FollowFriday is out of control.
I started off as a fine concept – every Friday, Twitter users would suggest a list of people they followed whom they believed others would also enjoy. The hashtag “#followfriday” was added to every one of these tweets, to make it easy to aggregate up all the suggestions.
For a while, this was pretty cool. Twitter users could depend upon receiving a number of new folks to check out each week, and all was well in the Twitterverse.
However, as time as progressed, FollowFriday has really ballooned into something untenable. Most people simply tweet list after list of random people, with little or no context as to WHY these Twitter users are worthy of your time. Due to this glut, many users don’t even bother following the people recommended – unless they’re really looking towards gathering huge numbers of follows. Also, many times, people will add a user to a #followfriday list who has protected updates – which is pretty annoying, as there’s no way to even figure out if that person is interesting.
@curiousillusion and I have a solution to this problem.
It’s called Fussy Follow Friday.
Here’s how it works – instead of listing many, MANY suggested Twitter users each week, with FussyFollowFriday (or #3F), you are limited to one single recommendation.
Just one.
So choose wisely. It’s also suggested that in your #3F tweet you provide some type of context or explanation as to WHY this person is rocking your Twitter world. If you need more than a few characters to explain, feel free to link to a blog post describing your #3F choice. Add the hashtag “#3F” or “#fussyfollowfriday” (if you’re not into the whole brevity thing) and you’re good to go. Update: you are HIGHLY ENCOURAGED to not “replace” the #followfriday hashtag with #3F, but use BOTH. For the reasons behind this, check the comments to this post. If you look at the original #followfriday tweet, you’ll see that #3F is actually MORE in sync with the original intent than what we currently have!
I suppose it should go without saying that your #3F tweet should appear on a Friday. Well, there. I said it.
Are you with us? If so, join us this Friday for the very first #3F ever. And in preparation, let people know about the FussyFollowFriday revolution by tweeting something like this:
I’m tired of #followfriday overload! This week I’m going to be Fussy! #3F http://bit.ly/98OMQ (click here to automagically tweet this)
I’m looking forward to YOUR recommendations! Let’s clean up that signal-to-noise ratio and make Fridays on Twitter a thing of beauty again. I also encourage you to check out @curiousillusion’s blog post on the subject for a slightly different perspective.
{ 14 comments… read them below or add one }
You rock my twitter world, @mattstratton!
Thanks, Jen!
Although I’d love to pimp out some of those I follow on twitter, I find that without context, my word doesn’t mean much come #followfriday – so I just avoid tweeting. Anywho, I’m pretty interested to see if this #3F idea takes off.
Oh.. and Netchick gave me bus fare to come and visit.
.-= Chris´s last blog ..LCBD Review: Twikini =-.
Thanks for the comment, Chris! I think in general it’s a good idea to provide context for #followfriday recommendations, which is why I experimented with making mine in blog post format. But I have high hopes for #3F…not sure though…it might be too much work for people to be THAT specific…it’s much easier just to dump a bunch of names into a bunch of tweets!
Just ONE?! Though I guess that does take some of the pressure out of the whole #followfriday thing.
Good idea but the whole concept still stresses me out.
.-= Amy @ Taste Like Crazy´s last blog ..I’m Going to BlogHer, Y’all =-.
Like @curiousillusion says, this way you know it’s quality, not just a copy-paste of a bunch of twitter names into a tweet and…”I’m done!”
Not saying that EVERYONE who does #followfriday does it that way…but I guarantee a bunch of them do. Especially when their recommendations include 1) people with protected updates, 2) accounts with no updates, or 3) accounts that are clearly spammers/fraudsters.
Here at #3F we are all about quality over quantity!
I only participate in memes that make people cry.
That is a good philosophy of life, Jason. I would expect nothing less. Stay strong!
Yay! This is SUCH a great idea! I am sick of Follow Friday, it spams up me feeds and lasts for DAYS because I’m in Australia…. Haha. I think this is an EXCELLENT idea! You’d definitely be my #FFF some weeks Matt, particularly when posts like this are involved! Great ideas, great stuff.
.-= Talia´s last blog ..My New Apron! =-.
Thanks for the support, Talia! I’m glad you like our idea…and thanks for promoting it on YOUR twitter feed…that’s super awesome.
We got a few people ‘catching on’ this week…it’ll take time, but I think eventually we’ll find more adoption. This is what I think #followfriday was supposed to be about in the first place, anyway!
Very cool. I didn’t know you could link to a twitter update like you did!
.-= Luke´s last blog ..Media PC (completed) =-.
One thing I discovered, though – if you want to include hashtags, you have to escape them, otherwise the JavaScript hangs on that the # sign and you don’t get any of the text after it.
I am always glad to see others who are speaking out against the pointless lists of #followfriday recommendations.
Did you know there’s a website that can help create pointless #followfriday lists? It automagically scans your recent tweets to find a list of suggestions, which it encourages you to tweet without context. Sad, I know!
I try to lead by example, always giving context to my followfriday recommendations. I also speak up every few weeks and insist that people should include reasons if they want their recommendations to mean something.
Anyways, I don’t think I want to switch to a new hashtag to make my intentions clear. However, I’m sure there’s room to include #3F in addition to #followfriday.
The main reason to keep using the #followfriday hashtag is because the website http://topfollowfriday.com tracks “endorsements”, as they call followfriday recommendations. I wouldn’t want to cheat anyone out of an endorsement if I really want to give it!
Anyways, off to tweet this idea, and I’ll include your bit.ly link back to this page so you can track it. Cheers! :)
Qrystal – good point about including the #followfriday tag as well…I think the suggestion of using #3F as a supplement, rather than replacement, is bang-on. I’ll start implementing it that way myself today! I think I’ll also update this blog post to include that suggestion too.
Thanks for the support!
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