Follow Friday, in its original form, is a great tool for locating interesting contributors to twitter. However, as the popularity soars, so does the noise. Hopefully, the pendulum will begin to swing in the opposite direction soon.
Christie
· 9 months ago
I love #followfriday and think it's awesome that you can recommend a friend or interesting tweeter and other people in the cyber world respond. There has been a lot of speculation as to whether this site will become so powerful that it will replace google. http://www.newsy.com/videos/twitter_a_new_google/ sites 5 different news sources that are backing this speculation...crazy
Andy Zweibel
· 9 months ago
I love the concept of #followfriday! It really gets to the heart of what social networking is all about!
I don't think a long list of usernames is useful. I wish people would take a cue from the original suggestion, and just suggest a couple of people, ideally with a short reason why we should follow them!
Also, I propose #unfollowmonday as a counter. :)
Ari Herzog
· 9 months ago
I agree 100 percent! Whenever I see my name - @ariherzog - in a long list of Twitter usernames with the hashtag, I ask myself, "Uhh, that's nice, but why is so and so recommending me?"
Bring it back to the original. One or two names in a tweet is sufficient, by providing a reason for the recommendation. Listing and lumping people is meaningless.
Tony
· 9 months ago
I was aware of Mashable behind this. Thought it was a good idea from the beginning, so decided to implement it in Mexico ;)
Alex Schleber
· 9 months ago
Note the pretty useful stats view for followfriday you can get from hashtags.org:
When hashtags.org is up and functioning, that is... ;) We might break the 10,000 mark today. #followfriday has been trending up each week since its inception except for the Friday before Valentine's, when it was flat, slightly down.
Trevor Rotzien
· 9 months ago
A related (new) meme is How Can I Help Wednesdays tagged with #canihelp, started by @IreneKoehler. Each Wednesday, she collects requests for help (of a reasonable scope), and encourages tweeps to help them out. See http://almostsavvy.com/how-can-i-help-wednesdays/ for more details.
swag
· 9 months ago
And here I thought Conga lines were only a tiresome wedding reception cliché.
I think it's a bad idea. I hate it when all I can see Friday is these kind of tweets. If you want to suggest/recommend someone do it whenever it feels right, don't do it only on fridays because of this trend One of these days I'm going to start unfollowing people that do it. I already started unfollowing people that do auto DMs
actofkindness
· 9 months ago
great post - I started #actofkindness hashtag to track all of these tweets - asking "who have you helped today?" vs. "what are you doing?"
John Furrier
· 9 months ago
Did you really start this off with that tweat? Fantastic! Kudos Micah. This is what twitter is all about.
The Future is Unwritten - anything is possible :-)
I'm calling it happy hour Friday on Twitter - take a break on Friday for an hour and share who you endorse on twitter using #followfriday
great job
micah
· 9 months ago
Thanks John. Yeah it was actually that tweet that started it all. Pretty crazy that with that tweet and 4 retweets, it became what it is today. Shows the real power of Twitter...
Peter Robert Casey
· 9 months ago
How about #UnfollowTuesday to rid the majority of spammers and auto DMers.
zafarali
· 9 months ago
cool
Nathalie Lussier
· 9 months ago
I love Follow Friday. I've discovered great people through it, and it's just a nice feeling to spread the love. :)
Nick
· 9 months ago
Another great twitter hashtag concept is one thought up by @mikestopforth. Simply, if you have a bad experience with a company, tweet about it and tag it with #brandminus. On the flip side, if you want to praise a company, tweet about it and tag it #brandplus. Do a search for those tags to see how it's working!
Rob Jacobs
· 9 months ago
This article was a great read! I work on the development team for FlyFi Music Discovery and recommend anyone who wants to help start the official "Free Music Friday" trend on Twitter to start following us using either:
@freemusicfriday
or
@flyfimusic
Our site currently has a large email news letter following with our Free Music Friday offering. We offer a mix of 15 different Legal DRM-Free Mp3's every week. You can get the letter in your inbox by making an account with us, but a Twitter following would be awesome!!!
