#FollowFriday: a great Twitter meme gone horribly wrong

August 18, 2009
Posted by Kelly Rusk

#FollowFriday: a great Twitter meme gone horribly wrong

So I realize it’s only Monday, but I got a beef with #FollowFriday, and time to write about it so here goes.

If you don’t know #FollowFriday is a popular Twitter meme started by user @Micah who suggested everyone recommend someone to follow on Friday. A great idea. In theory-you trust who you follow already so a recommendation from one is the best way to find new people to follow.

Unfortunately it’s gotten a little out of hand.

Every Friday, it seems my Twitter stream gets flooded by Follow Friday recommendations, from people who post tweet after tweet of a list of Twitter users with no rhyme or reason for the recommendation. I sent a tweet out asking if people actually even clicked through these types of FF tweets and got several replies that made it obvious others were a little annoyed.

Later in the day, one user I had previously unfollowed–but who noticed and made me feel bad about it, so I re-followed–was flooding my stream with such tweets. I sent the person a DM saying (nicely) that probably the reason I unfollowed was the Follow Friday stream invasion.

The person replied to me publicly basically saying I should lighten up. As someone who values the people I follow, I don’t like my stream clouded with insincere #FF tweets. It takes away from other valuable info I could be reading, I don’t think I’m being uptight about it.

Don’t get me wrong, a lot of people do #FollowFriday really well. For example, when they state what the people have in common (even as simply as also tagging #Ottawa to suggest they are fellow Ottawa Tweeters) or with a little more effort: I love @GiniDietrich‘s approach, who posts her detailed recommendations on her blog and then links to it. But as far as just multiple tweets with something generic like “Cool people to follow!” It’s sucking up useless bandwith and taking up space that could be used for valuable tweets.

BTW-the person I butted heads with over it… I checked their stream, last Friday they posted over 60 #FollowFriday posts, all exactly the same, with a list of random names. I clicked through a few and some of the recommendations were even spammers! I went back a little further and saw the person only seems to post 2-3 times all week, and then the #FollowFriday recos…

Am I uptight? Or do you agree that’s a big waste of tweets?

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Posted Under social media

http://www.propr.ca Joseph Thornley

Kelly,
I think your approach of unfollowing someone who doesn’t provide you with a good signal to noise ration is the right solution.

#FollowFriday recommendations have introduced me to some great people who I might not have discovered as quickly on my own.

I do agree that a thoughtful recommendation trumps a simple list of names. So, I follow the format of recommending one name in a tweet providing a reason and context. And I look for others who do the same. With this approach, I think #followfriday serves a real purpose and will be around for a long time.
http://www.web2dotwhat.com Kelly Rusk

Hey Joe,

Thanks for commenting & I do agree, #FollowFriday is still the best way to find new followers.

I may have been a tad dramatic with my headline, now that I think about it!

Kelly
Andrey Bozhkov

Hey Joesph, hey Kelly,

Although I have not had much experience with #FollowFriday, I do agree that people should put at least a little bit more effort into their recommendations. Quality > quantity is what I always keep in mind.

Un-following someone seems like a perfectly fine option to me if you know that person will not tweet about anything worthwhile. Although, I’ve been wondering: should you directly un-follow someone or send them a DM, wait for their response and only then un-follow?

Andrey
http://davidscrimshaw.blogspot.com David Scrimshaw

I would say that you’ve made a good start towards “lightening up” by unfollowing the FF Flooder and giving them a gentle word about why.
http://www.spinsucks.com Gini Dietrich

Kelly -

I obviously agree with you! It’s frustrating to me that you can’t do any real work on Fridays because you get lost in the endless stream of @names. And I HATE it when people recommend me who have never engaged or talked to me. Guess there is a ‘bot for everything!

I like doing the blog post every Friday because it makes the people I recommend feel good, it drives traffic to our blog, and it isn’t an endless stream of names.

Gini

P.S. Hi Joe!
http://twitter.com/lissansky Ana Lissansky

Hi Kelly,

Absolutely agree with you on the fact that #follofriday should be used less frequently and provide CONTEXT. Even recommending a hashtag I think is great (and I have found these useful) when provided with a description of the topic/event.

A.
http://www.web2dotwhat.com Kelly Rusk

Thanks for the support everyone! I do get pretty worked up about stuff like this because contrary to popular believe, the internet is _not_ free. Someone, somewhere is paying for servers and bandwidth etc.

So I don’t think I’m being snobby by saying we should respect each other and the medium, because someone might get sick of paying for all the crap one day!
http://twitter.com/veroniica12 Veronica

I think you’re absolutely right! It’s the same old argument about content and whether or not it matters. For those who use it, it matters.

I never go through and look at the followers that are suggested, unless they are from a tweeter that I respect and see lots of good content from in my stream!

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#FollowFriday: a great Twitter meme gone horribly wrong

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