I like Follow Friday. It is nice to have some traditions in the constantly changing world of social media, and Follow Friday can sometimes be useful for discovering new people.
However, often it is not. It is in large part dominated by spammers and long lists of people. While I appreciate being mentioned in an #FF list, it is more like a minor compliment than a real suggestion to follow me, as I never bother clicking through all those names to find out more about them and I know most others do not either.
I know this is not brand new information. People have discussed the shortcomings of Follow Fridays almost as soon as the tradition began, and most things have been said multiple times already.
I still want to share the way I use #FF, because I enjoy it when I notice other people using it the same way and often check out people suggested this way:
- I always include some comments about the person I recommend.
- I only recommend one person or a related group of people each week. On some weeks, I might just skip the #FF entirely.
Here are my latest #FF tweets as a demonstration, and I suppose this promotes these people a little bit more as well:
#FF @torikyes – social media and technology; also infrequent but interesting blogger – ask her to blog more when following! (23 September 2011)
#FF @wittlake – writes about B2B marketing and social media; has a good head on his shoulders. (15 September 2011; I know it’s a Thursday.. Well, I know now that it’s a Thursday)
#FF @markwschaefer – One of the few daily bloggers who produces value on most days. He also practices what he preaches (in Tao of Twitter). (9 September 2011)
#FF @GrahamHill @ireneclng @SteveVargo – all three for their discussions on #SDLogic (2 September 2011)
Photo: Roger Price (cc)
Technorati token: MVQFB6SESAYC
There is an unfortunate side effect to being exposed to Lean thinking in large quantities: you begin to see so much waste in processes all around you. It is everywhere, and going Lean could help all these companies. That includes amusement parks!
