According to a story on Mashable in 2009 , Follow Friday on Twitter was initiated by a tweeter called @micah
(If you’re not on Twitter, a quick explanation. On Fridays, tweeters may choose to take part in the tradition of 
‘recommending’ a few of their favourite tweet pals, by circulating their names along with an #FF to indicate “follow Friday”).
I don’t want to join the chorus of blogs and tweets analysing whether #FF is useful or spammy. In this post – on Friday the 13th – I’m reflecting on my evolving opinion of #FF and want to know whether other tweeters have had a similar experience.
The 13 stages of #FollowFriday:
- When you’re a Twitter newbie, you notice a flood of tweets with #FF in them. You have no idea what #FF means. You ask. You don’t participate – just yet.
- One Friday, you decide to do an #FF. You tweet your favourite tweeters and hope you haven’t missed or offended anyone.
- You begin to receive #FF recommendations from others. You grin. The higher profile the person who #FF’d you, the more likely you are to be excited.
- You become dedicated to #FF. Religiously, you send some every week. You may send a few; you may receive a few. If you don’t receive an #FF, you feel down. You may eat a cookie.
- You thank everyone who gave you and #FF and you give them an #FF. It becomes an uninspiring Friday morning chore, second in line to checking your email.
- You begin to tire of #FF. The tweet pals who #FF’d you last week are giving #FF to others this week – and they left you out.
- You begin to realise lots of people don’t read #FF tweets.
- You roll your eyes every Friday. #FF just makes your tweetstream look ugly.
- You ignore #FF for a few weeks or months.
- You tweet that you think #FF sucks, it doesn’t mean anything, it’s only friends supporting friends, bots supporting bots … and you’re not taking part in this immature popularity contest anymore.
- Sometimes you’re curious and you read the #FFs sent out by your peers. Just to see who they’re “hanging with”.
- You notice that some people only #FF one or two others. And they provide reasons why. You start to do the same. It’s like that scene in Bridget Jones’s Diary “Introduce people with thoughtful comments”.
- You decide to produce high quality, occasional #FFs. Consider them gems of approval. You don’t do it every week.
What stages have I missed? What’s your experience with Follow Friday?
Is it possible to just jump straight from step 1 (where I am now) to step 13? Or is every step a valuable learning experience? There seems to be quite a lot of angst and boring bits I’d rather skip along the path to final #FF enlightenment 😛
Haha! Yes Laura, it’s possible to skip to the final step, thanks to the power of someone else writing this blog …
I notice that one way of ‘thanking’ someone for a #ff is to retweet the said tweet…a lazy man’s approach, but an effective tactic in what is a busy day if the twitter week 🙂 and a bit of self promotion in the process
Good one, Travis. I do often see #FFs retweeted. Which adds to the mess, but is a quick and easy way of saying thanks (and also spruiking yourself again?)
Relevant, one of the few #FF’s I’ve ever done was last Friday 13th: http://twitter.com/AshSimmonds/statuses/21025151786
[quote]
RT @JasonVoorhees “#FF @FreddyKrueger”
[/quote]
I like how you preface your comments with “relevant”. Just to help you get past the keeper?
It’s just extremely relevant – in case the reader didn’t notice.
I don’t #FF anymore – mostly for fear of leaving someone important out … but will refer people occasionally the list of ppl I follow (’cause they’re all cool)
I do however thank ppl individually for any #FF luurvin’ I do receive, it is a compliment after all….
Here’s one to add…
14. You blog about #FFs.
Nice one Mark. Spoils the magic 13, but it’ll work in comments. 😉
Ok, time for an irrelevant comment: I don’t like lists of #FF’s, I never click each person and read their tweets to see if they’re worth following, they just scroll by unnoticed.
The only #FF I take notice of are when someone #FF’s and RT’s an example of one person’s tweets.
But really my favourite part of Follow Friday is walking down the mall behind a hot chick – Twitter enables this behaviour.
I think I’m just going to skip right over the first 12 steps (why does that make it sound like a rehab program? 🙂 ).
One more argument for jumping to the end may come from Twitter’s new spam policy – apparently a #FF with a long string of multiple handles in the one tweet may result in a suspended account … so only do a few, one ata time, and make them meaningful 🙂
Really? Hadn’t heard about the Twitter spam warning. Take heed, all!
Here’s the link to where I found it: http://achur.ch/mykC77
Even though I don’t inhabit the Twittersphere anymore (although will admit to occasional bouts of ninja stalking) I still lurk and read your blog so figured I better make a comment one of these days.
Been through the whole excitement-ambivalence-superiority #FF cycle but before I left started actually goll
Bugger – sorry Prakky comment accidentally posted before finishing (damn iPhone).
Anyway basically started following everyone listed in a #FF I saw for the day (and into Saturday for my overseas friends).
I didn’t have time at work to keep track of it all so I’d just favorite every tweet and come back to the adding process a few days later.
Found some of my favorite tweeters in the most unexpected of places (bit like the boring guy in the corner having cool friends) and could easily de-friend the non-events as needed.
Seemed a bit stupid that #FF turned into a big back scratching fest – wasn’t the whole point to actually follow them in the first place?
Hi Pip! That’s a good reminder that we can actually find good people via #FF. Sometimes a tweep that I really trust will #FF and so I’ll follow their recommendations. I figure “If I like that person, I’ll like their friends”.
Congrats on Seven Stars Revolving Door Mayorship.
Is it just the way my browser handles ordered lists, or did you count from 1 to 9, then go back to zero, then to 3?
What the?
Oh dear I didn’t seem to follow the steps in the logical order. Am I damned to live for eternity in Twitter hell? I went very quickly from the first steps (I remember asking you what it meant) to the end steps (focussing on the quality #ff tweets) then gave up altogether cause I had no time. I do however give thanks to any #ff’s I get.
#sadpanda How do I link my comments to my Twitter profile? (P.S. Thanks for your never ending patience in answering all my questions!) 🙂
Tiff, you’ve done really well! No time wasted. 🙂
This article seems really familiar. 🙂
Hi Mike. Familiar? How so?
Hello. I mean familiar as in I went through all these except #4, I’m now on 13. 😀
Oh, I see! The steps are familiar .. I thought you were accusing me of plagiarism. 😉