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The #FF Hashtag and the Anytime #FF tag

By Shoq, on December 5, 2009, at 1:09 am

What is the #FF Hashtag?

It's just a much shorter version of the familiar #followFriday hashtag seen far too often on Twitter (and now other social networks, as well).  And as I will explain below, it's also a tag that denotes a ritual behavior that has serious issues and could really benefit from a major rethink.

It's not news to my followers that the concept of #Followfriday is a ritual that I've been openly contemptuous of, but like many trends, such a genie is hard to stuff back in its bottle. But if people are going to use a bad idea, I reasoned, at least they should do it efficiently. Why use 12 precious characters when just 2 would do the same work.

So a few weeks after the ritual was clearly entrenched, I urged my friends and followers to just use both tags for a while, until the #ff caught on with the Twitterverse. After 11 months it seems that's finally happening, and it's now familiar enough that many people are finally dropping the longer original. Good riddance.

But there is much more wrong with this practice than some wasted character space, and I'd like to examine it and propose a retrofit for something popular, but not very useful…yet.

What's Wrong With The #FollowFriday Ritual?

It's just a bad idea, in my opinion. It's noisy, inefficient, quasi-elitist, impractical, disruptive, and just encourages a kind of cliquish behavior that social media has been wonderful at avoiding on many levels.  It can also just make people feel bad.  I have nearly 6000 followers. I follow about 2500.  What does it say to thousands of people that I really like when I single out only a handful of them each Friday? 

Of course they know that I can't possibly recommend everyone, but they STILL feel I did not recommend THEM. Even if they are not consciously acknowledging it, it's there as a resident feeling in most of us.  And that creates a social peer tension that is simply unnecessary, in my view.

The efficacy of the ritual is small anyway. People feel obligated to engage in it, and  wind up just blasting out enough friends so their closer  friends won't feel left out. People receiving these "lists" almost never follow everyone–or even more than a handful of them. Many follow none of them at all. 

While I certainly can't claim formal research, my own experience, and asking amongst friends, is that typically, we might recognize a name we've already seen and think "ok, well there's that @name again, recommended by someone I already follow, so I'll follow them." But that's about the extent of how much we use these "recommendations."

And such a modest value-added to a user's social graph hardly justifies list after list after list of #FF posts  flooding out of the Twitter firehose from millions of users each and every Friday. It's nearly zero signal, and almost all noise. My followers know that I often joke about evacuating or taking shelter when these Friday "Tweet bombs" start to fall.

Is it Wrong To Recommend People?

Nope. And I do that often (but not just on Fridays). But making one or two recommendations, and being specific about why, is a very different message from blasting out some random collection of names that comes off more as "people I like," rather than people who bring value for others to follow. And it's very hard to read news or other important tweets when 150 "name lists" are flooding into my stream.  It's intrusive, disruptive, and often just damned annoying.

Why Do I Even Explain All This?

Because people often include me in their #FF lists, and I do not mean to seem ungracious or ungrateful for the kindness and consideration when they do.  I am pleased they think well enough of me to do this.  But I would not fault them if they didn't, and actually wish they didn't do #FF at all (at least in its present form).

But as critical as I am of the practice, I am also fully aware that #FollowFriday is a fun social activity, and can be a useful way to pass along interesting or important people. I would like to see some new method of recommending people emerge that is less formal, and far more effective.  I just happen to have such an idea lying around here somewhere :)

How Would a New #FF Method Work?

I would like to see the entire meme refashioned from a day-specific "#followFriday," to a far more general, "Friend Follow" (#FF) recommendation which can be used any day of the week, at any hour, rain or shine.

Note: the actual designation is just a working name. It really doesn't matter what we call it, and at some point, some name will just stick. I also heard and liked "Followable Folks."  So long as the letters stay the same, use what works.

With these "Anytime #FFs,"  Fridays won't come to a standstill as millions of random messages get blasted into the stream, trashing everyone's timeline. If you know a friend who knows a lot about something, and feel they would be valuable to your followers, just go ahead and say so.  For example:

#FF my friend @tesibria. A brilliant lawyer who tracks the Birthers.

#FF @LizzWinstead, co-creator of the daily show. You can think AND laugh (and even chew gum) at same time.

