Happysoul's Follow Friday

Introduction ~ Follow Friday

(Please feel free to post your COMMENTS below this blog. I welcome all comments)

➲➲➲ Click on the following links if you wish to read:

  1. Happysoul's Twitter Page for welcome and introduction to my Twitter Page
  2. <Happysoul's Twitter Lists for information to my Twitter Lists
  3. Happysoul's Follow Friday for details to my Follow Friday process and system
  4. Happysoul's Follow Friday Recommendations for the Table of Contents of all my Follow Friday Recommendations

 

BASICS OF FOLLOW FRIDAY

The concept of FollowFriday is that every Friday you recommend a few people to your Twitter followers. For at least 2 reasons:

  1. It is a way to acknowledge those particular people
  2. It is a very efficient way for your followers to find other interesting Twitter people"
    (excerpt from @laikas blog on How to Use FollowFriday Hashtags)

You list the users you recommend following and add “#followfriday” or "'#ff"  or "Follow Friday" anywhere in the Tweet so others outside your twitter stream can find it.

(taken partly from @mashable article on How Follow Friday Works. For more information about Hashtags, check Official Twitter Help Blog here)

 

HAPPYSOUL'S FOLLOW FRIDAY
Content
(1) Follow Friday Selection
(2) Follow Friday Process & System
(3) Follow Friday Mentions
(4) Follow Friday Thank You
(5) Follow Friday in 2010


1.    Follow Friday Selection

(a) Basis of Recommendations
I choose my Follow Friday recommendations based on the person's Twitter contribution to myself and/or Twitter community in one or few or all of these characteristics:

❶ Content and Value of tweets
❷ Genuineness
❸ Helpfulness
❹ Friendliness (Approachability)
❺ Fun and Creativeness
❻ All-Round Amazing Individual

(b) My AIM for Nominations
Promote and share these excellent people to Twitter public, not as a means for myself to be recommended in return. I do it willingly without absolutely no expectations from the ones recommended but a simple thank you

(c) My Expectations of Follow Friday Recommended Tweeps 
Indeed, it is a delight to be recommended by Tweeples which truly makes me feel so incredibly honoured. I just would prefer to be recommended spontaneously and voluntarily rather than the tweep feels a self-imposed pressure to recommend in return.

(d) Follow Friday Recommendations from Others
I follow the same guiding principle when I get recommended by others. I will only endorse you when I feel it is the right time for me, regardless of how many times I've been included in your Follow Friday recommendations. It would be insincere and hypocritical of me as well as an insult to you personally to repay your kindness only because I feel pressured to do so rather than willingly wanting to.

I hope you can understand and respect my views on my Follow Friday selection and process. Thank You! :)


2.    Follow Friday Process & System.

Although I have my Happysoul's FF Twitter List, I still support and participate in the existing Follow Friday tradition via my own personalised Happysoul's FF Recommendations system, assisted by two external Twitter apps system/ tools: TweepMl and MrTweet.
  • Process: As described above, after selecting tweeps to recommend for Follow Friday, I go through the FF process below with the goal to provide Tweeples enough information to base their decision whether to follow or not any of my recommended tweeps
    • Post individual recommendation for each tweep on MrTweet
    • Include each tweep in my lists on TweepMl and Happysoul's FF Twitter List
    • Pull in together all the info of each tweep into my Happysoul's FF Recommendations Blog
    • Linkup each tweep in my Happysoul's FF Recommendations Blog to their respective individual recommendation on MrTweetTweepMl
    • Announce in Mentions my list of Follow Friday tweeps for that week which includes each individual's recent tweets in order to demonstrate the style of each individual in how they tweet. See the Follow Friday Mentions section below.
  • System:
    For ease of follow of any of my recommended FF tweep, I have provided different systems/ ways to easily follow an individual tweep, or the full lists of FF recommendations, or the actual FF Twitter List itself.
    • Automatically follow the full FF recommended names via TweepMl
    • Manually follow one or a few selection of FF recommended tweeps via TweepMl
    • Individual selection through MrTweet whilst reading my personal recommendation on the tweep along with other Twitter users
    • Individual follow through my Happysoul's FF Twitter List
    • Follow the actual Happysoul's FF Recommendations where you can read all the tweets of my recommended Follow Friday friends
    • Use all the follow system above including read all the relevant and detailed info for each tweet from Happysoul's FF Recommendations Blog. The blog also allows you to follow individual tweets via direct links to their individual pages.
  • Each system tool is described in further detail below:
    • TweepMl
      An external site to Twitter where you can follow all my Follow Friday Tweeples automatically in one go or manually select a chosen few from the suggested list. 

