Is Follow Friday dead? Is the twitter phenom #FollowFriday worth you time and energy? Do you spend time each and every Friday compiling a list of those tweeps you love and want to honor by giving them the friendly #FollowFriday hashtag shout out?
If you don’t quite know what #FollowFriday is then you may just be one of the lucky ones. Why? After being a faithful #FollowFriday recommender for the past 9 months I’ve decided to abandon my commitment to #FollowFriday and am declaring here that Follow Friday is dead. Of course this is my opinion and since I’m not the official twitter trendsetter I don’t imagine the proliferation of the #FollowFriday hashtag will be disappearing from our twitter streams anytime soon.
Is Follow Friday dead? What’s the point?
Have you ever considered the value of #FollowFriday if any? It’s popular enough to have it’s own website followfriday.com which claims that it can rank the most recommended tweeps in the twitterverse. What!? Yeah, if you get a whole ton of mentions with the #FF or #FollowFriday hashtag embedded in them, you can discover your own ranking. Does this mean anything? No… pretty much nothing. In fact, I get a whole lot of #FollowFriday recommendations every week, it goes up and down, and they are certainly friendly shouts and nice ways of being acknowledged on twitter. But those mentions are certainly not accomplishing anything, which brings me to the ultimate question is Follow Friday dead? And if it is, why do I think that? Of course Follow Friday is not totally dead, but it isn’t exactly a useful use of your time either.
A recent look at my twitter account (@danielsnyder1) on followfriday.com shows that I gained a whopping new ONE follower this past week. How it is concluding that, that particular user decided to follow me because of a #FollowFriday tweet I have no idea…
Friday is just another day
But over the past nine months I’ve paid attention to Friday’s particularly and invested a lot of time in tweeting out friendly recommendations to my twitter friends who I appreciate and am interested in. In fact I’ve always used the Follow Friday Helper website to determine who I am interacting with the most. My conclusion is that Friday’s tend to be one of the days when there is a lot going on but not a lot really happening. Does that make any sense? I seem to gain the least number of new followers on Friday as opposed to ANY other day of the week. Friday is also a day that my website seems to experience a little less traffic then other days.
My conclusion: Is Follow Friday dead?
I think that the #FollowFriday recommendations have been done enough, to the point of being insanely overdone. It’s become the status quo and for that reason those tweets are largely ignored, and actually they’ve become annoying. Though I may not be an officially appointed twitter trendsetter, I do plan on becoming one in this regard. My final declaration on the question is Follow Friday dead? YES IT IS, well, at least for me.
As a special goodbye I’d like to mention that my FINAL #FollowFriday mention went out to @lavenderuses my good friend from down under Patricia who is the most faithful blog commenter ever! If perchance you are a good friend of mine, or a loyal follower please don’t be offended if you don’t see me mentioning you on Friday’s anymore… I simply can’t bring myself to do it, as special as you are! 🙂
So, add your thoughts, plead your case, or let us know if you’re done with #FollowFriday as well, come on and let our info carnivore readers know what you think about the ultimate question to life the universe and everything else like #FollowFriday… for had I gained 42 followers today, perhaps I would not be asking is follow Friday dead?
39 comments
Tweets that mention Is Follow Friday dead? | Info Carnviore -- Topsy.com says:
Dec 18, 2010
[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Bruce Avellanet, Daniel Snyder. Daniel Snyder said: it's OFFICIAL… well not really, but as far as I'm concerned. Is #FollowFriday DEAD? … http://bit.ly/dMXgx0 […]
Theeventof says:
Dec 18, 2010
I have a similar stance with you Daniel. FF has, for me, seemed to become too much work for what it gains. Even in my own feed from my own followers recommendations I find that I’m not following their FF recs.
In my opinion FF has become almost spammy filling up my twitter feed from morning to night and then often times I’ll still see the #FF tag on a Sunday!
The problem may not be the idea of it just that often times ppl will recommend 10 full 140 character tweets worth of followers. I’m sure they’re all good people but, shouldnt this be limited to one or two ppl per week?
I have stopped the follow friday routine on my account a month or so ago and even when I was partaking I thought it was a little pointless. Thanks for the post glad to hear I’m not alone in this thought!
