If you’re a twitter user you’re probably familiar with the #followfriday concept. For those that aren’t you can read about how #followfriday may have started. Here’s are three ways to maximize your #followfriday experience for you and your followers.
1. Lists of strung together names don’t work well. This is a common sight on #followfriday, but how many times do you actually click on every name in a group? You’ll give your friends a better boost and your followers better insight by using short phrases or a couple of keywords to highlight strengths or areas of focus that the folks you’re recommending have. Because I get hundreds of #followfriday tweets, I’m a lot more likely to follow someone from a #followfriday tweet when I see how I can benefit from following them or what value they may add to my stream.
2. Make sure you don’t start your #followfriday tweet(s) with an @. Starting a tweet with an @ will direct that tweet to that person only. The default option in Twitter is to ignore tweets from other folks that aren’t addressed to you. That means anyone who hasn’t changed it to “listen in” on everything that everyone they follow says will only see tweets from you that don’t start with an @ or that are sent to them. Instead start your #followfriday tweet with the hashtag or with a keyword/phrase so that no one misses out!
3. Follow up by recommending folks through Mr. Tweet. Don’t stop at a couple of lists of folks you think everyone should follow. Use sites like Mr. Tweet to boost your friends and prove that you really do like what they have to say. It’s worth it and everyone benefits when you’re able to say a couple of kind words about someone worth following. and Mr. Tweet stores your recommendation unlike #followfriday where it’s gone pretty quickly if you don’t favorite it.
What do you do to make #followfriday yours?
FollowFriday resources:
A list of the users with the most #followfriday recommendations updated every 15 minutes.
An interesting study of #followfriday data from justSignal.