And that's all there is to the idea. Simple, flexible, and far more interesting and informative, in my opinion. And since they can be sent out at any time, there's no need to wait for some ritualistic special day, and no good friend or associate needs to feel "left out," until such time when they've NEVER seen one from you. (But that's their drama–and yours.:)

An important additional benefit is that 3rd party application developers can easily slurp this new meta data from the twitter stream, and feed it into lists, databases, groups, analytic metrics… and whatever. Best of all, now you can do a search for "@someone and #FF" and harvest all the recs they've made in past days or weeks.

But Can't Twitter Lists Be Used To Recommend

Sure, but you run into the same problem–and some new ones. And lots of decisions.  Do you put ALL your friends in such a list, or just the ones you like? How big is the list? Does it just become another variation on your entire follow list? Do you have many lists by topic? What makes these lists different from any topical group you chose to follow?  Why are you recommending them? How much work do you want to do to maintain it?  Lists are a tool.  They can be a very good "recommending tool," but a fairly formal one. They not too useful as informal tool that can be used on a flexible, minute-to-minute, completely spontaneous basis.

Can This Idea Fly?

Sure, why not?  #FF and MT are already catching on.  What else did we have to do this year?  This post is all that's needed to explain it. I plan to just start using Anytime #FFs immediately.

As with any idea I've come up with since I was old enough to say, "this really sucks," you and everyone you've ever known are free to completely ignore it : )

.

#FF Hashtag
December 5th, 2009 | Category: Support, Twitter Tips
  • Sorry my friend, I got way too carried away with my comments here only to realize that I was writing many times what you had just to end up making many of the same points. The sheer volume of my words proved to embarrassing and even rude. So I celebrated the edit button and utilized it to delete paragraph after paragraph until what was left was not the kinda stand alone stuff that made much sense. So I deleted it all and replaced it with this lame explanation. I got carried away because it was a timely subject based upon my own evolution in thinking on the matter. But your post here Shoq along with all the other comments have helped clarify some of my own thinking. Oh, and before I deleted my diatribe I copied it al and pasted in a new blog I started recently just for 'The Tweet Stuff on #p2' (the name of the blog). If anyone's life is that boring, and I pray for you its not, than the entire original post can be found there.
    Peace Y'all
  • judygreenough
    Two great examples you gave Shoq of powerful "anytime#ffs". You give a reason why you recommend someone to help the reader decide whether to check them out or not, and you also give a hint of your personality, both of which make for good reading versus lists of @names with no comments.

    Have been using Twitter for 3 months now - I look at someone's page first rather than blindly follow. If all that's there are lists of FFnames, thank you lists, private chats, etc, I may never get down to the "more" tab to keep looking for a reason to follow. I count you as one of my Twitter educators, as well as a favorite political commentator. As you wrote about Lizz, you make me think and laugh. So thank you for that.
  • Thank you, Shoq, so much, for giving me permission to admit that I, too, am REALLY not a fan of #FF! I am often beleaguered by having to THANK people who RT'd or FF'd me...is that really necessary? Will people be HURT if I DON'T thank them, or MENTION them for mentioning ME? Where does it stop? What is the etiquette here, and do I HAVE to follow it?

    Yesterday, I was busy, and not on Twitter much, and realized late in the day that I hadn't done my obligatory #FFs yet...that's how I feel about it - obligatory, but not exciting, or something I truly want to do. I think I might have put out 2 half-hearted lists, but I just couldn't get into it - didn't even do my obligatory Politics #FF list, with you, Karoli, TeresaKopec, etc on it.

    But, I must say, on the other hand, I will go weeks without anyone RTing any post I make, or recommending me for a #FF, and on those occasions, all I have to do is put out a few Tweets with #FFs, and invariably, some Tweeps will recommend me back, so at least the same damn message at the top of my AT REPLY column in Tweet Deck, that's been there for weeks, changes.

    Also, #FFs DO go on ALL WEEK LONG already. I have a #FF column that I keep up in my Tweet Deck, and it is well used, every day of the week, so people are already branching out of the only-doing-it-on-Friday mindset.

    #FFs can be important to people who have very few followers, I think. It can be very, very hard to get in the game. You can have over 500 followers, and still feel ignored. #FFs can make a lonely Tweeter feel a bit noticed, recognized or appreciated, and in that sense, I see it's worth...but I agree, putting fewer people or only one in each of your FF recommends, and perhaps a reason why they should be followed would probably be more useful than these endless lists that clutter up the Twitter stream.

