Show some love, it’s #FollowFriday!
How do you determine who to follow on Twitter? What are the unwritten rules of following and who writes the book on social media etiquette anyway? Should we follow our friends? Should we follow everyone with interests relevant to our own? Maybe we should ask our friends who to follow? OK, now we’re onto something…
The idea behind the Twitter trend of Follow Friday is to showcase interesting people you already follow and recommend them to others who follow you. Talk about a third-party endorsement! Follow Friday is a great way to discover new people who tweet on subjects relevant to your interests or who may be part of your wider social circle. Come on, who doesn’t love new friends and fresh ideas?
According to Mashable, three main factors make Follow Friday a success:
1. It’s easy. You tweet multiple times a day with using 140 characters or less. Short and sweet and to the point.
2. It’s participatory. You do not have to be a social media guru to make a personal suggestion to your followers. You can suggest one person or 100 people over multiple Follow Friday tweets.
3. It’s karmic and offers opportunity for networking. It’s a great feeling to simply say, “I think this person is great. You should follow them.”
Although this Twitter trend has been around since January 2009, it has continued to remain popular with millions of tweets promoting people, places, events, ideas and products. People have even begun expanding the trend to other days of the week with suggestions of accounts to follow.
Here are some suggestions for tweeting on Follow Friday:
- New Tweeps – Recommend the people you started following from the previous week.
- Helpful Tweeps – Mention people who helped you.
- Most interactive – Suggest people who had the most conversations with you.
- Remember, it’s called Follow FRIDAY. Do not go into suggestion overload every day of the week.
- Follow the hashtags #followfriday or #FF.
