Alan Draper
What is Friday Follow?
Every Friday, people on Twitter recommend their friends to their other friends, using the #Friday Follow or #FF hashtag. If you have someone you like, you can tell your other friends about that person, and connect good friends. This practice has been going on for years. However, some #FFs have become more spammy recently, as described in this fabu-tastic article from The Onion.
Some Avoid Friday Follow
Many people now pull the covers over their heads and go back to sleep just to avoid Friday mornings. Why? Millions of tweets go out with that all-too-familiar #FF hashtag and the much-maligned list of @ThisPerson @ThatPerson that fills tweet after tweet. To make matters worse, people retweet those #FFs! If you’d like to optimize your time on #FollowFriday, here are some ideas for you.
Don’t Tweet Big Lists of #FFs
People like to have a reason to follow other people. So if you stuff as many of your followers into a tweet as possible, that can be very off putting. And people may decide to unfollow you, if they categorize you as a spammer.
Don’t Retweet #FFs
If you happen to be recommended, do not retweet the entire list and add to the spam. Just thank the person who recommended you (and delete everyone else on the list, please!).
Choose Your Top Engagers
There may be only a few people who really engage with you every week. Pick four or five of them. Now tell us why you follow them. Be as specific as possible. I like recommending one person per tweet. Then, next Friday, pick different people to recommend.
Follow Other People’s Suggestions
If someone recommends you in a list of people to follow, check out some of their friends. Following friends of friends is a good way to extend your reach on Twitter. Notice who has good recommendations and whose recommendations are, well, bogus.
Tell People When You Follow
I like to thank the person who is the connection, like so: “Thank you, @PersonA, for the #FF! Also followed your friend @PersonB.” This often results in @PersonB thanking and following back. And @PersonA will notice that you read their tweet, too.
Recommend On Other Days
Why not do a #FollowMonday or #FollowRightNow hashtag? It’s unexpected, won’t add to the spam, and is much more likely to be well-received by your followers. You could slip one of these in between your other tweets (maybe do one per day), instead of #FollowFriday.
Go the Extra Mile
If you want extra bonus points and gold stars, you could tell everyone to follow, “like” on Facebook, and also follow on Pinterest, along with shortened URLs. This gives the person getting the recommendation a warm, fuzzy feeling.
Create a Friday Follow List
Put the people you really like onto a list, and then recommend that people check out or subscribe to the list. This requires a little more work from you, but will pay off in the long run.
What Are Your Friday Follow Recommendations?
Did I forget anything? Please leave a comment! Thanks!
This article was written for Business 2 Community by Alan Draper.
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Thanks for posting. Really clears it up. Ive been wondering for a while what the #ff was all about.
One thing I saw somebody do when they #FF me was they put me in a tweet all by myself and why she think they should follow me. She also did that for a few others. It made me follow a few of her suggestions because it wasn’t just in a long list. It made it look like she took the time to think about who people should really follow.