      Although you can just follow my Happysoul's FF Twitter List, but you are only able to follow individually the Twitter Users within the List. TweepMl allows you to have another alternative way to follow the Follow Friday tweeps recommended. 

      For my personal comments on each tweep before following, you can go to MrTweet site below which provides individual recommendations by myself and other Twitter users. Or you can go directly to my Happysoul's FF Recommendations Blog which includes all the info and individual comments and ability to link directly to both TweepMl and MrTweet.

    • MrTweet
      This site allows Twitter users to post Individual comments for each user on their Follow Friday list which then serves as statistics in a Twitter Ranking within MrTwitter app. You can find each user by searching their Twitter user handle. Consequently, the personal recommendations for a Twitter user adds value in identifying users to follow rather than solely based on a list full of names. 

      You may also find these MrTweet comments and additional info of each tweep recommended in my Happysoul's FF Recommendations Blog.

    • Happysoul's FF Twitter List
      Each recommended tweep in my Follow Friday list will be found in this Twitter List. You may follow each one individually by going to the Happysoul's FF Twitter List or follow the Twitter List itself. 

      Or you can go directly to my Happysoul's FF Recommendations Blog which includes all the info and individual comments and ability to link directly to both TweepMl and .

  • Happysoul's FF Recommendations Blog 
    My blog describes and provides all the information you may need in order to decide if you wish to follow any or all of my recommended tweeps. You will find individual info and comments of each FF name as well as the ability to directly follow them.

    Here are the information and features you will find in my blog: 
    (1) each tweep's bio and info
    (2) my individual comments on each recommended tweep and ability to link directly to their individual page on MrTweet site
    (3) ability to follow ALL of my FF recommended tweeps or manually select individual tweeps with a link to my FF listing on TweepMl site
    (4) access directly from blog to my Happysoul's FF Twitter List to review all FF names' tweets and follow actual FF list or the individual
    (5) access directly to each individual's Twitter page to read their profile and tweets.


3.     Follow Friday Mentions

Once I have completed all the above Follow Friday preparations, I will then Mention all the recommended names in Twitter to promote to my followers and Twitter public at large. The Mentions will include the traditional "#FF" or "#FollowFriday" or "Follow Friday" wordings to indicate that the names in the Mention are my recommended Follow Friday list.

There are frequent times I will also use "#FollowFriend" as alternative which I apply beyond the Follow Friday tradition to signify my Follow Friday recommendations are for everyday and anyday, not just Friday (courtesy of @RayBeckerman and @Shoq on their refreshing tips for Follow Friday).

I attempt to space out my Mentions from Friday to the weekend. If I have more than 5 names in the list, I will divide my Follow Friday Mentions into a few Mention tweets staggered at 15 to 30 minutes interval at a time throughout the Friday or over the weekend to avoid spamming readers and followers. As good practice to minimise spamming, suggest you do the same for your Follow Friday mentions.

As from 2 October 2009, all the names on my Follow Friday will automatically be included in every subsequent Follow Friday recommendations. Although I will sometime mention all the names in past Follow Friday lists, you can find all the Follow Friday names (past and present) with their detailed info on my Happysoul's FF Recommendations Blog and/or in my Happysoul's FF Twitter List. All my Follow Friday Mentions will include an url link to my Happysoul's FF Recommendations Blog.

Furthermore, my Mentions will be sent in 2 separate fashion because I aim to add value to the Follow Friday announcements and tweeps I recommend rather than solely nominating in blocks.