Lars Behrenroth
· 8 months ago
it's all about @unfollowtuesday now :) .. the balance has to be restored
sharon
· 8 months ago
thanks for this - love the way this got started and the awesome organic growth its taken off on...
question: what is "tweepletuesday" ?
~ Sharon @growinggold
Twittergator
· 8 months ago
Taking #followfriday beyond Friday. I have actually started using #followfriday to add value to my bio via my favorites, and encourage others to do the same. See how at http://ow.ly/1zy6
Also, your #followfriday tweets are way more helpful and have greater influence if you avoid posting long lists of usernames. Instead, include a reason why tweople should follow your recommendations.
Steen Seo Öhman
· 8 months ago
Great post
As new to Twitter it took me a while before I understood follow friday. But the concept is very nice, and ads to the viral nature of Twitter.
Amputatoes
· 7 months ago
#followfriday has spawned #punday in addition to #woofwednesday. #punday is a Sunday pun, @DougBenson has had a few good ones, always fun to read.
gary
· 7 months ago
Thank you so much Micah Baldwin. I've been so lost until your article and I'm glad to know what #followfriday is and what it represents. I appreciate you taking the time to write it.
Whitney
· 6 months ago
I have heard this tale before and love it but how do OTHER random #hashtags get started and do you have to have 25K followers to do so? (for example right now its M&S - Marks & Spencer - really??) @wald12
vcao
· 6 months ago
Hello, I am newbie here, This is a nice website Welcome to my website: http://www.mp4-converter.net Thank you very much.
Andy McIlwain
· 6 months ago
#FollowFriday is a trend that has snowballed into being useless spam. With each additional name added to a #FollowFriday tweet, the less value that update has as a whole. It becomes noise with no substance.
Cut down your recommendations to a couple of names and give your followers justification for the recommendation. Spread out your recommendations over several days.
</twocents>
@stevecs
· 6 months ago
It was a great idea and I have seen many ideas spawn from it. I am a West Ham United fan and one night a fellow hammers fan suggested #westhamwednesday and since then a huge following has built up and every week more and more Hammers fans have signed up. And not just from the UK, we now have fans from across the globe following. #westhamwednesday now even has it's own website that was set up this week by another west Ham Fan. so it is definitely a great way to meet like minded individuals
Tillman
· 5 months ago
He thanks for instructions. Also thanks for picture at WordCampChicago.
Ame
· 5 months ago
Talking cyber-stalking to a whole new level of creepiness!
Ame
· 5 months ago
Taking cyber-stalking to a whole new level of creepiness!
sylwia presley
· 4 months ago
UK: #ecomonday, #charitytuesday Poland: #tlustyczwartek (which is basically Polish version of Follow Friday - but moved to Thursday for some reason)
Lanadakini
· 4 months ago
can anyone give me a simple guide to how friday follow works , i would love to recommend some of you, but bit confused?
JAVAJ9
· 4 months ago
I really enjoy #followfridays ... The thing, however, I'm confused about is why is "Follow Friday" the trending topic instead? I definitely prefer #followfriday because the tweets seem more serious. Let's get #followfriday up the top next week!
Brendan Wenzel
· 4 months ago
I think Follow Friday has become nothing more than a popularity contest and has completely lost the original intentions of the hashtag. Would love to see it go back to it's origins, but that is highly unlikely.
Steph Love
· 4 months ago
I have a problem with #FollowFridays and the way it plays out. I don't understand how someone can recommend that I follow someone that they are not following. Why should I follow if you won't follow? I understand the science of camraderie and enjoy the fact that #FollowFridays engage people to interact, but, find myself dissappointed in the fake recommendations often given to just throw a random tweet out into the Twitterspjere. I wrote a more detailed post title "The Untold Truth About #FollowFriday" on my Good Tweeple Community site. Feel free to check it out at http://goodtweeple.ning.com/forum/topics/the-un...
