**UPDATE: So what we found in RESULTS in discussion of this video is that about 90% of people dont respond or use Follow Friday to add followers, it goes largely ignored. It made very little additions of followers in my studies of the end results. It seems an illusion that its effective to people who send them or that people even really read them. The people who are sending them in mass, dont understand few people are listening. It ends up being a waste. We’ve proven what I’ve already known. In the end – enjoy Twitter the way you want.
**UPDATE 2: A BETTER WAY TO DO FOLLOW FRIDAY WITHOUT THE NOISE AND LACK OF CONVERSATION ON FRIDAY.
@momsofamerica – showed me a better way, I wish we would all adopt for Follow Friday. Then can we end this annoying barrage of junk very few people are listening to. She makes a List in Twitter of people she wants to Follow Friday on. Then she tweets out this in ONE tweet. 
Its CLEAN, SMART AND EFFICIENT! Lets clean up Friday so we can chat for a change without all the noise. Thanks!
Here was an interesting blog post I liked on this subject: http://whoisandywarner.com/new-follow-friday-format/
Thanks Chris..I'm so glad to hear someone else say it. I hate it..impossible to keep up with, and no results.
Thanks for all your hard work to keep us on top of things..
Thanks Bev!
A single RT is worth a dozen FF's.
Thank you!
thanks!
Great thought, Chris. I guess I have thought the same thing but was playing he leming to a degree, although I am selective about my #FFs and continue conversations all the way.
Great thought, Chris. I've thought the same thing but play the leming to a degree, although I am selective about my #FFs and continue conversations all the way.
Thanks!
Thanks!
I am SO FED UP constantly having this fight! I totally agree with you. Since I was on the BETA lists team, I've had a Follow Friday list so one tweet of @rebeccawoodhead/ff does it. Anyone, all week, can see people I recommend and follow all with one click if they want to. If they aren't interested, they need not look at it. Frequently, people object to this approach but I refuse to deviate from it. Follow Friday is just spam. Can't stand it. We have lists now – why do we need Follow Friday?
Excellent point Rebecca!
Great comment, with ur results, how many hours on a Friday would u do bunches of ff tweets? So u do it to get possibly 10 followers?
well its been a long time sense I visited your site, and this is one of the few times I just flat disagree. Perhaps thats because I just don't use twitter for the same reasons as you. Honestly I don't use twitter for anything other then keeping my followers up to date with programs I recommend and posts I recommend. I have facebook, plaxo, myspace, linkedin, etc for building and developing relationships.I rarely even look at twitter these days. I take the cnn approach I guess, just post whats useful and move on. I've been accused of being a spammer because of this but 140 characters or less is barely enough for me to get out a sentence… its strictly for link sharing. In fact I equate twitter to social bookmarking in real time.
My point to all this is I think follow friday is great. Yup on average I get 0 followers on follow friday, but then I also get nearly 0 people recommending me. On those days people do recommend me, I pick up 10 or so new followers. Doesn't seem like a lot but its 10 more I get with no effort on my part. I don't partake in it myself because… well I don't actually follow anyone via twitter itself unless they connect twitter to something like fb or aim so no point recommending ppl.
But again this is just my take and the great thing about twitter is we all use it for different reasons.
We're not all here to get followers some of us are here to find cool ppl to follow, read about, do business with and learn from. Twitter is now NYC something for everyone. I think what we have to be careful of, is thinking that everyone believes as we do. I suggest you sit back and enjoy the city.
Good Point Lynne, I've only been here almost a 1 and a half what do I know.
LOL
Chris
For those who like the idea of Follow Friday and don't want it to go, what about the lists idea? Why not set up a list like @rebeccawoodhead/ff
( http://twitter.com/rebeccawoodhead/ff ) and remind people of it every Friday? If you do that, it's so short (if you use the @ version) you can put in actual reasons for your choices. This does a number of things.