    Too bad Tweet Deck doesn't offer an option to filter OUT a tag, like #FFs, huh?
  • ncite45
    I agree with Shoq to some extent but from a twitter peasant to the elites temperament out there...the majority of us are only here to converse so leave all the politwicts out of it, humble yourselves, and promote 'tweets' that you think will incite emotion or dialog...let the people decide if the 'person' is worth a follow...
  • capecodgurl
    I agree w/you on many points. Certainly on the RT of #FF being a heinous practice.
    Gotta add this though-> and I say this with respect: many of the ppl that are conversing w/you re #FF are likely your hardcore followers, friends, and more than a few Shoq Sycophants. Those benefiting the most from #FF are the rest of us..when I got started #FF was invaluable..particularly when popular P2s began 2 #FF me. I'm not sure I would have stuck w/Twitter w/out it. I make a pt every Friday to #FF some new ppl to let my follows know.
    I have #FF Lists..but following from a list is tedious. I would totally adapt to #FFL IF you could follow whole list en mass or check off follows and click. Sure I would miss personalizing but Lists themselves could be kept smaller.
    I suggest a point of view from newbies and up and coming should be part of the conversation.
    No need to post this or even comment..just know there are plenty others like me.
  • Toka248
    I have friends that do the FF in categories, such as "Here are some great theatre people I know for FF" and stuff. This eliminates a good portion of hard feelings cuz not everyone fits into every category.

    I think you read too much into the sore feelings though. Considering most people that you know online are "disposable people" it really shouldn't get yer panties in a bunch if you aren't recommended to be followed. If it were THAT big of an issue for a person, a nice email/DM would probably remedy the situation.

    With regard to screwing timelines on friday, admittedly I'm a new follower of yours, and you tweet incessantly. Like, all my friends and others I follow have been drowned out by your 40-50+ tweets/day. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but have you addressed an issue of possibly "overtweeting" in the twitterverse? I've dropped people before because when I go to twitter I see nothing but their messages and have likely missed others that I find important. Perhaps I'm missing something..
  • capecodgurl
    Good point. I often follow ppl and never see their tweets. It's hard out there in Twitterworld.:)That said..I'm a blabbertwitterer too..I would like to see you be able to tweet to all stream OR tweet to specific groups. When I'm live tweeting some event, part of my followers are totally engaged and the rest have their heads exploding. There are technical solutions out there but Twitter needs to listen more...or tweet more themselves.
  • capecodgurl
    The only way I can see a total shift from traditional #FF is to combine an anytime #FF with the ability to follow everyone on a given list..I would expand to #FFL but ONLY if you could follow all on list in one fell swoop.

    Otherwise, I differ with your view on #FF somewhat. As you mentioned it is a social event AND a formal "holiday" of sorts where it is the practice of many to recommend & acknowledge. My strategy is to recommend most ppl who have Rted or conversed w/me in the past week. While it is true enough some ppl just list same old and others go wild, but it's easy enough to sort out. Let's not throw the baby out witth the bathwater. I often follow new names based on someone I respect& their recos. It is simply the easiest way to add quality follows.

    Shoq, you should not assume because you and a handful of friends do not use #FF as a means to add followers that others don't, they do. From my perspective most do.

    from my perspective..Twitter has unintentionally dissolved into a sort of caste system: Professionals (not expected to follow back or other courtesies), Elites (regular folks who think they are above ALL that since follows simply come to them), and the rest of us who generally follow these little courtesies and do stuff like take the time to welcome newbies onboard w/a #FF or a response to a RT. It is these social niceties that drive twitter..the "rest of us" are the folks in steerage rowing away like mad with thank yous and #ffs.
    I'd like to think of twitter as the great equalizer. That's why I rarely recommend professionals twice if they fail to engage and I never #FF elites who have no excuse why they cant be bothered to play outside their clique and take a pull on the oar for the greater good.
  • murphy162
    I so agree with the #FF. I haven't done any yet and I'm starting to feel guilty as people have been identifying me on their #FF lists.
    Want to reciprocate but don't know where to start. Too many people and it's also very time consuming. Seeing I would rather read and interact w/ people than formulate these #FF lists, I've resisted it so far.

