The Sociable Scribe

The past couple of Follow Fridays I’ve noticed a trend: some Tweeters were getting more personal with their #FF shout outs.

I don’t mean “personal” as in they were getting mean and nasty or anything. Maybe “specialized” would be a better word choice. Instead of just lumping a bunch of names together, they had only a couple and said something specific about each.

I’m going to use my friends Nathan and Chad as examples.

@ASTATEOFMIND

Nathan maintains the blog A State of Mind and is a great Tweeter. He really gets how Twitter works.

He’s also been one of Haunt Jaunts biggest allies on Twitter pretty much from the day he first started following. (In fact, he was so good I bestowed an HJ Best of 2009 award on him.)

Here was the #FF shout out he sent last week.

AStateOfMind #ff @HauntJaunts for writing great paranormal & ghost tours blog @sethanikeem I have no idea why but she attract people

He’d done something similar the week before too. I thought it, “Wow. That was nice of him to specifically point me out like that two weeks in a row. Why am I so deserving?”

But he wasn’t the only one…

@CHATEAUGRRR

Chad, aka the Crypt Kicker, runs a website called Chateau Grrr. I met him after Nathan, but from the moment we met it was also a Twitter alliance at first site.

Chad also understands the power of Twitter and social networking. He definitely rivals, if not full on surpasses, Nathan for being my biggest RT proponent.

Here was the #FF shout out he bestowed on me last Friday:

chateaugrrr #FF love: @HauntJaunts for great supernatural get-aways! @MoonSpectre for a deeper blog; @WildClawTheatre for $5 Easter Legion tix!!

Again, I was totally flattered. He’d already clinched a spot on my Top Tweeters list. That only served to make it more solid.

THE TWITIP ARTICLE

I’m always behind on reading my RSS feeds. When I finally had a chance to catch up on my TwiTips feed this past weekend, this article jumped out at me: The #1 Secret to Follow Friday Success.

Guess what it suggested doing? Exactly what Nathan and Chad were.

“By taking an extra five minutes to break apart your #ff tweets and doing individual #ff tweets instead, you’re showing your followers that you value something specific about what they’re doing. It’s another level of respect you’re paying forward to the folks you value in your Twitter stream.” ~~ Dayne Shuda (@dayneshuda), “The #1 Secret to Follow Friday Success.”~~

Nathan and Chad have now raised the benchmark. I want to make sure they don’t get lost in my #FF shuffle anymore, and I want to do the same for a couple other Tweeters I prize.

YOU DON’T HAVE TO WAIT UNTIL FRIDAY

A new, but proving to be another powerful Twitter ally, is Mommy D. (Her real name is Dinell, but Mommy D’s how I’ve come to know and think of her.)

Her para-blog is the Weekly Spectre. @MommyDsKitchen did a “just because she felt like it” #follow shout out Saturday. Between her, Chad and Nathan, the seed was planted.

This morning on Twitter I noticed one of the Trending Topics was “It’s Followback Time.” I took advantage of it to give some personalized #follow mentions to those who had taken the time to do the same for me.

Because did it play to my ego when they did it to me? You bet.

Have those Tweeters made themselves stand out in my mind? You better believe it.

Do I have a special fondness for them and will I go out of my way to RT their Tweets and such? Without a doubt.

PUT IT IN PRACTICE

Start participating in Follow Friday if you’re not already.

Keep the “pack” #FFs but give them a little extra attention by grouping similar Tweeters into like categories. (For instance, list your Fave Foodie Tweeps. Create a “#FF luv to my fave foodie Tweeps” list that you can copy and paste each week.)

Take a few moments to create a list of Tweeters you like most and who help you out most. Bestow custom #follow or #FF mentions on those Tweeters who make your list.

(This week I’m taking my own “Put it in practice” advice and making lists galore. Next Follow Friday I’ll be posting grouped and specialized #FFs. And since I should only have to copy & paste, it might even make it all go quicker! Which is another bonus: helping to make #FFs more manageable when you have a lot of followers you want to give #FF luv to!)

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