Do you know what day it is? It’s Follow Friday! People are going to be handing out recommendations to their followers, giving them advice on who they should follow. Bundles of names will clog up Twitter timelines while tributes are passed around like Valentine’s Day cards. Everyone is going to have a great time and go home happy.
Did I mention that this is probably a waste of time?
Most people are going about this Follow Friday thing all wrong. There are no blessings coming from the way their recommendations are handed out. Their hearts may be in the right place, but their methods are lacking.
The most common format used when recommending others on Follow Friday is to list a bunch of names and including a “#ff” hash tag either at the beginning or the end of the tweet. It looks just like this:
Thousands upon thousands of tweets just like this come pouring out every Friday. And as you can see, it consists of nothing but a few names and a hash tag.
These recommendations fail because there is no indication as to why anyone should follow these people. There is no hint as to who these people are, nothing is there to entice anyone to click on over to their profile. Essentially it becomes white noise.
It doesn’t have to be like this. You can change how you use Follow Friday to a way that gives true recommendations for great people and in doing this you will make yourself look good as well.
A good follow recommendation on Twitter should only refer to one person and contain the following three pieces of information:
- Who are they?
- What do they do?
- Why should you follow them?
Even with the 140 character limit imposed by Twitter, you should be able to come under the limit and fill in all three blanks.
Here is an example of a Follow Friday recommendation that hits the mark:
You can see from this tweet that all three questions have been answered. This kind of recommendation will encourage more people to check out the profile of @steamykitchen and will generate more followers for her.
How does this improve my image?
When you start making real recommendations on Follow Friday like this, you are going to start something infectious. You will be seen as someone who has kind words for other people, a kind of person who isn’t stingy with compliments. Additionally, your appearance on Twitter will become more appealing, and people tend to gravitate towards personalities like that.
It’s a win-win situation if you share in with the Follow Friday crowd and add more than just a name with a hash tag. If you have been the type that just lists names without a reason, try a different method and see how much better it will become for you.
No related posts.
{ 1 trackback }