Costa DeVault’s #followfriday Experiment
May 7, 2009 by Heather
I love #followfriday for many reasons — but mainly because I discover so many thoughtful, smart people to add to my network. (For those of you who don’t tweet, #followfriday is a Twitter trend where users recommend other people worth following.) The blessing and curse of Twitter — the 140 character limitation — makes it hard to explain the logic behind each suggestion. So, some people, including my new friend and super smart PR pro Lauren Fernandez, have turned to their blogs to offer more in-depth explanations. Last week, I had the privilege of being included among Lauren’s #followfriday picks. Lauren and I don’t know each other in real life, but thanks to Twitter, we’ve discovered that we share a lot of the same interests (e.g., sports, music, even dental hygiene!!) — and I know that I can trust her picks. But, there are lots of people I don’t know as well who offer #followfriday suggestions, but I’m left wondering why they chose these people. Sometimes I follow, sometimes I don’t. If I had a compelling reason to add them to my network, I probably would.
So, inspired by Lauren, Costa DeVault is going take a different approach to #followfriday — at least for a little while. We’re going to ask a question at the beginning of each week — and the people who offer the best answer will be included in our #followfriday. We’ll post the best answers on our blog Friday and explain why we suggest you follow them. The idea is that we can learn something from each other and find some new people to connect with.
This week’s question: What surprises you most about social media? Tune in tomorrow for the answers.
Photo Credit: Banalities
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May 7th, 2009 at 12:45 pm
Heather,
I’d like to ad my 2 cents to your question. I wouldn’t say I’m surprised with social media as much as I am amazed at how many brilliant people there are on the internet.
At the risk of dating myself, when I was a retirement planner constantly trying to get in the head of influential people, social networking meant a game of golf, fund raising events or comping box seats for the next Charger game.
Getting to that person could take months or even years.
Now within a couple minutes of following a tweet, or subscribing to an RSS feed we are just seconds away from accessing the minds of some of the smartest people on earth who have so much information to share.
And for those of us that work hard enough and are creative enough, were just a few seconds away from being found ourselves.
The net is an interesting place – a little scary but interesting.
May 8th, 2009 at 9:37 am
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