1/ it shows the type of people you appreciate. If you like, set up /FFSocialMedia and /FFWriters or whatever to separate them, but I just put something like 'great group of writers and social media types to follow.' That's it. People interested in these categories, and scrolling the hashtag, can pick out immediately that these are worth a follow. People can follow the lot with one click, or pick their favourites. They can spend 5 mins scrolling through the tweets and making an educated choice and… no spamming happens.
2/ You're doing more than just spamming with this. You think putting #FF by someone's name is a big compliment? Really? Bigger than upping their rating on places like Listorious, and improving their positions on search engines and grading sites? You can have an actual impact on how influential people are deemed to be by listing them. They still appear in the hashtag list if you use #FF but you've actually helped their business.
3/ You look more intelligent. Follow Friday – the way it stands now – is so Web 1.0. If you are in the social media/tech space do you REALLY want to look that far behind the times? Do you want people to think that doing business with you would be spammy, needy and old fashioned? Wouldn't you rather say 'hey, there have been developments since the hashtag. Look. I'm using one in a creative fashion?' Obviously, you wouldn't actually spell that out, but if you use Lists to add value and help promote others, people will view you differently. Lists are an ongoing assessment of what the Twitter community thinks of you. Listing someone and promoting that list consistently – but not in a spammy way – is a powerful statement of appreciation.
I appreciate the people on my FF list and I like the fact that it is always available, regardless of day. I can easily point people to it when they ask who to follow. It is a shop window for my recommendations and people pick and choose who they want to follow. It doesn't scare me that this approach is still novel. It's efficient. People will come round eventually. I'm just an early adopter who can get actual work done on a Friday. The fact that Mention Monday etc are now invading the Twitter stream is confirmation to me that Follow Friday has become a needy and pointless exercise in passive-aggressive self-promotion and serves nobody in its current form.
Rebecca
http://rebeccawoodhead.com
What an awesome idea!
Amen.
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Seems like a waste of your energy to try and stop something that many people seem to like. Just scroll over them and do what you like to do and have the conversations you like to have and let others have the fun they want. It does not stop you from doing what you like. Twitter is different for everyone and different people like to different things.
I have met some great people on Twitter and it was through Follow Friday(primarily) that I met these people. Some people are helping me (Oh I'm a writer) and I am having the honor of helping writers who are just starting out.
As always, appreciate what you are doing Chris.
Hi Chris! I don't agree that it must stop, but I like that you've got an opinion about it and are raising some interesting points. I like Rebecca Woodhead's ideas about the lists. I created one, and I think what I'm going to do is mention the ppl that I add to this list every Friday. I know that's basically the same thing as Follow Friday, but honestly my following does use Follow Friday and I usually pick up several followers and start following ppl that are recommended.
I know know about this one. If people like it (I was an early fan of it, but not anymore), I'd just live and let live. After almost three years on Twitter, I know what to ignore.
I took a peek at http://tweeteffect.com/ which shows time association (not correlation) between tweets and followers gained or lost. For me #FF tweets were associated with losing the most followers (that and health care reform tweets lol). Now, as I said, the tool just shows association, so there is no easy way to tell what caused the loss in followers. But there was a consistent pattern there.
I can't conclusively say that #ff has a negative effect but if it doesn't have a positive effect and it MAY have a negative effect, why do it at all?
I like Rebecca's idea. I also like it when people give a random shout-out to someone cool. I usually check out those people.
Follow Friday is like anything else, it gets overused by a select few and it ruins it for the rest of us. People that abuse it are the ones who use it just to try to be the first one in their industry to reach x number of followers, and it's just dumb. They are the reasons why silica gel packs say “do not eat” and why frozen pizza instructions say “cook before eating”.
Every Friday I go through my Tweet Deck of folks I had @ conversations with through the week and name them in my follow Friday. I will also sometimes use one word after their handle which describes them. I have never picked up followers, been paid for it, or benefitted in any way except to feel good about telling people “hey, thanks for the conversation this week”. For those who abuse it, you shouldn't be wasting those tweets, you should be eating your silica gel frozen pizza. 🙂
lol, Good points
Thanks Chris for this idea will set up a list now
Thank you Chris for saying it; I find Friday a useless day for all of the FF lists of people that then people RT. I don't follow them. It becomes a spam day as there is nothing of any worth in my @ box….just pages of FF. I know I should be flattered that I have so many FF but some of them just become RTs by people I do not follow or even follow me.