Hopefully this will help you see why I've endorsed this particular tweep through my individual recommendation on my Happysoul's FF Recommendations Blog and most importantly, through examples of their own tweets.

➀ Block recommendations of all Twitter Friends listed below inclusive of all past Follow Fridays
"#FollowFriday ❶ @nicholaspatten @bradgal @eamatol @redhairedclaire @loopdiloop Groupfollw & comments ➲ #FF list http://ow.ly/uNmd"

➁ Individual mentions of recommendations for each tweeple itemised in Twitter Friends list below will be preceeded and/or followed by a Tweet recently posted by this individual

Individual Recommendation:
"Follow @milagro88 ❤ Lovely delightful positive lady w/ tasteful talents. Warm & kind, she is very approachable & genuinely down to earth #FF"
"☼♥Awesome2Follow♥☼► @milagro88 ~ For groupfollow & additional comments ➲ Check #FF list http://ow.ly/uNmd"

Individual Tweet:
My song for tonite-"leaving on a jetplane"...catch u on the other side @edo_au @celsbels @juanxi @chiniehdiaz @... ♫http://blip.fm/~f7xo0"


4.    Follow Friday Thank You

Similar to good RT ethics and practice Happysoul's Twitter Page within point (4) of the RT Section, I would suggest to use the same guiding principle for Follow Friday, by sending genuine thanks for being included in the person's Follow Friday list. Not only that you might be mentioned in their Follow Friday Mentions and Twitter List but also provided a personal recommendation from MrTweet as well as nominated to be on a tweeple's TweepMl.

In any case, please try not to send your thanks in one bulk if there is quite a number of Follow Friday inclusions to be thanked. Stagger and spread out the thanks at every 15 to 30 minutes to minimise spam and irritating your readers and followers.

Alternatively create a @namereply account solely dedicated to thanking RTs, Mentions and Follow Friday lists. Mine is @HSReply solely created to thank RTs, Follow Fridays and Lists and avoid spamming followers in my @Happysoul account. However, the @HSReply account is set to private. Please do NOT send any communications to @HSReply. Only send replies or communications to my @Happysoul account.

Sincere apologies to all my followers for my behaviour in December 2009 where I've hardly thanked anyone for their Mentions, RTs, Follow Fridays, and inclusion in their Twitter Lists. My RL has been quite busy and have had not much time to be online other than scheduling tweets and responding to emails. When I do have time, I've been lax at replying as I just want to tweet and interact with tweeps available in the short time I am able to be. From 2010 onwards, I'll probably not have much time to continue thanking individual tweeps. In exchange, I'll send indirectly my thanks through Retweeting in return for every Mention, RT, Follow Friday, and inclusion in Twitter Lists that my friends have kindly bestowed upon me. For more info, please click on my recent personal Thank You Blog.


5.    Follow Friday in 2010

Unfortunately throughout end November and December 2009, I've had to put on hold my Follow Friday recommendations due to my Real Life busy schedule whilst trying to find another easier solution for my Follow Friday process as it has become quite burdensome.

Consequently, from January 2010, after the 3rd & 4th Friday on 22nd & 29th January 2010, I will only participate the Follow Friday tradition every 2nd and 4th Friday of each month. I have now +100 tweeps in my Follow Friday list which becomes time consuming for me to prepare Follow Fridays recommendations due to my personal Follow Friday process. By only participating bi-weekly, it gives me enough time to complete my Follow Friday process whilst not imposing too much on my Real Life schedule. Thank you for your understanding on this.

So please do watch out for my Follow Friday announcement/ tweet every other week.

 

(Please feel free to post your COMMENTS below this blog. I welcome all comments)

➲➲➲ Click on the following links if you wish to read:

  1. Happysoul's Twitter Page for welcome and introduction to my Twitter Page
  2. <Happysoul's Twitter Lists for information to my Twitter Lists
  3. Happysoul's Follow Friday Recommendations for the Table of Contents of all my Follow Friday Recommendations