Twitter Follow Fridays. Are we really just Lemmings?

First off I'd like to say that this post is only meant towards those of us who use twitter as a professional resource more then a trendy "I'm picking my nose at a stop-light right now", "trend following" type of twit user.

Today I read a blog article on Twitter's "Follow Fridays". This encouraged people towards not just #FF'ing a list of names such as @thisPerson or @thatPerson but actually giving a one sentence reason or something for #FF'ing somebody. Or maybe consider only giving one recommendation per week. It was actually a good blog post and I don't want to take away from the authors opinions but I would like to state my thoughts on it.

I don't feel that twitter should be a popularity contest but at the same time there is a goal to follow and have as many followers as you can get. Otherwise you end up tweeting to yourself pretty much and not getting the information you would like to share out to others. Personally, my entire goal of twitter is to get the largest source of people possible in the fields of my particular interest. That being the creative industry but we all have our own. In fact, I go through my following list and block every single person I find in there that is not in the creative industry in some fashion. I have even blocked several of my own personal friends who have tried following me cause I don't want my twit's jammed up with "off topic" do dah's. I'm there for a reason, otherwise I'd have a myspace if I just wanted to be popular!

Most of my followers or people I have included in my #FF's will know that from time to time I do like to write a sentence about the person I'm suggesting people follow. It makes things genuine and sometimes even a little comical (hey, I try). But lets face it... once I got over 30 followers or so I found it extremely difficult to quickly think up a sentence for every great follower I had that I wanted to tell someone else about. Thats not to mention that I also #FF people that I think are great and don't even follow me so I have to go through my follow list as well. I'm a busy person and I just don't have time to do that much thinking and writing about each and every #FF. Its not a commercial for them, its a referral!

I can assure every single person out there that I will ONLY #FF somebody that is a decent follow in the creative industry and I will separate them when I post. Meaning: #Photographers #VFX #ProVideo. I DON'T think that people should blindly hit the "follow" button to these suggestions of mine but I am putting them up there so that people who participate in FF's can give their twit feed the once over and see if it looks like a person they are interested in following. I hope my followers have the comfort in knowing that I have been following these people and genuinely think they are worth a glance.

I look forward to going through all the #FF recommendations in the people I follow every Friday. I click on each one and follow those that I found of value. Heck, I found legendaries in the industry this way! One could argue for me to just go through each persons follow list but that doesn't really work out because quite a few of them are bogged down with SEO and Dirty Britney ads. Follow-Friday helps me find alot more people of the subjects I'm interested in. It helps them find me. I #FF people and they return the favor if they think by twit feed is of value. It's people helping people to find the information we are all looking for. Isn't that what twitter is all about???

If anything I think people should just be sure they genuinely feel the person is worth a look and not just returning an #FF favor. Although out of my group of people I can say that I think everyone has done a really nice job on their Follow Fridays. So I will continue to write a brief reason if I have time. I try to keep my list semi-short and sweet. I just hope people continue to post FF's as they have so that I can find more creative people and they can find me!