Luckily, Twitter did not kill #followfriday with their @ reply adjustment. (Not sure what I’m referring to? Check out this post.) And, that means we can continue the Costa DeVault #followfriday experiment. (Last week, we started asking a question of the week and highlighting the best answers on our blog.)

This week’s question: If you could change one thing about social media, what would it be? We got lots of feedback throughout the week. Here are the best answers — and our #followfriday recommendations:

• Chuck Hemann (@chuckhemann): to me, it’s the total lack of original thought sometimes. So much good thinking we often become reliant and don’t challenge
• Josh Sternberg (@josh_sternberg): we need stronger filters. too much crap out there to sift through. it will happen, but needs to be sooner.
• JC Maldonado (@Jmal18): socmedia would b 4 ppl who want 2 share ideas, participate in conv n exp. interests n not celebs sellin KFC,or want 1 mil followers
• Matt Batt (@storyassistant): The one thing I’d change about SM would be to have EVERYONE complete a Social Media Boot Camp or 101 course before participating:) (From Heather: Matt sent a second tweet that I thought was also worth including.) If people realized some of the basic strategies around “participation”, “conversations” & “helping” the whole SM world would benefit

What do you think? What would you change about social media? And, what do you think we should ask next week? We want to ask questions that spark your interest.

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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