This week I read a blog post by Bill Dorman who is lamenting the turn of events in social media – the “no one’s home, but the lights are on” syndrome many of us are feeling. In that same breath, he asked, “Why isn’t #Follow Friday cool anymore?”
Is it? Is the previously popular Twitter weekly hashtag, #FollowFriday or #FF, during which peeps list all their faves so others know whom to follow, now passé?
What’s your take? Here’s mine…
** I welcome and appreciate all #FollowFriday tweets; in fact, it’s darn nice to be acknowledged by someone who takes their time to put a list together and include me. Mark C. Robins is one of the most thoughtful and never misses a Friday. I am in awe of this because people are just not doing it any longer. (Mark is with Lawyer Locate in Canada.)
** Twitter has changed forever. I lament the Twitter of yore. While I wasn’t an early adopter in 2008, I did jump on in early 2009 and was hooked…for life (we’ll see). There were rainy Fridays (kinda like today) that I watched the tweets roll in and interacted all over the world. No longer.
** My Twitter stream is laden with links. That’s why I’m trying not to add links to that many tweets any more. I want to keep my tweets authentic and humanistic. Because you ought not to RT a tweet with a link unless you open it to verify, I have changed my RT patterns, too.
** Back to #FF, as I just digressed…I hasten a guess that relationships on Twitter are more superficial than before? Do peeps take the time they used to to develop in-depth friendships as before? I’m saying no, and this contributes to the lack of recommendations.
** What about time? If your time is as limited as mine, then this is the biggest culprit.
** How about channel overload? G+, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Tumblr blogs, your blog, Foursquare, Yelp…OMG! We are at the peak of sensory overload! Our cups runneth over! How can we develop new relationships the way we used to via social media enough to #FF?
** Like any trend, the newness wears off, and the “abuse” (I use this lightly) of #FF caused a bit of negativity. When the bots rolled in and started to add lists of peeps haphazardly with #FF, that’s when we became suspect of #FF recommendations from peeps we didn’t know. Shall we blame it on the bots?
So, finally, Bill, #FollowFriday is still VERY cool when:
1. It comes from a genuine and authentic place – your heart.
2. It recognizes someone for a job well done, gratitude, an impact, an influence, and more.
3. You want to bring a smile to someone’s face who needs a lift.
4. You want to be a coolio friend who recognizes someone else’s accomplishments.
5. You want to plain old #RocksHot.
So, I’m gonna just #FF this entire community right here…you guys do #RockHot. THANKS!
