New Twitter Feature: Suggestions For You

Twitter has been rolling out the new features in the past few months, with sponsored trending topics, improvements to the 'Find Friends' feature, Twitter Places and now the brand spanking new 'Who To Follow' feature... nothing seems to get rid of that fail whale though :(

What's it all about?

Simply put, the 'Who to Follow' feature helps you to find others who have similar interests to you. These suggestions are based on several factors, most notably on the people you follow as well as the people they follow... not rocket science :)

Why are they doing it?

Twitter are very conscious we are using their service to speak to friends and family, and they recently wrote a blog post on following your friends and colleagues. In it, they said that they were making improvements so that we can find our friends easier. So all in all the use of the 'Suggestions For You' feature is intended to make the job of finding friends and finding people who have similar interests, easier.

It can be difficult to keep in touch with everyone when you join a new social network. For example, I am a big fan of Foursquare, so I had a look at similar social networks and found Gowalla. I am just getting into it but can't find anyone I know on it, even though I do know people are there. Shouldn't it be easier for us to find then initially? For Gowalla, I guess I just wait for them to roll out something like this... hopefully.

Where is it?

Well if you're an avid Twitter user and like to twet (my new word for tweet) often, then you will have probably caught a sneaky peek of the feature between Friday and Monday. If you go and click on the 'Find People' link at the top of the page 'Suggestions For You' will be fitted in snugly between 'Browse Interests' and 'Find Friends'.

When is it back online?

On the Twitter Status they have said that the 'Suggestions For You' feature has been temporarily disabled but will be back up in the next 24 hours.

What else can I use to find people?

Working in SEO and social media I look at a lot of different tools and websites that help me find followers for clients. There are a lot of websites out there that have categories like fashion, furniture and legal, plus a lot more that can help agencies and individuals find people who share their interests. These include WeFollow and Twellow.