There’s an interesting regular activity on Twitter known as “Follow Friday.” It has a very positive purpose to promote other Twitterers, as well as help people find other interesting people they might like.

The problem is, people will often just list off a bunch of names, like this:

#followfriday @smashadv @hardlynormal
@chrissonksen @fattybombatty @seejenwrite
@davidhfoster @la_shawn @flyingspatula

I completely ignore lists like this, because they mean nothing. Actually, that’s not true. What it means is that you have to individually click through to each and every name to determine what their subject/focus is, and if it interests you. You’re asking me to find a needle in a haystack. The “#followfriday” is a link to a Twitter search of thousands of “follow friday” tweets. The haystack has just grown exponentially more huge… and useless.

What would be way more helpful to everyone, would be to link fewer names, and say more about who they are, and why someone would like them. If you’re passionate about leadership, it would be helpful to know that both @chrissonksen and @davidhfoster post regular leadership thoughts and challenges. If advertising/creative is your gig, that’s what you need to know about @smashadv… @seejenwrite is a very clever writer… @la_shawn is a female, black, Christian conservative who kicks butt and takes names.

See how much more helpful that is? So my recommendation for Follow Friday is to be more intentional. Provide some information about why you recommend someone. Help us all be more efficient.

@jan_lynn (church/communications/creative) thanks you.