?

We're only allowed 140 characters for our tweets but Twitter has kindly given us an extra 20 characters to play with here.

I'm surprised at how many people choose to ignore this space; waste it with silly ✩♕ ☁ ☟♘ ☯; tell us what their website is about (except for established brands); or the property they're trying to rent out - and not about themselves.

Is your website or holiday home doing the tweeting?

Hopefully, you are!

Of course you can be the founder of a travel website or owner of a holiday home, and it makes sense to say so.

So who are you? What are you about?


Location

Please, is an iPhone number really a location?

I don't want to call you, or come round to your house, but I wouldn't mind knowing roughly where you're from.

Having a proper location also makes it easier for people to find you on Twitter (and related directories), if they're interested in a particular destination.


The Picture



This is not really doing you any favours at all.

Change the picture here.

But before you do, think about it; are you really that bike, that flag, that baby, or that front door?

Is a squashed up version of the logo you use on your website really something your potential new followers will want to look at when you tweet to them?

If you're not really a brand, just be yourself.

Another thing to think about - is that Twitter will squeeze your photo into a 73x73 pixel square for your profile page, so maybe submit a photograph that is already cropped into a square.

Submit a larger photo (but not smaller), by all means; as this will be seen when people click on your profile image. Just be careful that the picture is not too large, if you've taken the effort to create a stunning Twitter background in the next step.


Design

If you're really serious about branding yourself on Twitter, this is the place to polish it off.

You can change design colours to match the feel of your own website and, with a little imagination, you can make your Twitter background say almost anything about you.

Instead of using a logo, house or landscape on your profile picture, you can incorporate these sort of images here.

Getting the background image looking right can be a little tricky though, as it aligns top left and the content scrolling over your background image will vary depending on screen resolution and size.

Put the most important visual information in the first 245 pixels of the left column.

You can test how the background will look in different screen resolutions here (in Firefox Browser).

In most cases, choosing 'tile background' will not be the option you wish to select.

If you're not comfortable creating an original background image, Twitbacks offer a free service - with a little free branding for them thrown in.


Branding Yourself

Even if your goal on Twitter is to get more people to stay in your holiday home, use your travel agency, or visit your website, getting them interested in you (and what you can share) should probably be your first priority.

Once people are interested in you, the person, they may recommend 'what you're about' to their friends or followers later.

As more and more people follow through to your profile, make the most of this opportunity to get them interested in you.

Present a human image of yourself and use all aspects of your profile page to represent you better.

Then all you need to worry about is making an even bigger impression, with your tweets.

Sorry folks, it's rants time.

The Internet medium has allowed just about anyone to call themselves a travel writer or photographer; even a 'published' travel writer.

However, some of the material I've been looking at recently almost makes me cringe and cry out for more editorial control.

There are articles about top things to do or see by people who have probably never left their computer screen to research a travel destination in their life, illustrated by photographs they've 'borrowed' from elsewhere online; often without even giving credit to the photographer.

There are also far too many blog posts created just to link to another blog, which again masquerades as something of a 'travel article'; inspired by yet another blog post, which may eventually lead us to the real source.

That wouldn't be so bad, if people didn't use Twitter to send the link to their hastily mashed up effort at writing; just for their following flock to waste their time clicking around to reach the real story.

If people can't create original content, then why not use editorial judgement and link to the original article from their tweet?

There's also the increasing use of Twitpic to push out photographs (through Twitter) of 'travel photography'. I was even duped into looking at some that were taken through a car window.

Then there's a link circulating to something claiming to offer tips on taking better travel photographs; but the photography used to illustrate this only shows that the photographer still needs to work on the tips.

Not one of the photographic examples stands out enough to be worthy of publication in traditional media.

Tip number 10 was 'Take a lot of photos and don’t delete them'.

Well, well..... I'd say take plenty of photographs by all means - but delete the duds; unless your intention is to show me how not to take photographs, as a way of producing something better.

My number one travel photography tip would be to look at magazines like National Geographic and be inspired by the great pictures produced by the professional photographers who do get published.

Look at the framing and exposure of these images and train your eye to see what makes them so special. Then be critical of the pictures you take that aren't.

So to all of you who claim to be travel writers and photograpers, perhaps it's time to start thinking like an editor and be selective in what you (as publisher) choose to publish.

I've made another tweak to the Travel Notes design and should probably call it Travel Notes 2.10 - as we look forward to 2010.

Hopefully, I won't be tempted to change the look and feel again; at least until we have upgraded all the pages; some going back to version 0.97 - when Travel Notes™ was first launched.

I know, it's embarrassing.

Since our first release, in 1997, there have been many changes in web design and what people expect from their Internet experience.

There is also a lot more competition for viewer loyalty and a lot more noise to sift through; to find the real gems.

Some websites we used to like haven't kept pace, while others have exceeded all expectations.

There's also a lot more e-mail in our inbox and the spam has become ridiculous.

We've also dabbled with database driven content, travel forums and open mailing/discussion lists.

While there were some advantages, the moderation and verifying of all the different forms of user-submitted content just took up too much time. Some sites don't bother to use the power of editorial control, and seem to do quite well, but it's not something that I'm comfortable with.

It takes a keen eye to spot the 'fake reviews' and see through the tricks of cunning marketing hopefuls. Just look at how many 'Press Releases' are around.