There are a few people that only occassionally do a FF and because they are sincere in what they say about us then I follow those in the same list as me.
Rebecca, like what you say. In the past I did something similar; I have a fav list that I did the FF thing with. Not sure if anyone paid attention to it.
its just for fun
its just for fun
Thank you for reviewing and acknowledging my Follow Friday post. I appreciate your comments.
Rebecca Woodhead brings up a valid point about creating a Follow Friday list. I like the idea, but… why are these people important to you? This is the reason I like listing ids with a description following the individual people.
Thus, I have now decided to do a hybrid. Every week list the people that matter to me and why AND place them in my new Twitter Follow Friday list. This way, people know why these people are important and can start following them if they like.
What do people think of this idea?
I think that's the idea we r promoting now
I know. I was trying to be funny. Sorry. (My failed attempt to be funny)
lol
lol
I do both… I have my follow friday-follow everyday list that I tweet… I also try to do approx 5 or 6 shout-outs on fridays BUT only 1 person per tweet and I say why.
also… when I acknowledge someone's #ff of me, I do it as a RT AND remove any other people mentioned in the same tweet unless I already follow them
The #FF noise excessively spams my live stream and negates the quality of conversation. Last Friday I opened TweetDeck to find 107 @ mentions, of which 95% were people who had #FF suggested me. And my first thought was: FUCK … I just woke up, and now I've got 107 people for which I'm supposed to feel some sort of social media obligation to reciprocate with a mention because they've been nice enough to list me, or spam blast my name with 20 others in a tweet? No thanks. As for the results, #FF does nothing to 'get followers' for me, however, it does increase my 'brand' <-(Whatever that is) / name recognition by elevating all those useless scores and stats with which we all insanely obsessed, at first. Which, in turn, generates a line of useless bots and marketing zombies who connect with my account simply because of those stats. And THAT seems to be one of the reasons why people are still playing this #FF game. I say #FFF (tweet me if you don't know what that means)
I'm not sure it helps brand much I dont remember FF names and from my study
most other people dont either. Follow Friday is everyone screaming stuff
and very few, maybe 10% are listening.
The #FF noise excessively spams my live stream and negates the quality of conversation. Last Friday I opened TweetDeck to find 107 @ mentions, of which 95% were people who had #FF suggested me. And my first thought was: FUCK … I just woke up, and now I've got 107 people for which I'm supposed to feel some sort of social media obligation to reciprocate with a mention because they've been nice enough to list me, or spam blast my name with 20 others in a tweet? No thanks. As for the results, #FF does nothing to 'get followers' for me, however, it does increase my 'brand' <-(Whatever that is) / name recognition by elevating all those useless scores and stats with which we all insanely obsessed, at first. Which, in turn, generates a line of useless bots and marketing zombies who connect with my account simply because of those stats. And THAT seems to be one of the reasons why people are still playing this #FF game. I say #FFF (tweet me if you don't know what that means)
I'm not sure it helps brand much I dont remember FF names and from my study
most other people dont either. Follow Friday is everyone screaming stuff
and very few, maybe 10% are listening.
I often agree with you, Chris, but this time I have to join Bruce. For me, #followfriday is purely a social thing, a way of acknowledging people I find especially valuable. I make a point of trying to explain why I'm doing it, and I've been told people like that–that it helps them decide whether to follow that person. Another function #FF serves is that, over time, we start to build up a picture of people the community regularly finds useful. Then again, I'm also in the “thank for RTs” camp, so maybe I'm just overly polite. In any case, keep on keeping us thinking!
That #FollowFriday doesn´t work @uschles figured that out a long time ago.
