Posts tagged ‘hashtag’
Twitter Tip: Create Your Follow Friday During the Week
Follow Friday is one of the best ways to engage people on Twitter. Simply tweet a list of Twitter users that you recommend others follow on Fridays with the hashtag #FollowFriday or #FF.
Lately, I have been neglecting to do so because I have been spending less time on Twitter. So I wanted to find a simple way to get back into the practice. My solution was to create a draft on Monday, schedule it for Friday delivery, and then add users during the week who shared valuable links. (I use HootSuite, but many other tools, such as TweetDeck, allow you to schedule your tweets)
It was quick to edit the tweet during the week, and then I didn’t have any additional work on Friday. In fact, my Friday ended up busy and I would have missed the opportunity entirely.
Another time saver is forgetting about creating a new, unique list every week. Too much cranium time for what should be a time-effective task, and no one’s keeping track. If I end up repeating users often, it’s because I like their feeds that much.
Do you have any tips that help you stay engaged?
Why Twitter Should Re-Name the Re-Tweet
Why would Twitter tinker with arguably its most powerful feature?
Let’s face it, the name “re-tweet” is an idiosyncrasy – one of many on Twitter (ex: “hashtag”). Idiosyncrasies are hurdles to new users. And Twitter has an issue engaging new users. It needs to overcome these issues to ensure it remains as powerful a conversational medium as it is a broadcast medium.
So re-name “re-tweet” what it really is: “like”. The reason we re-tweet is because we read 
something we like. Instead of working hard to educate new users on a unique convention, let’s teach them to hit the “like” button. Easy.
There’s no harm following a popular convention, as YouTube recently demonstrated. And there’s no bigger rival to Facebook than Google, so if they can swallow their pride to adopt a convention that Facebook popularized, Twitter can as well. The change would initially create hassles for the Twitter community, but we’ve survived changes before. And it will be easier to manage sooner, rather than later.
This seems to be a relatively simple way to make Twitter easier to use and maintain the power of the re-tweet. And that will lead to an increase in engagement that will serve all of us better. “Re-tweet” needs to go.
My name is Adam Gross. 