Daniel Snyder says:
Dec 20, 2010
Hey John! I’m totally with you man – it’s too much time for no gain. Though I appreciate my followers, I think there are other better ways to show you appreciate them. I still thank people for retweets faithfully. Yeah when was the last time you clicked on a username and started following some because of an #FF recommendation? Uh, not lately.
ronika says:
Dec 18, 2010
I imagine it started as a way to recognize outstanding tweeps, and has turned into something almost completely meaningless, given the frequency with which it is done. A specific, directed tweet ( any day of the week) would seem to be a much more effective way of recognizing someone.
Daniel Snyder says:
Dec 20, 2010
Totally agree with you! Started great, but it’s going nowhere. I never even bother with reading #FF tweets, never mind actually following someone because they were recommended.
Daniel Sharkov says:
Dec 19, 2010
Hi Daniel.
Follow Fridays are some of those things I never really understood. And not because of the positive initiative itself, but from the fact that I don’t believe many people pay attention to those types of tweets. Before knowing what the FollowFriday was I thought that all of those shouts were just random spam. The problem comes from the fact that everyone recommends but not much care to follow the ones being recommended. The situation is similar with the whole Twitter concept if you ask me. People sign up there to post their tweets and get people visiting their websites. They don’t go there to read others’ thoughts. Of course there are tweeps of the second kind, but definitely a minority.
Good job man!
Daniel Snyder says:
Dec 20, 2010
Daniel, your comment here could be inspiring a post for me. 🙂 I’ve seen the eventual demise of twitter foretasted in your thoughts. I think exactly that the influx of promoters on twitter and the lack of engagers could be what causes the site to ultimately implode… who knows, we will see!
Adam says:
Dec 19, 2010
Daniel, I think FF is dead and the reason is pretty simple. The way how people use FF changed a lot I think. Now it is just #FF followed by bunch of names. Of course nobody will notice your name in such tweet.
I think what could still make the difference is #FF with only one name and short text why is this one person worthy to follow.
Nice reading.
Daniel Snyder says:
Dec 20, 2010
Adam. I did exactly that for a while – mentioning a single user and throwing out some hashtags about what is so great about that person. They were terribly grateful, but after doing that for a month I didn’t find it was any more effective, and it was taking even more time. Though it may be worth doing occassionally, I think anything now attached to the #FF tags is worthless.
Patricia@lavenderuses says:
Dec 19, 2010
Hi Daniel
Thanks for the special mention in this post. Much appreciated.
When I first saw the #FF and didn’t have a clue what was going on I asked someone what it was all about. I have never joined in. But I have noted quite a few people #FF me. I duly thank them; usually en masse now as it gets almost unmanageable.
Not that I am not grateful for a mention. My small blog niche needs to be out there for others to even know we are around. Not being in a large niche, may mean I have less competition, but the flipside is I have to work hard to keep reminding people about the lovely lavender 🙂
It will be interesting to see the reactions to this post. Good on you for putting it out there. Sometimes we need to question our actions and if we are just following what others do or willing to do what we feel is right for us.
I am relieved to hear that you find on a Friday you get less traffic and that it is not just me! Your Friday is my Friday evening, Saturday morning so my Saturday traffic can be the lowest for the week. Also, Saturday is usually a day when I find it hardest to find 20 blogs to comment on.
Probably cos everyone too busy doing #FF lol Or maybe they have a life and are out with their friends 😉
Patricia Perth Australia
Daniel Snyder says:
Dec 20, 2010
Hi Patricia! Yeah even taking the time to acknowledge and thank the #FF mentions is something that requires attention weekly… kind of annoying, since on twitter if you are ignoring people they tend to take offense so quickly. There is kind of that unwritten expectation for a mention back. It makes for a situation that requires a daily / weekly commitment. Seems most people agree so far. Wonder if we can influence the twitterverse to stop with this nonsense!? Let’s use the hashtag #FollowFridayISDead
Sheila Atwood says:
Dec 19, 2010
Daniel,
I have been using Follow Friday for a long time and did not realize there was an official site. I guess I have not worried about what I gain in followers.
In fact I use #FF instead. It gives me more room to say something. I like using it to really recommend people to follow. Also it is a great way to say thank you to those who have commented on my site or those who have retweeted me. And I do check out recommendations from others.
Just like you have done for Patricia. I recommended her too. She is terrific at commenting and supporting other sites…..and I love her site.
My ROI? #FF is just simply out-flow. I know I get something back in the long run.
