Every once in a while conversation will erupt around a certain practice–should we follow everyone who follows us? Are “thanks for following me! Here’s a link to my site!” auto-DMs nice or spammy? Should we block bots who follow us or let them pump up our follower counts?–and the dialog that follows will help define yet another code for Twitter users.

This week, the topic is Follow Friday, otherwise known among Twitter users as #followfriday (or #ff). According to Sean Percival, founder of lalawag, the LA tech and entertainment gossip blog, #followfriday is ruining Twitter. For those not in the know, #followfriday is the Friday tradition of naming Twitter users whom you believe are worth following. Since the tradition began in January, it’s exploded and now many users, including Percival, have raised concerns about its tendency to become useless spam:

I actually think Follow Friday is a fine idea, but with any good idea it usually becomes warped and stupid. Truth is most of you are doing it wrong. Sometimes I get included in #FF post and click through to see who gave me a mention. There I find a dump of their other #FF tweets, blasting out some 20 names at a time with no context what-so-ever. Why should I follow them? Because you said so? Just do me a favor, click through here to read about Follow Friday from its creator, and learn how to do it right.

According to the creator of the massively popular movement, Micah Baldwin, #followfriday is about making one or two recommendations and giving a short explanation for these, not jam-packing as many people as possible into a single tweet–or worse, a series of tweets.

Solutions?

Usually on #followfriday, I select a theme, then offer users worth following according to my theme. The last time I did a #followfriday, I mentioned a group of empowered women in tech about whom I’d been tweeting using the hashtag #fempire. To give my followers an overview of this group of fantastic women, I involved them in my #followfriday in the following way:

An example of a themed #followfriday.

It’s occurred to me that this may not be enough. In a world where more and more people are joining Twitter and looking for quality content, it is our responsibility, when providing our followers with suggestions, to offer more tangible reasons to follow people whose content we enjoy. I would much rather offer one or two users in my #followfriday tweets with a good reason than spam them with all my best friends over and over.

How do compose a #followfriday tweet? Do you ever click through your friends’ #followfriday recommendations when no other information is given?

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The Follow Friday (#followfriday) Manifesto by Grant McDonald (@chichiri) and Kay Ballard (@KayBallard)