    That's not the end of it either. Then you have to keep up w/ who you've hit and who you need to hit so noone feels left out. I just think it defeats the purpose and takes some of the enjoyment out of Twitter.

    I am still a newbie and haven't put enough time into getting w/ and understanding the rules, regs and what's considered bad taste, etc Those Hashtags kind of annoying. I like to comment and retreat at the same time so there is a reference when others read a tweet but the Hashtags take up all the room. There are people who use 6-7+/- tags. Crazy.

    Anyway, it's nice to know there are others out there that feel the same way about the #FF. And yes, nothing wrong w. signaling someone out and commenting that they'd be a good follow. That is spontaneous and doesn't seem contrived and yes, any day of the week should be encouraged.

    Thanks.
  • I have probably had discussions with 500 people about FF over the past 8 months. I think that's a pretty good sample. I have also read countless essays and postings about it. I rarely see your point of view expressed, so I think you're the exception, more than I am.

    Any technology that creates such an intrusion into people's data streams is a fundamentally bad idea. Very few people fine tune their lists, as you say you do. And those that do, usually have some career or commercial reason for doing so. And that's fine. But if your recs are so valuable to your stream, why not simply put them in a list, and tweet a link to that? Or just put your recs on a Posterous page, Twitlonger record, or some other "paste bin?" There's nothing wrong with recommending people. But there is something wrong with doing it in such a way that it trashes up everyone's stream with marginally useful messages. And I didn't even cover the copycatting that is now going on, where every special interest is creating their own special day (#progressTuesdays,etc).

    It's just out of control, and it will only get worse. But all many online behavior fads can die off as more people learn to despise them. In the mid 90s, in chat rooms, "ASL" was so popular, even Steve Case would use it. Today, it's guaranteed to get you banned from the room.

    I predict that in a year, FF (as presently conceived) will be considered bad form to do regularly on a particular day, whether my compromise catches or not. Until then, of course, you should do whatever works for you :)
  • Thanks so much Shoq for this. Aspen7698: Ditto! I stopped doing #ff months ago, never thank anyone for RTing or #ff for the reason you gave but sometimes feel guilty for not thanking so I send DM not wanting to clutter up friend's timeline. I so dislike people tweeting "Thanks for your #ff or RT love". Oh god, it sounds so phony and why would others care about your RT love. Anyone who has more than 1 tweet in a row of #ff I unfollow.
  • danny6114
    It's funny, I've been using #FF for quite some time,and following you for a longer period of time, and had no idea you'd been advocating for #FF! I had seen it used and thought it made a hell of a lot more sense in the space-saving. I also hate having my stream infested with these constant deluges of people #FFing masses of folks. I normally ignore the mass #FFs though a single #FF might catch my eye and if the rec is from someone I respect I MIGHT take their rec. Anyway, well reasoned, well written and keep up the good work!
  • avery128-
    Funny how you think #FF was your idea. Get over yourself shockypoo. You have 5,000 followers. A trend-setter you are not, although you sure get off pretending to be one.
  • Reading is fundamental. I never claimed "followFriday" was my idea (which I take was the intent of your little mini-rant). That was Micah's bad idea in January, 2009. Mine, a few weeks later, in February, was to take his bad idea and use a shorter signal to denote it. That's it. I don't claim it was inventing the Internet. It was simply a rational notion appended to a bad idea.

