Twitter for Dummies - Laura Fitton [35]
A community leads
Twitter users have come up with an interesting way of recommending people to follow — something called FollowFriday. It uses a community-driven system called hashtags, which we cover in Chapter 9. Our friend Micah Baldwin (@micah, pronounced Me-ha) started it, and he has this to say about it:
In January of 2009, I sent a simple tweet: “I am starting FollowFridays. Every Friday, suggest people to follow, and everyone follow him/her. Today its @jeffrey and @dannynewman.” After a suggestion to add the hashtag #followfriday and four folks retweeting it, FollowFriday was born.
After a few months, more than 100,000 tweets with more than 300,000 recommendations are sent each Friday (it actually begins on Thursday U.S. time because it’s Friday overseas!) and it’s growing each week.
FollowFriday mirrors what happens in the real world. One person suggests a book to read, or a restaurant to go to, or a person you should meet, and if you trust them, you take their word. The concept is very simple: Write a tweet listing two or three people you follow that you think others should follow as well, and provide a bit of an explanation. (Remember: It’s only 140 characters,so be brief both with your recommendations and with your explanations!) For example, “@pistachio @micah @gruen are three people that make me laugh every day. #followfriday.” That’s it!
If you’re new to Twitter and you’re looking for people to follow, you can search for #followfriday at http://search.twitter.com to see people who have been recommended, or check out sites like http://followfridays.com and http://topfollowfriday.com to see frequently recommended Twitter users.
FollowFriday is exactly what makes Twitter great. It gives you the ability to participate, it’s easy, and you can share people you’re proud to know (even if it’s just on Twitter) with other people. After all, Twitter is about sharing information and experiences with people you’re proud to be associated with, in a very easy, participatory way.
Why Fridays? Fridays seem to work well because it’s the end of the week, and people have the time to think about whom they would like to recommend. Plus, FollowTuesday just doesn’t have the same type of ring, now does it?
Opening up your stream
By default, Twitter shows you all the tweets sent by each of the users whom you follow. But sometimes, during the setup process, users accidentally limit their feeds to include only tweets that aren’t replies — it’s a neat feature, but not always desirable.
To configure your Twitter stream so that it shows you all the Twitter conversations that include @replies written by the people you’re following:
1. Click Settings in the top-right navigation bar.
The Settings page opens.
2. Click the Notices tab (see Figure 5-4).
You see an @Replies section, with a Show Me drop-down list.
3. Select Show Me All @Replies from the Show Me drop-down list.
Figure 5-4: On the Notices screen, you can choose which, if any, @replies appear in your stream.
By setting this option, when your friends post public @replies to other Twitter users whom you aren’t following, you still see those tweets.
Give yourself a little time to get used to the flood of information and figure out which @replies you want to see. You’ll soon find that your friends not only have valuable things to say, but their friends do, too. At that point, you can start to join the conversation, and broaden your circle of friends.
If you want your stream to be a little less crowded, you