I joined Twitter almost exactly a year ago, but I don’t consider myself an expert on Twitter etiquette. Most third party analyzers accuse me of not engaging my users enough, which is probably true. Engaging every person who tags me for Follow Friday takes a lot of precious time that I often cannot afford.
The Follow Friday phenomenon is a great thing, Twitter users staking their reputation on you and vice versa. It’s an honor to be tagged. When I first started on Twitter I returned every #FollowFriday, but then it started taking away from my Twitter experience. It became too tedious and disingenuous, so I stopped – probably to my detriment, but I just couldn’t do it.
Then, along came Twitter Lists. It slowly dawned on me that I could use it to permanently and continuously thank all those who honored me with a Follow Friday tag.
Now, every person who tags me for Follow Friday gets added to my Follow Friday list. Then, every Friday I tweet the link to the members of my list, making it much easier for potential followers to add them.
I also watch my Follow Friday list as a stream of tweets, as Twitter intended. It’s great to be able to do that for a specific set of Twitter users.
It’s not perfect. Because of my method, a Twitter user I recommend for Follow Friday will not see a reply from me. But, that’s why I’m writing this post – so I have a way to tell them that I’m not brushing them off and that I’m grateful for the Follow Friday nod.
2010-06-09
The Crowbar
via thecrowbar.us
