Words from ‘guest’ blogger Caroline aka Bo-Peep

There’s a lovely behaviour on Twitter known as ‘follow Friday’ or #ff to use tweet-speak. The idea is that you can directly promote another business, person or event to all your followers by providing their Twitter name.  As the name suggests this practice can only take place on a Friday.

Many Twitter users ‘get it’ and give a valid reason for following such as: “#ff @papadeli for the best chocolate brownies inBristol”.

Others however just list a whole range of Twitter names with no reason given.  Like sheep perhaps they feel that we will simply follow without knowing the reason why. Allegedly it has been known for some sheep to fall to their death by following one another over the edge of a cliff.

I guess there are some people who like our ovine friends will simply follow with no inkling as to why they’re doing so. In fact there’s been an experiment whereby a person stands on a street and is looking up. After a short while, someone else also joins in and looks up.  And sooner or later there’s quite a crowd all looking up. Yet there is no real reason for doing so!

Having said that, the reason why sheep flock together is because they are social animals and in fact one sheep will get quite agitated if separated from its flock.  We see this often in our teambuilding events when the team may have managed to herd all but one sheep into the pen. If it’s been a long time coming, the team cheer and sometimes say “well, 9/10 isn’t bad is it?” to which we reply “so you feel you’ve achieved the goal set do you?” In the business world this could mean the difference between getting that new contract or not, or being paid a bonus or not. Some teams will give up, yet it’s easier than they think to get that last sheep in the pen, as it wants to be with its mates.

So yes, Twitter is after all a social media network through which we are invited to follow and attract followers. If someone we follow suggests we might like something, we trust their judgement and take a look for ourselves.  However isn’t it better to be supplied with a reason for doing so?

Why not be the black sheep and stand out from the Follow Friday crowd?