Comments on: #FollowFriday – it’s not just a list!

By: How to play nice on Twitter « Corina Mackay

How to play nice on Twitter « Corina Mackay — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 05:09:18 +0000

[...] something that’s been written about over and over, but for some reason people still don’t get it. The origins of #followfriday have been [...]

By: Ian Harm

Ian Harm — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 16:35:12 +0000

Like I say Nikki I am not a Social Media expert, but I reckon I do have a little bit of common sense and don’t need to be told why to follow someone. A suggestion is fine and I will make the enquiries and decide for myself. I know someone commented that people who don’t give a reason to follow someone could just be because they are being lazy, well the other side of the coin is that those people who need to be told why to follow someone are just being too lazy to find out for themselves.. )))

By: admin

admin — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 14:46:55 +0000

Hi Ian

The post above doesn’t actually say anything about writing a blog It just says ‘give people a reason to follow’ – that can be achieved in 140 characters.

As it says: How you do it is really up to you, but be aware that the people you are recommending stand a better chance of being followed if you take the hard work out of it and tell people WHY they should follow!

By: Ian Harm

Ian Harm — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 13:36:20 +0000

I thought Twitter was designed to get as much info out with the least use of words. I thought blogs were designed for more lengthy information sharing. Clearly I am not an expert in social media and therefore by that reckoning I must be wrong. If I wanted to extoll the virtues of someone I would write a blog on it. If I just want to quickly draw someone’s attention to someone who they might find interesting I thought just providing their twitter name would be enough for you to have a look and make up your own mind.

That is what I do, if someone recommends someone on twitter I will take a look at their profile to see who they are and what they are saying and then decide. I don’t decide to follow based on a few extra nice words on a tweet.

I am one of those people who not yet being ‘down’ with the finer points of Twitter etiquette have produced lists on #FF. I did it because it made sense to me.

My questions: Is this a hard and fast rule or twitter law that everyone should know and obey? Or is it just something that is understood by experts in social media?

By some of the tweets I have read and the comments on this blog I can see that it clearly upsets a lot of ‘Social Media Purists’ so I for one will totally stop doing #FF on twitter and write better #FF recommendations on my blog. I can then put one tweet out with a link to my blog (of course then you will have to read my blog to find out who I think is worth following).

Another question is: Would that cut the mustard?

By: Gareth Robins

Gareth Robins — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 10:38:17 +0000

Very good point. I will look forward to writing down reasons for next week’s #FF

By: Mariano

Mariano — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 04:57:53 +0000

Hey Nikki,

Just read this post, though it was great information and I discovered (only after I wrote my post this week) that I’ve come to much the same conclusion. I do have a slightly different take: challenge yourself to only #followfriday 1 person this week. I think it’s a much more powerful to recommend one person than to do a list. I’d love to hear what you think of my proposal!

By: balabla

balabla — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 07:46:21 +0000

This is very good advice. I also think little of all those “lists” of names.
This is definitely the way to do it.

But isn’t Twitter designed for lazy people with short attention spans?

By: Matt Chatterley

Matt Chatterley — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 06:53:19 +0000

I absolutely agree – although I tend not to blog my recommendations, I have considered it in the past (and probably would do if I had any exceptional ones).

To be honest I struggle to think of really good recommendations at times – so I force myself to make the best one or two I can each friday, because I do believe in the idea of #followfriday.

I also blogged along the same lines a while ago – because if people just post spamlists of names, ff will die out very fast!

You can see my post, on my personal blog, here: http://is.gd/1BSlm

By: Ed Hart

Ed Hart — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 14:16:52 +0000

Thank you, Nikki, for an excellent post. I have long been frustrated by teh lists of names, and used to wonder why they were being nominated… I even asked a couple of folk why they had suggested others!

I hope this starts to see a change in the use #followfriday

By: Vince Stevenson

Vince Stevenson — Fri, 29 May 2009 17:48:11 +0000

I am sometimes confused by #followfriday, it is sometimes rather random. I check the profiles of people whom I may want to follow but they are mostly weird, empty or unhelpful. Thanks for this post. Very useful. Rgds Vince