Daniel Snyder says:
Dec 20, 2010
Sheila, thanks for your perspective. I think for some we have to gauge the time we put into typing those tweets and manually seeking out the names of people we want to mention that week. For me it’s not worth it anymore, the stream is too cluttered and too many people see #FF tweets as pure spam now. I agree with saying thank you via the #FF, but there are other ways as well – so I’ll be more likely to take advantage of those from now on.
Gabriele Maidecchi says:
Dec 19, 2010
The main reason I started doing #ff was more for emulation than real commitment. I saw lots of people citing me on theirs, so I thought fair to do my part as well.
Since then I am using Paper.li to compile a Friday’s “paper” which I then Tweet, but I honestly prefer to meet new people through their own blogs, comments left on mine and clicks on the CommentLuv links. Worked out wonders so far.
Daniel Snyder says:
Dec 20, 2010
I also think a vast majority of people just do it because it’s the thing to do on twitter on Friday. BUT NO MORE! Please! 🙂 I too like your methods of connecting with people more directly, twitter may be the meeting place but let’s go somewhere else to chat sometime eh. 🙂
Jeevanjacobjohn says:
Dec 19, 2010
I am sure whether follow friday is dead or not, but I sure do know one thing : ITS USELESS nowadays ! There is nothing more to it except for – your name is mentioned in the timeline. Anyway, thanks for the thoughtful post, Daniel !
Daniel Snyder says:
Dec 20, 2010
Totally agree with you Jeevan! Totally useless #FollowFriday. #FollowFridayIsDead!
Lisa says:
Dec 21, 2010
Daniel:
another great post! I despise #FF! Recently I was going to throw out a #FT (follow tues) just to irritate people…LOL…I get page long 120 character #ff suggestions and yes, most times they are ignored. So bad of me I know!!
Daniel Snyder says:
Dec 22, 2010
Hey Lisa! Despise wow, yeah though I’d have to agree. It is the only day on twitter that I don’t look forward to. I too can’t remember the last time I clicked on a name in a #FF tweet.
John McNally@Blogging for Pleasure and Profit says:
Dec 26, 2010
I’m with you Daniel, even though this is the first time I have heard of ‘Follow Friday’. 😮 I’m not sure my opinion counts for much though, because I don’t ‘get’ Twitter? What’s it for? It’s all full of spam as far as I can see, and I can understand why, with things like Follow Friday going on. 🙄
John
Daniel Snyder says:
Dec 28, 2010
John, I fear twitter may be in a losing battle – they’ve done a very poor job of managing spam and spam accounts, and for that reason alone the network is becoming bogged down by useless information and spammers. Though my twitter network I consider to be strong and connected with a lot of valuable people, it has become virtually impossible to avoid the spammers. A well managed and controlled twitter account that doesn’t concern itself with follow #’s, can be very useful however! … Thanks for your feedback.
Steve from ZolexPC says:
Dec 28, 2010
I agree that Follow Friday tweets are mostly now considered SPAM by most Tweeters. An individual shout out to your close Followers or retweeting a good tweet is the way to go. Even with only a hundred followers, Follow Friday will take up multiple posts and probably not be looked at. Also some people may take it the wrong way if they make your Follow Friday list one week and not the next.
Daniel Snyder says:
Dec 28, 2010
Hey Steve! Yeah I can’t participate in Follow Friday anymore… I know some people may miss my tweets, but they’re meaningless anyway. There are other ways to give a shout out!
Mags says:
Jan 3, 2011
It’sa great post. I agree, Follow Friday is considered as a spam now, although it was great “tool” a few years/months ago.
Daniel Snyder says:
Jan 3, 2011
Thanks Mags. Yep, no more #FF’s for me.
Noyo says:
Jan 4, 2011
Good point. #ff etc. has limited use and may very well be dead.
#ff is useful to people who haven’t used it before to get some new followers quickly. Once everyone in the circle of participants has followed everyone else’s followers the group is an insular tight knot with no new follow possibilities. It has effectively self strangled. The smaller the group the quicker it happens.
The other thing that is killing #ff is that people don’t follow back for whatever reason, ignorance, negligence or choice.
Either way tweeps will not waste time or effort on a pointless exercise, so it dies.
My current strategy is simply to follow back almost anyone who follows me unless they have something that I find objectionable. You can always unfollow or block at a later date if they become annoying.