I might stop #FollowFriday and do what I´ve been doing lately which I learned with @MomsOfAmerica and @imrananwar : everynight they just mention the people they´d spoken to. Much more sincere and thus, they don´t have the burden to do it on Friday.
What amuses me most are people telling others to follow me when they are not following themselves.
Thanks for the post. Kudos for @uschles and @CRISSVOSS
Hi Chris,
I haven't read the above responses so forgive me if I repeat someone.
I stopped doing FollowFridays a few months ago. In general, I think the concept started as a very nice, sweet, thing to do, but quickly turned sour.
First, it is abused: as you said, many people just do #FF without even following the people they recommend themselves! Often people do this hoping you'd do this in return and people will follow.
Second, it really became a chore. It became a task remembering everyone (after all, I didn't want to offend anyone by omitting them). It's funny, because even friends who did NOT do FF were offended when I didn't include them.
Finally, this is *completely* ineffective. I got very few people that actually followed me from a #FF. If anything, I get more followers now than I did before.
In short, the people who started this tradition had good intentions , but like many similar things, it got ruined. Personally I think the #FF should stop and a new, personal, #follow should be done instead.
Udi
@CHRISVOSS Very true. Since the beginning I've noticed that about follow Friday. Honestly, I really do it for others…so they can be noticed and then followed. But that rarely happens. Some Fridays I admit I do too much, but I don't want to miss anyone :/ It is time consuming, and for what… what is the point?
Must admit I totally tune out the FF tweets, and I figure if I do most other ppl do too, so it's not something I have ever done. It's a shame though, because there are a number of people who I would like to 'share' more formally than I do now. I just think FF isn't the way.
I'm fairly new to Twitter and when I learned of the #FF thing I thought it sounded silly. Now I have a bit of different take on it. I have a couple public lists, but I don't #FF them.
Instead, I thanks a couple people whom I had meaningful interactions with over the previous week very specifically and add the #FF at the end of the tweet… so something like “Thanks to @CHRISVOSS, who I just started stalking this week, for enlightening me about the uselessness of #FF”.
I try to keep it to no more than 5 posts throughout the whole day… if I do them at all. It's not an honor at all if someone #FF's their entire list.
Now… after having read your post, I will have to reconsider the whole #FF thing again. Thanks for the insight! 🙂
Thanks, lol
#FF doesn’t really bother me. It bothers me more when people tweet over 100x a day, and most of it is self promotion. That is real noise.
According to Tweetwasters, you have spend almost 60 solid days tweeting! That is in only 14 months since your account was created!
Seems a little to me like calling a kettle black? (noise)…..
No, I am not a fan of follow fridays either, and IF I ever participate, it is usually more like ” Here are a couple of great conversationists: @sometwitterperson, @another, and @maybeanother” And I think people actually get a use from it that way, because I do it randomly (not just on Friday), and I only recommend following people I have actually had a conversation with…
Just My $.02
Chris, for sure, Follow Fridays ought to at least be re-thought. Personally, I like to group friends, and let my followers know why this group or that group is worthy of being followed, or I tell everyone what my friends' special interest might be (hockey, sport psychology, those I perceive as the “best and brightest”, etc). And, I tend to look for the same kinds of advice (or leads) before I consider connecting with those in a #FF list. So again, I might not abandon the custom, but I surely wish people would rethink the way they do it.
Sorry, Rebecca, but as soon as I get the sense someone is looking down their nose — at me or anyone else, I start to thinking I liked the original idea. So, I just might keep #FF-ing right into Web 3.0. Sorry, but…
I'm not all that sure I fully agree,.. fyi any period I'm not exercising #FF I don't get as many new followers as I normally do when I do #FF.
Not that follower count is a major concern or a priority for me.
That said I do often find #FF inconvenient & annoying at times. Because of this my #FF recommends are somewhat less than they once were a while ago & are usually those with whom I've interacted/communicated that week.
I'm also tweeting more #FastFollowFive which likewise are from my recent mentions or RT stream..
