How to and How NOT to do #FollowFriday
Oct 30 | Evan | Comments Off on How to and How NOT to do #FollowFriday | Blog Random TwitterOne of the most powerful, but greatly misused, ways to use Twitter is networking with #FollowFriday. For those of you that have yet to give in and sign up with Twitter, #FollowFriday is a trend where every Friday, you share with your followers somebody you follow. Basically an introduction.
The problem is, too often, people just try and squeeze as many names as possible in the 140 character tweet that will look something like this:
#FollowFriday @ZackTM, @27518, @SmugMugPro, @andrew_bryant, @samandjt, @myfunkycamera ……
And some even turn the “#FollowFriday” part to “#FF” to get one extra name in. Sounds nice and generous right? Maybe, but highly ineffective! Just listing off a bunch of names, tells me nothing about them. Not only does that not give me any incentive to follow any of those listed (unless I know them already), but even if it does catch my attention, I don’t have time to check everyone that is recommended, especially when multiple people do #FollowFriday this way. I am more likely to skip the entire tweet completely rather than clicking on even one of the links. Think about it, Twitter has a limit of 140 characters for a reason. We want quick, to the point, information. If I had time to read everyone’s blog, I would be reading your blog, not using Twitter as a RSS feed to weed out information from my network. If I find something interesting, I will check it out, but if it doesn’t intrigue me, its getting scrolled over. Think of it as a tweet becoming the new elevator pitch and just dropping names won’t sell me on following any of them.
The solution is to keep it simple! We are not running out of Fridays, so even if you have a lot of interesting twitterers (is that word?) you want to share, just list one or two every Friday and tell me WHY I should be interested in following them. That’s it! If you insist on sharing more than one at a time, keep it limited and do it in a way that connects them together or at least do it in a few separate tweets, but NOT one right after another, after another…trust me, nobody likes that guy that tweets 5 times in 30 seconds! Just keeping it real here folks!
Theses are much more effective….
FF @ZackTM bc he’ll make you laugh, and always knows what going on around Raleigh
FF @27518 for local information, deals and news around and about Cary, NC
FF @andrew_bryant and @Phreckles, two photogs in the Triangle that are worth blog stalking
Tags: #FF, #FollowFriday, elevator pitch, Follow Friday, Random, Twitter