Extreme John says:
Jan 9, 2011
First comment here, thanks for connecting Daniel. Excellent blog, I’ll be a daily reader for sure.
As for FollowFriday, I think I stopped having faith in that in the very early stages, recently I started to dable again thanks to a website I found that made doing it much easier. Needless to say I still haven’t stuck to it.
Daniel Snyder says:
Jan 10, 2011
Hey John! Thanks for visiting. I don’t publish content every day, but I do post a few articles a week (I think that way it is easier for my reader base to make the time to read ALL my articles instead of skipping a bunch, in addition I just don’t have the time to write daily… wish I did!) Yeah, glad to get more #FollowFridayIsDead support! Thanks for your comment.
Brad Harmon says:
Jan 27, 2011
Interesting post, Daniel. I’m not sure that I agree that #FollowFriday is dead, but I will agree that it’s getting harder to find good people to follow through it.
I go back and forth with my #FollowFriday recommendations. When I do give them out, they are generally 1 user per tweet along with why they should be followed. I tend to do them very sparingly as well – no more than 5 in any week.
If someone who has earned my trust sends out a #FollowFriday then I’ll click to see if I want to follow their recommendation. I have these people filtered in HootSuite so the tweet is easy for me to find them. The number of these types of tweets have dwindled from these people though.
Is it dead? Not quite, but I think more people are leaning in your direction. Thanks for sharing your thoughts with us.
Daniel Snyder says:
Jan 28, 2011
Brad, I do like the method of #FF you mention with giving a reason. I did that too for a while, and those tweets were well received and appreciated. I see it more as a way to honor a follower than it is a way to ever gain new followers. Thanks for commenting! I for one am done with Follow Friday.
Michele Welch says:
Apr 1, 2011
I’m with Brad here. I don’t think it’s dead, just not used properly.
I’ve definitely been guilty of that… in fact just did it today! #FF a bunch of people at once.
To really get value out of it as Brad said, it to do with with one user at a time and giving a reason. This has always proved to be more useful for me. Also, a good thing to point out is that I would more likely follow someone if I see a fellow tweeter recommending them in that manner.
Funny how that works.
So I say, let’s not kill #FF! Let’s change the rules!! 😉
Heather C Stephens says:
Jan 27, 2011
Hi Daniel,
I get totally bored by the follow fridays and I haven’t noticed any change in my followers because of it.
I saw one clever person tweet out a link to her blog with a list of tweeters that she recommended, why she recommended them, links to their blogs, etc. I wish I had bookmarked it and paid better attention, but it was a nice way to recommend people based on their interests without cluttering up the twitter stream with groups of names and no description as to why someone should bother to follow them.
Great post!
Heather
Daniel Snyder says:
Jan 28, 2011
Thanks Heather! You’re right some people have been creative about their use of #FollowFriday but for the most part it is bland and annoying. Thanks for sharing!
Phil Taylor says:
Feb 1, 2011
I have to agree on #FF. Initially, I used it, hoping to get more followers, but I discovered that useful RT’s captured just as much attention for new followers. Thru that and my daily paper.li, I have managed to grow my followers organically, which is much more valuable. Thanks for the great post.
Daniel Snyder says:
Feb 3, 2011
Thanks Phil. I haven’t used paper.li yet. So you do find it effective and helpful? Is it spreading your influence? How does it do this?
Lisa Irby says:
Mar 17, 2011
Daniel, I agree and I wish I had thought to blog about this. I haven’t done many #FF posts, but when I do a #FF, I just mention one person (or a few people with related sites) and mention something about them so people actually pay more attention to the tweet.
But I think Twitter has sort of gotten immune to the #FF tweets. Don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful when people include me but I don’t typically pay much attention when people send them UNLESS they say why you should follow or something about the people as Heather (above) said.
Daniel Snyder says:
Mar 21, 2011
Hey Lisa, thanks for the feedback and visit. I’m in agreement that when you can add a little “WHY” to the whole #FF tweet that it really improves its valuable, and gives people a reason to actually read it.
Dana says:
Mar 22, 2011
I do not know the others, but for me, I almost ignore FollowFriday completely. So, from my point of view, yes, follow Friday has long died.
Daniel Snyder says:
Mar 22, 2011
So many people tell me they pay no attention to #FollowFriday tweets – it’s a wonder to me why so many people still waste time typing them out.