I do read #FF from some, but mostly from many of my 'favorites' & I am actually getting good follows from them.
I do check my follows & followers to see who they follow & also pick up some good follows that way also.
I guess that I do agree at least that a #Follow limited to any one time or day is certainly problematic & like/prefer #FastFollowFive or sporadic unscheduled #Follow much more.
I have a dated TweetML.org #FF list which I'm overdue to setup as a list & I have been contemplating some other lists which are still burning a hole in my ToDo list.
And, I do #SweetTweets almost every day. I have always received positive comments from my #SweetTweets. It really has helped me to reach more people. I do try to interact with them and see who they are talking to. On Friday, I just add #FF to the #SweetTweets. I enjoy meeting new people and try to make new people feel welcome on Twitter and make the ones who have been there a while excited to meet new people. I never thought about stopping before, even though sometimes it is somewhat of a hassle. I just love my Tweets though. They really ROCK!
And, I do #SweetTweets almost every day. I have always received positive comments from my #SweetTweets. It really has helped me to reach more people. I do try to interact with them and see who they are talking to. On Friday, I just add #FF to the #SweetTweets. I enjoy meeting new people and try to make new people feel welcome on Twitter and make the ones who have been there a while excited to meet new people. I never thought about stopping before, even though sometimes it is somewhat of a hassle. I just love my Tweets though. They really ROCK!
Hi Chris.
I very rarely (maybe once ever few weeks or months) do #FF but I don't think it should be abolished. I get a higher number of followers on Fridays because people #FF me. I appreciate the gesture. When I did do it, I would not just say follow so and so, I'd put WHY I think you should follow them, and I don't just list friends and close colleagues. I always tried to recommend thought leaders and SMEs. And for me to do it, they had to really impress me or share some content I thought was outstanding. I never thought about hurt feelings or mistakenly leaving someone out. Like I said, there had to be a reason for me to tell people to follow someone. And it was never a big laundry list. I also tell people if they're going to FF me, tell people why.
We can't dictate how people use Twitter, but we can try to educate and show why something should (or shouldn't) be done. Some will listen, many won't. I think it's abused. But if it floats other people's boats, eh. It's just not something I get angry over.
Adrienne Graham
I agree people should use Twitter the way they want.
Bummer – I like it 🙁
That sounds like the least complicated and most appreciative approach. It simplifies things and allows ppl to see a short example of the subject tweet – not a bad concept and avoids all the other issues. Lists, as are heavily suggested here just seem so impersonal to me – sure build a list that people can check out on your profile but why post it regularly – that just seems too overwhelming too!
I like #FF. Perhaps I'm vain, LOL, but I do find new peeps follow me after I get recommended. As I am using Twitter for marketing and making connections, I think followfriday is a nice thing to do for those who communicate with me during the week. I use Follow Friday Helper http://followfridayhelper.com/ which is completely free to use, to find out who has said what during the week. It makes the task pretty simple.
I do think the list idea is a good one from Rebecca – great name btw 😉 and will take a look at using that.
In either case, I will continue to use #FF in some form as I get good leads to follow and further branding of my name, which, to a marketer is vital.
Rebecca Habel
Rebecca's Resource
Helping website & blog owners create income online
Don't know if you'll look, as well past actual post but . . . I don't mind #followfriday. No, I am not using it to add followers, but I do enjoy it as a way to say thanks to those I admire and enjoy. Sure I do that on a seme-regular basis anyway, but it is kind of fun to have one day a week set aside for appreciation. I'm going for the bigger view. There is way too little gratitude in the world today and for me #FF encourages it.
I think everyone should do it the way they like. Thanks!
