In a recent conversation with a friend I said that to suggest that there is a correct way to use Twitter is to start a holy war.  Everyone has their own idea on how Twitter should be used. Instead I would like to suggest methods we all could employ that would help everyone gain value and make Twitter even more useful.

Every Friday is ‘Follow Friday’. For the uninitiated this is where you tweet about someone you follow, include their @username and the hashtag, #followfriday. This is a nice way to find new people to follow. In theory anyway. See, people often now seem to feel an obligation to join the meme. They put out a tweet that looks something like:

@user1, @user2. @user3, @user4, @user5 #followfriday

So, from the above, can you tell who those people are? Why would you want to follow them? Maybe that is a list of 5 pig farmers and you could care less about pig farmers. You have to go through and click each one to find out they are pig farmers. You are taking it on faith that because I follow them they are worth following. A nice idea but not everyone follows for the same reasons.

There would be much more value if people would just suggest one person and some information about that person. For example:

Follow @user1! Best pig farmer I’ve met on Twitter. Also loves jazz.#followfriday

Cool, now I know much more about the person and then I can make a much better decision to click through to their Twitter profile.

Get it? Now, go forth and add value.