Follow Friday

As the hours get late on Thursday, I realize that tomorrow is Friday.... Oh, but not just Friday.... It's Follow Friday .... better known as #followfriday. Yes, I'm a Twitter addict.

When I first started Twitter, I loooved #followfriday. I met lots of new and interesting people and my follower count grew exponentially. Then I would spend the next week getting to know those new people who in turn introduced me to new and exciting people the next Friday.

Then something changed. Maybe it was Ashton or Oprah or God knows what else that we could blame it on, but something happened to #followfriday. It happened over the course of the past month and a half. I have yet to put my finger on what happened, but it's just not the same.

Maybe it's me.... maybe the novelty wore off... but no, because I'm not the only person who feels this way. I have friends who WON'T twitter on Friday anymore... just because of #followfriday.

It totally consumes Twitter. There is no regular Twitter on Friday anymore.

Everyone is suggesting and suggesting and suggesting and nobody is following. Sure, your follower count grows a little, but not like it did before. Everyone is too busy talking and nobody is listening. I think there are two main issues.

1. I think that there is an overwhelming sense of guilt among people. Everyone is too worried that somebody is going to get their feelings hurt if you don't recommend them. To the point that we are recommending almost EVERYONE who follows us. That doesn't work.

2. I think at the same time, everyone is out for themselves. The constant RTs are killing me. People are RTing every Tweet they see their name in.... in turn, recommending people they probably don't even follow!!! How are you gonna recommend somebody you don't even follow??

Anyway... I'm no expert... I don't know what to do to fix it. I brought this up on Twitter last Friday and got a lot of good responses. I asked what can we do to make #followfriday better. Here are some of the answers I got....

1. Follow People.

The Point of #followfriday is not to gain followers... it is to meet new people. With the way Twitter has been putting everybody in the slammer this week, you should be locked out for at least one hour tomorrow. Use this time to follow interesting people and not to tweet.

2. Write Recommendations.

Instead of writing a list of people to follow that looks like this:

#followfriday @Hail_Mary_Jane @LordLike @Aftashok @SKORPIOLOVE @girlrokkstarr @jawar @BossTycoonLZ @IamMrBloom @PrincessPayne

Try writing one like this: #followfriday @Hail_Mary_Jane He's one of the funniest guys on Twitter and one of the first people I followed. He runs a great site on sports news, urban trends and marijuana news.

Give them a reason to follow the person that you are suggesting. It's two-fold. It tells the person you are recommending what you value about them, and it helps make your tweet stand out among the lists of names. They are more likely to be followed this way.

3. Sort.

If you don't feel like you have time to write about each person, at least categorize the people you are recommending. Try grouping them by things they have in common... like music, sports, location, or other common interests. i.e.

#followfriday MOMMYS: @BishImmaStar @WildFlowerSweet @HildaG420 @IdkDivas @MissJo_Jo @DaYziEbAbY

4. Follow One.

For every tweet that lists your name, follow one new person from that list. It's that simple... just a little rule to keep you following new people.... and to make the cycle keep happening so that everybody grows.

5. Clusters.

This will be something new that I am trying tomorrow. I will be Tweeting individuals directly, and recommending that they follow specific people that I think they would truly enjoy. I.e.

@StraitJigg #followfriday Did you know that @Aftahok @IamMrBloom @NolaUptowner @JaySkillz and @NewOrleans7 are all Louisiana people too??? Follow Them

Granted, its a little more aggressive of a tactic... but I'm gonna try it.

Anyway... Comments are open, let's see what we can do to fix this shit.