Luka Novak
· 4 months ago
Is it OK to #ff somebody who has set their profile on private? I figure they did it because they want to limit the number of followers and/or want to impose some sort of filter on who follows them. while #ffing them doesn't remove that they'll get bunch of new requests, which they might not like.
for the record I don't do it but am interested in what other people think.
I always felt that it was just a bunch of people spamming some those keywords to create a “follow train” and eventually became very popular.
Name
· 2 months ago
I don't understand "Follow Friday"? Why would you follow some random person recommended by a stranger? And why would you use the hashtag #followfriday anyway? Wouldn't you just tweet "Follow my mate @PhilSmith" ?
Can anyone explain?
Andrea Kuhn
· 2 months ago
#FollowFriday is a great concept and I'll be sure to support it on a weekly basis.
ertykills
· 2 months ago
YAY Follow Friday!
Martin Roche
· 2 months ago
Follow Fridays is great follow @mrsterile Swine Flu Prevention
I'm all for user-generated conventions, but this one creates a lot of noise and, ultimately, I don't know if it is going to prove useful, long-term.
The most common way people find people to follow is already to look at who their friends (mostly offline) are following. These have a higher chance of being meaningful, long-term connections. By comparison, not only are follow friday recommendations duplicating this same action (as a push, instead of a pull), but they will increasingly become less and less relevant and more and more political. The most noisy adopters seem to be ones who are posting multiple names in several tweets. At some point, whatever signal is in this meme is overwhelmed.
All Comments
http://furiousworld.com
http://ustream.tv/sxsw
http://sunstweets.com
http://ushealthcrisis.com
Enjoy! And thanks again...
João Pereira
www.planetalima.com
http://blogplanetalima.blogspot.com/
Also, I propose #unfollowmonday as a counter. :)
Bring it back to the original. One or two names in a tweet is sufficient, by providing a reason for the recommendation. Listing and lumping people is meaningless.
http://3on.us/followfri-stats
When hashtags.org is up and functioning, that is... ;) We might break the 10,000 mark today. #followfriday has been trending up each week since its inception except for the Friday before Valentine's, when it was flat, slightly down.
http://twitter.com/thomashorster
If you want to suggest/recommend someone do it whenever it feels right, don't do it only on fridays because of this trend
One of these days I'm going to start unfollowing people that do it. I already started unfollowing people that do auto DMs
The Future is Unwritten - anything is possible :-)
I'm calling it happy hour Friday on Twitter - take a break on Friday for an hour and share who you endorse on twitter using #followfriday
great job
@freemusicfriday
or
@flyfimusic
Our site currently has a large email news letter following with our Free Music Friday offering. We offer a mix of 15 different Legal DRM-Free Mp3's every week. You can get the letter in your inbox by making an account with us, but a Twitter following would be awesome!!!
question: what is "tweepletuesday" ?
~ Sharon @growinggold
I have actually started using #followfriday to add value to my bio via my favorites, and encourage others to do the same. See how at http://ow.ly/1zy6
Also, your #followfriday tweets are way more helpful and have greater influence if you avoid posting long lists of usernames. Instead, include a reason why tweople should follow your recommendations.
As new to Twitter it took me a while before I understood follow friday. But the concept is very nice, and ads to the viral nature of Twitter.
@wald12
http://www.mp4-converter.net
Thank you very much.
Cut down your recommendations to a couple of names and give your followers justification for the recommendation. Spread out your recommendations over several days.
</twocents>
Poland: #tlustyczwartek (which is basically Polish version of Follow Friday - but moved to Thursday for some reason)
for the record I don't do it but am interested in what other people think.
Cheers,
gadgettechblog.com
Can anyone explain?
The most common way people find people to follow is already to look at who their friends (mostly offline) are following. These have a higher chance of being meaningful, long-term connections. By comparison, not only are follow friday recommendations duplicating this same action (as a push, instead of a pull), but they will increasingly become less and less relevant and more and more political. The most noisy adopters seem to be ones who are posting multiple names in several tweets. At some point, whatever signal is in this meme is overwhelmed.