Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Blogs rule!

Readers and followers of my blog (there are at least 5 of you!) will have noticed the lack of activity over the winter/holiday period.

The world continued to turn and big stories included Quora and a gluttony of “Top X of Y in 2010” and “Top predictions in 2011”. I had a few blog ideas around those subjects but they didn’t REALLY inspire me (Quora a little maybe, but it was being overdone). I didn’t see any value.

And that’s what this post is all about. Value. Specifically adding value.

For those who blog or who appreciate a good blog post, it’s almost universally understood to be one of the most valuable and important aspects of any social/online strategy. Unfortunately there’s not a lot of mutual recommendation of good quality blogs. What there is a lot of is mutual recommendation of people. Particularly on twitter. On Friday. I’m talking about #followfriday - #ff.

Every Friday the twitter community, in a pique of what is increasingly becoming sycophantic backslapping, recommend their followers to follow other people. Initially a great idea for people to meet and speak to new people it’s now becoming a way for people to recommend their friends to their followers. Many of whom follow the same people anyway. Others still include a long list of follower names with no explanation of why they should be followed. It adds no value.









I had a thought that I wanted to put out there that addresses this. A new Friday recommendation hashtag.

#BlogFriday

I want people to recommend great blogs. Blogs that they have really enjoyed reading, blogs that have added to their knowledge, made them think and have provided a great insight or comment on a particular subject. It’s simple, but it would add so much to everyone’s online experience. It will ensure that great blogs are given the platform they deserve. And from those blogs, you’ll naturally follow the authors. It’s just another layer on top of #ff that serves a great purpose.

I’m not sure if it will catch on or not. But I think it should. After all, other Friday tags such as #HireFriday (linking jobs and jobseekers) have caught on, and @MackCollier’s weekly #blogchat must be one of the most active twitter chats online, so it’d be interesting to see if people see value in #BlogFriday and adopt it.

I’ve had positive feedback so far from a number of people who like the idea and starting this Friday I’ll be recommending some of my favourite blogs to my followers and hope to get some back.

#BlogFriday. Let’s share some great content.

6 comments:

  1. Anonymous12/1/11 12:42

    How about a daily post, and just one per person? close of the day post the BEST post you read that day. Quality over quantity!
    I think I will add this to my daily blog. Just one post a day.
    Bill

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  2. Good idea Bill, recommend that one BEST post you've read during the day.

    Looking forward to expanding my reading list through #blogfriday if I can.

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  3. Anonymous14/1/11 11:44

    I totally agree with you on the follow Friday Twitter thing - most of your followers know each other and you may not be reaching a new audience. And yes it's the same old. I sometimes put a little line about why you should follow, but then got bored of doing it. I sometimes feel I have to as everyone else is!!

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  4. Thanks for the comment - glad you like the idea! Hopefully we'll all benefit by finding some quality content.

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  5. This is a great idea. #ff may have seen it's day. This expands content and is a practical innovation on content curation – a term that is need of a steroid itself.

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  6. Thanks for the positive feedback Gary. I hope more people feel the same and help spread the #BlogFriday message!

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