Business Insight Zone

It’s Friday, which means it’s FollowFriday on Twitter. Explanations follow . . .

• What: You recommend people whom others might like to follow on Twitter.
• Why: To publicize good (helpful, funny, informative, etc.) folks on Twitter, and to help Twitter newcomers find good people to follow.
• How: Typically, a tweet like this: “Good #followfriday folks: @JohnSmith @JaneDoe @RichardRoe @JoeBlow @BethJones @DaveJohnson @JillDavis”

As the made-up example attests, the downside to the typical FollowFriday method is a lack of context. I may tell you that John and Jane and Richard and the rest are great to follow, but how helpful is that if I don’t tell you why, and if their names come in a string with half a dozen other folks?

Less-than-optimally-helpful, as I came to think after I realized I was simply tuning out most of these tweets, even from good friends of mine. So, here are examples of the FollowFriday tweets I’ve started doing:

• “If you live in Austin and crave excellent coffee talk, your wrecking crew starts with @chris_bailey & @productjustin. #FollowFriday”
• “An old Twitter friend (and faithful blog reader) I had the pleasure of sitting with at SXSW: @KeithBurtis #followfriday”
• “Consistently engaging & a great promoter of others’ work: @delwilliams #followfriday”

You get the idea: not just a listing of people I like to follow, but a specific endorsement for the good qualities of a person or two. From my perspective, at least three benefits accrue to this method:

1. You get a sense of why I enjoy following these people, and thereby why you might want to follow them as well.
2. It gets away from the numbers game and emphasizes relationships, which I think is a much better use of Twitter. Rather than throw big numbers of recommendations at you, I’m offering to expand the circle of your acquaintance by one valuable person. I hope this works something like making a personal introduction at a dinner party.
3. It doesn’t slight anyone by omission. When you list 20 or 30 people, it’s possible that some lovely folks you don’t list will feel slighted. (”Hey, I thought we were pretty good friends . . .”) When you describe one person, it’s clear — or should be — that you’re calling out someone worthy, not omitting anyone purposefully.

I hope more people will take this approach, which is hardly unique to me.

What do you think?

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Photo by Clinton & Charles Robertson, used under a CC-Share Alike license.