Here here….and it's a good point – OK, so a little time, LITTLE time, in the city and guess what…us country boys are ready to split…I promise ya…and I think that's kinda what's happenin' on the FF
I like your style- and the way that you explain things. Here is what FF doesn't do that it used to do – I used to be able to brag on folks, and it meant somethin' but nowadays its a free for all of mentions…and I'm not sure many of them even follow you back, which means, it's an exercise in ReTweet..which ain' tweet at all…l-)
Chris me lad, methinks ya hit a veritable goldmine of interest here laddy…it is to be sure that you managed to get the ladies stirred up, yet again Chris, lad one of these days, one of 'em is gonna buy you a good single malt and that'll be it for me lad Chris,,,AND then we'll be yackin' about'cha on FF…;-) Har har…dance around that one laddy…;-)
The #FF thing may be annoying to the users that have tens of thousands of followers like some of the commenters here, but for some us smaller users, it can be a nice way to see some recommendations to follow. I've personally found a lot of great referrals to follow in the #FF approach, that I may not have found otherwise. If you're not a power-user, Twitter is a very noisy and confusing place to visit and please just consider that some of us are here for other purposes beyond 'marketing our personal brand'…I am honored to be mentioned in a #FF thread by other respected users in my field of interest.
Twitter has limited us to a short maximum number of lists. I use all of my list space for my categories of folks that I like to sort, so I can read feeds in separate areas of interest. FF for me is a nice way to see who others recommend. Since my interest is in a focused area, not generally marketing stuff, and Twitter provides lousy ways to sort and search users so we can find each other easily, give us little people a break.
Hi I think this is a cool blog entry, you did a lot of thinking behind this. I'm curious as to how your user knowledge is? I'm pretty new to Twitter- how about you?
I just posted a blog post titled: “Follow Friday: Love It or Hate It, Take It or Leave It” in response to your post Chris. I totally disagree with you about the follow friday… check out why here:
I will have to try it out before I can dismis it.
I used #FF a few times… but I'm sure CV ideas worth a try.
I don’t mind #ff, I do mind a group of @names with a #ff at the end. When I personally doll out a #ff (usually max 3/week I remember it’s ff) I usually retweet something the person said to give you an idea of why you would want to follow them. Even the ff lists on twitter remain cold and stale. I don’t want to see a bunch of names, I want to know why you think this person should be followed by the people that are following you. Also, I’m in a similar category as William Reichard. It’s kind of a kudos, thanks for your great tweets, here’s one I really liked and I want everyone to know you rock.
Chris,
Thought I would drop a comment here. For the last few months I have been trialling a new follow friday system (logic: http://alexblom.com/blog/2010/06/doing-something-new-with-followfriday/ example: http://alexblom.com/blog/2010/08/follow-friday-8-karla-porter-karla_porter/ ).
So far the results have been interesting and make the experiment worth continuing.
Alex
Wow this is really nice, I saw another way of doing it through a blog post including the people in your #FF and then tweeting that single post, but making a list, that’s even smarter, as you can make a list from virtually any Twitter client in any platform.
Thanks for retweeting this today, it made my day.
Chris,
On this particular point I have to disagree with you. i don’t think #FF should go away, but I do agree that the way most people are doing it is ineffective. What I found to be most effective and most grateful is 1 at most 2 names per tweet and really mention why your followers should follow that person, and I also like to share the link to their site as well. Really give my followers the ability to see why I’ve found value in the person I’m mentioning in the #FF tweet.
I do agree with you that the endless lists of mentions with no reason why or no particular message to those people is a waste and mostly ineffective, but still don’t agree that it’s something to be abolished. However, if it does go the way of the dinosaur then I’d probably still send out random tweets letting people some of the great people I’ve connected with and why I follow them.
Thanks for sharing Chris, keep up the great work.
John
I agree with you John.
Agree Chris everyone should be tweeting as they like, there is no wrong or right way unless your bugging people and spamming, even then we have the choice to block.
I personally use #ff #vips for several reasons, firstly it’s a way of saying thank you to people I’ve been tweeting with over the week, secondly so I can keep track of people I have made friends with. With the barrage of many tweets in a day if they weren’t mentioned they could soon get buried. By daily mentioning friends, one it does send followers their way, new people who are looking for people to follow and it’s always nice to get that friendly thank you, have a great day, you’re wonderful, have a blessed day; it’s encouraging and uplifts many people who are struggling in their lives, just something to make them smile.
