For the uninitiated, #FollowFriday is an Internet meme that goes on every Friday on Twitter. The concept is simple, each Friday you pick a person (or group of people) who you think is interesting, informative, funny, or in any other way remarkable. Then you construct tweet telling people why they should follow this person. At it’s core, the concept is very cool if you think about it; somebody who you respect enough to follow on Twitter is now suggesting somebody that THEY follow and respect. That is a pretty powerful endorsement, right?
I’m not so sure anymore.
Since first learning about the #FollowFriday concept, I have personally tried to remain true to it’s original intention. When I send out a #FollowFriday message, I select only 1 or 2 people to include in the message and I explain a reason WHY you should follow this person. My biggest gripe about #FollowFriday these days are the people who send tweets that start with the #FollowFriday hashtag and then they fill the rest of the space with as many Twitter user names as will possibly fit. They give no reason why to follow them, just the demand to follow them. This makes no sense. You are telling me to do something but giving me no reason as to why I should. Without a reason, I promise you, I’m not going to start following.
So, the question is, has #FollowFriday jumped the shark? For me personally, the answer is an emphatic YES!
To me, the #FollowFriday tweets have become white noise. They are filler between the rest of the filler on Twitter. Have a look at the current search stream on Twitter for #FollowFriday. You’ll see exactly what I’m talking about.
If you think I should follow somebody because they have solid information to share, please, don’t wait until Friday to tell me about it. Send a tweet telling my why I may be interested to follow this person and chances are I’ll check them out and I’ll follow them if I’m interested.
Let me ask you this, when was the last time you followed somebody new on Twitter simply because of a #FollowFriday recommendation? Leave a comment a comment below and let me know what YOU think.
I have never personally followed anyone just because someone sent me their user ID. Quality has always been better than quantity. I have gotten invites from people who have "25,362 followers" I would like to hear your take on businesses using twitter to tweet only info about themselves, never talk to anyone, and generally make a one-way stream. No interaction, to me, is a marketing killer in social media.
Gayla, I couldn't agree with you more! Social Media is all about the interaction. If there isn't somebody on the other end ready to respond to questions, why are you there at all? It makes no sense. If I just wanted your company's info, I'd check out your website.
I will actually _unfollow_ users who post obnoxious amounts of #followfriday. It jumped the shark for me about 30 minutes after I became aware of the concept.
I don't usually go as far as unfollowing, though I can definitely relate! But, in a conversation I had today at lunch, we've decided that if we had to give up 1 day a week of twitter, that day would definitely be Fridays.
I think it was an amazing concept that was just too good to last. The idea is so simple but also so easily abused. You just can't force either people or marketeers to use it in a way that makes sense.
It goes back to common sense not being so common… That phrase is so universal. It just fits so many places…
I don't normally participate in #followfriday, but I always wonder why one would list so many names in one post…names that mean nothing to me without some sort of explanation. Hmmm. Good post, John.
If a friend recommends somebody to me via FollowFriday, I'm going to check out their feed and probably their website and if they look like somebody I'd be interested in following, I'll follow them. What I'm not going to do is just automatically hit the follow button on every person who somebody says I should follow. If I was going to do that, I may as well just turn back on the auto follow program that I tried out a while back. No thanks!
The entire “trending topics” construct (and all the various hash-memes associated with it) has jumped the shark, IMO. Perhaps this is the end of the first epoch of the Twitterverse? Take into consideration this techcrunch article:
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/06/06/on-twitter-m…
Interesting, no? The user-base of Twitter has undergone a MASSIVE shift in an exceptionally short period of time. I believe the half-life of much of what made Twitter so amazingly useful (and I'd put #followfriday and many of the other hash-memes, as well, in that category) may be over. The flood of new users with accounts linked to Facebook may well be the culprit, as well as the constant tweet-pimping from every talking-head on every cable news net.
Whatever the cause(s) the shift in user-base is clear, the shark-jumping is just a symptom.
@MikeyVegas
Mikey, that is a great article at techcrunch! I get a kick out of the people who watch for the trending topics on twitter and then send a tweet with a totally unrelated link, but include the trending hash tag. It's brilliant, really. :-/
The reason so many accounts have so few followers is because people have created scripts that generate twitter accounts and then go follow 20 people. Nobody would ever follow these accounts. They create thousands of them to boost people's numbers. Back when Ashton Kutcher was reaching 1 million followers, somebody figured out that a decent percentage of his followers were these bogus accounts.
Listen, I'm not above sending out tweets to promote things I've got going on, but, I also use twitter to communicate with dozens upon dozen of people on a daily basis. There's room for doing both on Twitter, it just has to be done with a little common sense. Which, as it turns out, aint so common.
Mikey, that is a great article at techcrunch! I get a kick out of the people who watch for the trending topics on twitter and then send a tweet with a totally unrelated link, but include the trending hash tag. It's brilliant, really. :-/
The reason so many accounts have so few followers is because people have created scripts that generate twitter accounts and then go follow 20 people. Nobody would ever follow these accounts. They create thousands of them to boost people's numbers. Back when Ashton Kutcher was reaching 1 million followers, somebody figured out that a decent percentage of his followers were these bogus accounts.
Listen, I'm not above sending out tweets to promote things I've got going on, but, I also use twitter to communicate with dozens upon dozen of people on a daily basis. There's room for doing both on Twitter, it just has to be done with a little common sense. Which, as it turns out, aint so common.
Actually, I followed a new person last Friday — on a friend's #ff recommendation, and (as others noted) after checking out their tweet stream and profile. And I have UNfollowed those whose idea of effective #ff is a dozen auto-tweets filled with nothing but names. I don't automatically follow, and I do keep my follow-stream targeted to people whose tweets enrich my day. I usually recommend two or three people on #ff, and its other incarnations #traveltues and #woofwed (travel and dog training related twitterers.) But many times, my lone #ff tweet goes something like "I follow these folks becuz they're real people:" and I include the link to my follower-stream. If people want to check out some interesting folks, good. If not, no problem. And I do now and then single out someone with whom I've had a really interesting conversation that week.
It isn't the idea of #ff that has jumped the shark — but some folks' execution of the game on Fridays leaves a lot to be desired.
Honestly, at this point, my #followfridays are the result of other people sending me #followfriday love. I feel rude if I don't tweet a #followfriday back to them. It's like etiquette has come into play here. I'm on cloud 9 when my favorite fashion label or the CEO of a fashion brand tweets a #followfriday to me. It's like total validation. But my own #followfridays are my way of sending love back to the person who recommended me. And I know I'm annoying my non-fashion friends – you Twitter purist-types (which I say with love and affection), but I can't be rude to those who give me a shout out, you know? So, what's a fashionista who is worried about coming off as rude to do? I know I'm part of the problem. But at this point, I'd rather be part of the problem and not be rude until one of you finally makes it "uncool" to participate in #followfriday. So…, when are you going to rescue me?
I totally understand the way that you are using #followfriday. And, I don't even think it's wrong, really. I am far from a Twitter Purist. I've been called out for sending sponsored tweets from time to time. But really, if that pisses off a user on two, I'm not going to stop to try and please everybody. Believe me, you can't do it!
I say don't be rude. Stick with what is working for you. (Even though it's uncool)