Twitter: Rethinking Follow Friday & Using Twitter Lists

October 30, 2009 / 1:12 pm • By Dr. Melissa Clouthier

I do believe Twitter’s Follow Friday tradition needs to be re-vamped to be relevant. Here’s the problem: People are creating too many tweets filled with “cool” people and clogging everyone’s streams with chum. That is, people have ceased paying attention to the vast numbers of the Follow Friday Tweets so they’re ceasing to be helpful.

In addition, with Twitter’s new “List” feature, people can just follow those who get listed and find that person’s favorites. I have lots of them for different reasons. And in my use of Twitter, while I follow many big name Twitterers I disregard lots of them because they are overrated and not very helpful, really.

What’s the solution? Continue Follow Friday, but everyone could choose one obscure awesome person that other people might not know. Tell people why this person is important to follow–give a personal endorsement. If a person can’t do that, if he just has too many people, create a list.

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  • http://onefinejay.com One Fine Jay

    Back in my early years of blogging, the multiple Carnivals became so bloated as to be useless. I miss doing Friday Five on my blog, though.

  • Lyndsi

    I completely agree, Melissa. Every Friday I see all of these #followfriday tweets without any explanation as to why I should follow these people.

    But one thing I have noticed with Twitter lists is that some Twitterers are making multiple lists that have a lot of overlap – ex.: “Right Online” and “Politics.”

    It will be interesting to see whether more specific lists like “Right Online” will be more popular than broader lists like “Politics.”

  • http://melissaclouthier.com Dr. Melissa Clouthier

    Lyndsi,

    Well, yes. My “Politics” list is fairly general. As in, I’ve got some news people, lefties and lots of righties on it. But it is a sincere list–the people I pay attention to most.

    I’ll probably create a technology list. It will be short and sweet but they are solid performers.

    And then, I’ll have a list of people I like who fill in the gaps and round out my Twitter experience.

    Those will take me a bit of time. But once done, no need for massive #FollowFriday tweets.

    And when I do highlight someone, there will be good reasons.

  • Lyndsi

    I saw your technology list – very nice.

    As you said, a downfall to making lists is that they will take a lot of time. But they seem to be a popular feature.