    Anyone in my stream last winter will tell you that I prosed it and started using it exclusively, and urged others to do so openly. We also poked into search often to be sure "#FF" was not in use, and it wasn't (except by some odd little society in NYC that posted with it twice). I stopped using it only because I stopped making #followfriday recs altogether. I hope that clears things up... Averypoo :)
  • Okay, but isn't there a valid argument that there OUGHT to be a day these messages all get dumped into the system? #MM is another tradition associated with a particular weekday. It seems like the human factor would militate for some kind of rhythm. After all, no official agency started these things -- they're as organic as, say, RT @Shoq.
  • Yep,and #progressiveTuesday, and all sorts of wannabe pretenders. But #ff is still the alpha dog of recommender tags. Kill its current form, and the copycats should die with it.
  • RWR
    You're dead on, as usual.
  • I agree, and hope people don't get offended when I don't put them on some long list that only serves to exclude so many people. I have already implemented a practice that uses a style relevant #FF that you have been a victim of, just lately. But yes, to high light a special contributer with a note is, in my opinion, better than the proverbial avalanche of #FollowFridays. Thanks
  • mimbrava
    But if #FF has caught on for Follow Friday, how will #FF for Follow Friends be differentiated?
  • There is no difference in the point of the tag. Only the density and time of usage. If people get used to making casual recommendations on any day, it decouples the concept from list pimping that happens only on Fridays. It will take time, but if enough people just stop the Friday listings, eventually, netiquette takes over and people just look out of touch and a bit tacky if they keep doing things the old way. Not unlike how "A/S/L" became gauche in chat rooms, after a few years :)
    All change is incremental. Social networks are herds. Where leaders go, the rest follow, eventually.
  • Good idea. Now if you can only get a couple of million other people on board with it, we'll be in business.
  • Nah.. merely a few thousand. The rest follow the herd.
  • Hi Shoq,
    Your advice on how to get out of a name search blockade helped me once, but it ain't working anymore. I still can't figure out how I'm breaking TOS laws, but I keep trying.
    I'm not sure how to respond to your critique of the #ff phenomenon because I'm one of those that keep wanting to send those #ff lists every Friday...I am following about 2500 and I'm still inclined to recommend each one because I'm following each one for some specific reason. I block or remove those whom I don't wan't to follow for specific reasons or those who somehow get on my list for marketing purposes...
    I've created up the the limit of lists and each person I'm following fits into at least on of those lists. I've found that the #ff approach has increase the sizes of my lists at a pretty good clip, but the volumen has gotten me in trouble in two ways: 1) those like you who are on my list and then have to see all the other posts with the long lists; and 2) twitter poobahs eventually accuse me of spamming or inappropriate use of the system.
    I have no plans, am not interested in nor does it seem worth it to me to 'monetize' my online activity. I especially hate that word and the whole network of tweets and other online marketers that want to keep expand lists hoping to make money from the extensive lists compiled.

    I do see great value in keeping increasing the length of the lists for several areas of interest:
    1) progressive politics of different brands and types
    2) Education advocates
    3) Online poets and writers
    4) samesexmarriage and related political and policy issues.

    For each of these I would like to keep expanding networks and contacts.

    Other than the #ff mechanism, I don't know how to keep weekly contacts, minimal as they may be.

    I carry on a rich RTweeting habit, and also keep writing new poems and posting them.

    So, all that being said, since I'm relatively new to social media and come late to it (I'm a 67 year old fart) what do you recommend?

    Take care
  • With all respect, I really don't follow your post or point. It sounds like you're gaming FollowFriday in some way for your purposes, and that's another reason I really cant' stand it. It was designed as a simple way of recommending friends to friends. It's grown into this gigantic marketing and name harvesting tool for business or personal use and it's completely destroyed both its original purpose, and Fridays. I don't even like to use Twitter anymore on that day, and that's just absurd. I wouldn't dream of telling anyone what to do with their hash tags. I just hope we can migrate to a more rational use of #ff over time. Merely moving to #ff proves change can happen.
  • Dave von Ebers
    And to think I #ff'd you today. You'll pardon the expression.
  • And I appreciate it (as explained). There's nothing wrong with recommending people we get value from. I want to do it too. I just want to do it with a more rational system that didn't originate with a one paragraph blog post from a well known developer who didn't really think it through. He just did it, and a really poor idea took flight in less than a day. It's now more annoying than spam for a LOT of people. But what is done, can sometimes be undone, but only if we try.
  • Jill Harper
    any kind of listing or mentioning people will alienate some of your followers. My thought is just to say that you don't do FF and appreciate all your followers. Mention that if you follow my stream you can identify the ones which are most interactive which could give a person an indication if they share same interests.
  • Followfriday was invented in January. I don't accept any 11 month old tradition as sacrosanct behavior merely because people do it for a few months. They do it until others show them they can do something else. Again, there's not pressure to do anything differently, nor is any possible. I just think if heavy users adopt a new strategy, it will gain currency.
  • aspen7698
    Personally, I think the #FF idea AND the thanking ppl for retweets is silly. If there are people I don't think are worth following, I just don't follow them - seems like a no brainer. And the constant thanking ppl for retweeting gets to be a bit much as well. If I like something you had to say, I'll either dm you or RT, no need to thank me.
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