Using Follow Friday Wisely
{ Posted on Tuesday, November 24, 2009
by Jerry Work / Chris Work
}
I have an imaginary character I use for a Twitter account that is mostly updates from news feeds. But people absolutely love the guy. I do sometimes post commentary in his name as well. But I don't do a whole lot of social type stuff like retweeting or making reference to other users' names. Not because I'm an asshole, but because I just don't have much time to spend on this account.
One Friday just for kicks I did a follow friday post (#FF) with a few names of people who regularly retweet my news links in this account. And it caused an explosion of retweets and reFF's. It definitely reinforced what I discussed in an earlier blog post about how people love to see their names in others' tweets.
I really think making reference to other users is a critical part of using Twitter as a marketing strategy. Personally, I always thought the Follow Friday thing was a little goofy. But if you're gonna do this stuff, you've got to do what is effective. And one of the best ways to get your name spread around is to spread around the names of others.
I do, however, think this technique is more effective is you use it with users who are genuinely good people to follow or with whom you have had some kind of interaction. I know of at least one program that automatically does Follow Fridays for random names in your account. I'm not sure that is a good idea. You don't really want to be passing around names of people who are nothing but spammers or who contribute nothing to the Twitter universe. Use the power of the #FF to reward those whose names deserve to be spread around.
For the record, I am embarrassed by the lack of updates the last couple of months. Business at Work Media is quite good. Unfortunately, the better business does, the less time I have for the fun stuff...like writing about Twitter. I will try to do better.
One Friday just for kicks I did a follow friday post (#FF) with a few names of people who regularly retweet my news links in this account. And it caused an explosion of retweets and reFF's. It definitely reinforced what I discussed in an earlier blog post about how people love to see their names in others' tweets.
I really think making reference to other users is a critical part of using Twitter as a marketing strategy. Personally, I always thought the Follow Friday thing was a little goofy. But if you're gonna do this stuff, you've got to do what is effective. And one of the best ways to get your name spread around is to spread around the names of others.
I do, however, think this technique is more effective is you use it with users who are genuinely good people to follow or with whom you have had some kind of interaction. I know of at least one program that automatically does Follow Fridays for random names in your account. I'm not sure that is a good idea. You don't really want to be passing around names of people who are nothing but spammers or who contribute nothing to the Twitter universe. Use the power of the #FF to reward those whose names deserve to be spread around.
For the record, I am embarrassed by the lack of updates the last couple of months. Business at Work Media is quite good. Unfortunately, the better business does, the less time I have for the fun stuff...like writing about Twitter. I will try to do better.
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