Social Media on Travel Notes

Social media has really exploded lately, which is very exciting as I have always embraced the idea of travellers coming together in the form of an online network; having established the 'Network of Travellers' - in The Tropics of Geocities, way back in 1996.

That's why I've now created a Directory of Travel Tweeters on Twitter and will be adding Google's Friend Connect to the newly designed pages on Travel Notes™.

This is a great way for fellow travellers to come together across a large number of websites, so please join us to add your comments.

Plan Your Work and Work Your Plan

This is really something I need to apply to myself more often, and have a new personal work plan to try and help me stay focussed.

Mondays - Africa & Middle East.
Tuesdays - Asia & Oceania.
Wednesdays - Europe.
Thursdays - Latin America & Caribbean.
Fridays - Canada and United States.
Saturdays - General Travel.
Sundays - Travel Articles and Videos.

Of course, 'All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy' so I will continue to travel and connect with friends online; as work can be fun too.

Follow Michel on Twitter - @TravelTweet.

With the Australian Grand Prix getting the new Formua 1 season underway, on Sunday, I've done the research for you all again; to preview the season ahead, and refreshed the Monaco GP article.


Ayrton Senna - © Michel (@TravelTweet)

► Formula 1 Travel Article.

Google's Street View has been making the news in the United Kingdom more than Twitter lately, as some people were quick to complain about privacy issues.

Offically launched two years ago (25th May, 2007), with San Francisco, Las Vegas, Denver, Miami, and New York City featured, 'Street View' finally rolled out across the UK; on March 18th, 2009.

The Tour de France route was trialed in July, 2008 and then the 'Google camera car' went driveabout Down Under; focusing the lens on Adelaide, Albany, Alice Springs, Brisbane, Broken Hill, Broome, Cairns, Canberra, Geraldton, Hobart, Karratha, Melbourne, Mount Isa, Perth, Rockhampton, Sydney, and Tamworth.

Major French cities (Paris, Lyon, Marseille, Nice, Lille, Toulouse) were added on October 14th; closely followed by Spain (Barcelona, Madrid, Seville, and Valencia) and Italy (Florence, Lake Como, Milan, and Rome).

You can even view the Valencia F1 street circuit.

New Zealand (Auckland, Christchurch, Dunedin, Queenstown, and Wellington) was then opened up to the eye of the world in December, 2008.

Although the Google Map now has plenty of blue markers, there's still nothing in Latin America, Africa, The Middle East or Asia; except for Japan (Chiba, Hakodate, Kobe, Kyoto, Osaka, Saitama, Sapporo, Sendai, Tokyo, and Yokohama).

With so many places to choose from, it's now getting difficult to decide where to travel to from the comfort of your own home.

I zoomed into Europe, moved the map away from the centred United States and zoomed in some more.

Then, instead of trying to peer into the windows of the coffeshops and Red Light District in Amsterdam, I decided to take a drive with Google..... away from London and the new releases..... and down to Lake Como.

If you haven't used the new street view before, view the Google Street View Video.

Street View on Twitter.

Street View Cures the Homesick Blues:
Announcing Street View's arrival in The Netherlands and United Kingdom.

Firstly, the disclaimer:
I don't claim to be a 'Twitter expert' (like many people do, and probably are); nor claim to be a 'travel expert' (like many people do, and probably are not); although I have been to more countries than most and use Twitter in a way that appeals to me.

There are quite possibly more 'marketing pros' and 'experts', according to some of the Twitter profiles I've seen, than there are things to market; unless they're all supposed to be pros at marketing themselves - which some people clearly are, while others fail miserably.

Anyway

Having spent a lot of time on Twitter lately (probably too much) looking at travel-related Twitter profiles I have to ask: If you want - or already have - thousands of followers, is it really worth it?

To get thousands of followers - and keep them - (celebrities excluded) some people tend to follow, or follow back, thousands of people; presuming it's the 'done thing to do'.

This means you'll have more tweets pouring in than you can probably handle and may even miss the sweet tweets from the tweeps you're really interested in.

Credit to the Twitter masters who seem to cope with this, but even some of them admit that they aren't really reading the tweets of all the people they 'follow' but do check the @Replies.

I guess this could be a guage of who's really following and interested enough in what they're following - by the replies received.

The reply feature, however, can also be open to abuse; and with the thousands of people you're following, replying to the thousands of people they're following, it can soon seem like you're sitting in a communications centre with all lines open and plenty of wires crossed (unless you turn the @replies off in your settings).

To Some People, Twitter Seems To Be a Numbers Game

To keep up with the numbers, there are all sorts of tools available to help find people who are more likely to follow you back; to alert you of who isn't following you back; or - heaven forbid - decides to follow you no longer.

Then there are the people who get offended by others, who don't follow back all their followers, and are not afraid to make a tweet about it.

As Evan Williams, founder of Twitter (and Blogger) said, on Mar 12th; in reply to a concerned Natali Del Conte:

"Please ignore follow-ratio nazis. They're confused about what makes Twitter work. To each their own."

And that would be my advice: forget about the numbers; be true to (and about) yourself; use Twitter how you want to; and just be thankful that, beneath all the numbers, there are some people who really are interested about what you have to share online. Aren't there?

Personally, I like to see an interesing mix of tweets from the people I follow and hope to provide the same.

Do I really appeal to thousands of followers? Probably not, if they all expect me to follow them back and get offended if I don't.

To those who do follow me on Twitter, I thank you!