Ban Follow Friday (#followfriday)

Social Media, Twitter August 21, 2009 11 Comments @niallharbison

Twitter is now being used all over the world with thousands of great tools and applications but there is one convention that needs to be banned immediately….Follow Friday.

For those of you not familiar with the concept twitter users will tag some of their favorite users every Friday and add the hashtag #followfriday. The idea being that you will then see other interesting users and follow them based on your friends reccomendations. What a load of rubbish.

The concept came about at the very start of twitter when the service was still tiny and you knew most of the people within your social circle. I have enough trouble keeping up with the 200 people I already follow without people trying to influence me with more of their suggestions and if we are all honest we know that #followfriday is just a big back slapping community to try and get more followers.

I mean am I really going to look through 10 different @names and see if they are interesting or not? The campaign to ban #followfriday should start immediately as nobody gives a toss what people you follow and we are never going to follow them in return anyway.

I really don’t want to see any more tweets like the one below so please just stop this pathetic waste of time people will you?

Comments

http://www.kyletunneyphotography.com/ Kyle Tunney

Very good point, even at the start of twitter it was quite annoying!

(what if we changed it to #stalksunday, has a nicer ring to it… )
http://www.loopthing.com Donagh Mc Sweeney

I don’t think #followfriday #ff is a bad thing, just something that’s overused. If people used it sparingly it’s likely to have a better impact than the current format as shown in the image above. When I say sparingly I meant a maximum of one @ recommendation. And maybe offer some reasons why you like what that person has to say. I don’t think many people(if any) read through large #ff @ tweets like the one above really. They are like banner ads, nobody pays attention to them anymore!
http://www.messy-chef.com Ivan

+1
http://www.stewartcurry.ie/ Stewart Curry

With you 100%. It’s just pointless noise at best – especially the big listing ones
http://www.gavreilly.com Gav Reilly

If you find ten-name #ff tweets annoying, ignore them. That simple. People who might have a little more time on their hands might still find it handy, surely?

http://www.simplyzesty.com Niall Harbison

Like Donagh says above if there is one person in there with an @name and a couple of reasons it is probably a better use of it. I just don’t know what I am supposed to do with 10 name sin a list. Don’t think time is an issue as I would never look through them. Although that is the beauty of twitter in that if you see something you don’t like you can always unfollow

http://www.fiscalstudent.com FiscalStudent

I agree with Donagh, I think #followfriday is a good idea that has been misused.

I tweeted the following last night which I think sums up how #followfriday should be used.

“On that note only my 3rd ever suggestion for #followfriday @irishhotelchat for his excellent blog post “Week in Ireland” http://bit.ly/rG77i”

Key Points
____________

1. You don’t have to recommend someone every Friday
2. Give context i.e “Week in Ireland”
3. Give sample, people can read the linked to blog post before deciding whether to follow or not
http://backpagefootball.com Kevin

Don’t like it – ignore it. Simple as. That’s what I and many others have found to learn. You can’t please everybody, especially online.

Follow Friday is good in small doses. I picked up on this in a previous post of mine, that if you just tweet after tweet after tweet of the hashtag then you are completely taking away the meaning of it.

One tweetful of names, and finished.
http://www.loopthing.com/?a=BnGncukOwJ4 Donagh Mc Sweeney

Like us all, I’ve seen pages with dozens upon dozens of #followfridays. It’s way too much! In fact it’s not far from @ spamming.

I’ve only used the feature about 4, 5 times at most. On those ocassions one was for a colleague and the others for people I engage with regurally.

Like everything in life, it’s got to be used in moderation. Too much drink makes you drunk , too much food makes you bloated while too many #followfridays dilutes your influnece with others.
http://eirepreneur.blogs.com James Corbett

Which is it Niall? You draw up a list of 50 inluencers to follow but then you want to ban the idea of Follow Friday where because of “people trying to influence me”. So you’ve got a special license to be an influencer?
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