But this only works if the #ff lists that are being tweeted out are genuine, if someone randomly takes lots of names just to tweet out, then the effect isn’t the same.
My vip lists get mentioned in several ways via #ff #goodfollow and with the tweepml service, not forgetting the all important chats and getting to know each other. With tweeting on mulitpul accounts I’ve had the great pleasure of chatting with and making friends with over 6,000 people in the last 2 years, people who I’ve got to know in Direct Messages stuff that they’re needing help with, family stuff they want to share and visa versa,, a few dates have been asked too lol.
You need spell check on your blog, binds of dyslexia, I’ve now read this post 3 times and still can’t figure out if I’ve spelt everything right 🙂
Hugs Chris your blogs are great reading and tweeting material.
Mel x
Preach it brother, preach it!
I completely disagree, and I’m one who is guilty of having never posted a #FF but been listed every Friday in someone’s list and oftem feel guilty for not reciprocating – but. Use other people’s posts all the time for discovering goid foljs to follow. I figure they are listing their favorite peeps and I appreciate the ti e they took to do it – I’ve actually made in-person friends as a result. I don’t get the “spam” accusTion and I don’t even feel Fridays stream is cluttered at all, and I’m big on being relational on Twitter, something I’ve tweeted and blogged and consult about alot.
Everything in life gets abused by some, but that’s no need to throw the baby out with the bath water!
Thanks for the comment but I think you just made my point of FF being
non-reciprocal most times and thereby wasted effort, time and noise.
Sometimes FollowFriday can be a bit much with the lists. Nevertheless most things that seem to upset so many people fundamentally don’t annoy me at all. Sometimes the #FF love you get on a Friday makes your day! Twitter is another world for me; a nice place that I go to where everyone shares information, ideas, art, songs, quotes, hobbies, etc. It’s the place you go to hang out with your friends. I like the idea of having a #FF list & tweeting to follow people on the list. I have a #FF list as well & many of the people I do follow have come from #FF suggestions (of course I go to the profile & check out the tweets to see what they’re about.) I wouldn’t want anyone Twitter to be a place where somebody couldn’t feel comfortable being themselves. FollowFriday isn’t the worst thing in the world. It shows appreciation, thoughtfulness, it shows the qualities that oftentimes people lack in the real world. Twitter is so much more polite than the real world & I like that a lot. Recently there was a tweet about thanking for RTs. It’s another thing that seems to bother many tweeps by “interfering” the stream. Has thanks becoming annoying? I don’t thank for each RT…I send a thank you tweet here & there with a smile while listing the tweeps that RT’d me. I really do appreciate the RTs & I really do enjoy the pleasant aspects of the Twitter etiquette.
with all due respect to both of you… it is not about getting followers. i do it to show my appreciation to others, and i spend #FF #followfriday giving with no thought of a return. if it was all about “results” and how many tangible “followers” i picked up on Friday, I’d just go out and follow 1k people each day on Wed, Thursday and Friday morning, hit my following limits, on each of those days, and just tweet “as usual, and enjoy my day” as @MomsOfAmerica puts it.
which of course is exactly what i am doing on friday, enjoying the art of giving, and helping other ppl get noticed, and networking with other smaller networkors and enlarging smaller less blessed people than myself.
i get 500 to 700 mentions on this account on friday and it’s not all about me. I do it for others.
thanks for the ideas, and the opinions, have a great week ….
editor/author @Samuel_Clemons
Thank you for interesting post! and I agree with you FollowFriday Doesnt Work:(
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Very interesting stuff – cheers Chris your opening my eyes to this #FF!!
Hey Chris,
Interesting article. I actually like #FF. I use it as a way to acknowledge those in the Twitter world that I want to thank, and I do often add people from FF lists. However, I do agree that it could be cleaned up and become more meaningful and personal. It has become spamy, and I’ve noticed that it is also automated sometime – definitely makes it less purposeful.