Follow Friday, along with the hashtag #ff, is one of the most widely used practices for building relationships on Twitter.

On Fridays, you have the chance to give a shout out to people you respect, admire, or appreciate.

Depending on how much time you want to spend, you can send out lists of follow Fridays or you can create personalized recommendations.

Think of follow Friday recommendations as being on a continuum: a list of Twitter handles being on the far left and individual and personalized on the far right.

The closer you are to the right, the more likely you are to be memorable. More personal tweets have a more profound impact on their recipients.

While I appreciate any and all follow Friday mentions, my favorite ones are the personal, specific, and individualized ones.

My good friend Lolly Daskal sets an amazing leadership example of how to use Follow Friday recommendations to encourage and value others. Her personalized recommendations are a way of expressing “You Matter,” to her followers. Despite the fact that she has over 250 thousand followers, she takes time each Friday to personally recognize people, individually and specifically.

Here’s an example.

What astounds me about Lolly is that she writes personalized recommendations every week, and I don’t get the sense that she’s repeating them, either.

Lolly has told me that the reason she takes such care with her follow Friday tweets is to recognize and appreciate her followers and the time they spend with her each week. As a leader, she wants to model the behaviors she values.

If you are unsure of what to write, look through your mentions over the past week. Who did you interact with this week? Who made you smile? Who made you laugh? Who did you learn from — and what did you learn? Use those ideas to write fantastic follow Friday tweets.

Today’s Tip: Send Out Follow Friday Tweets

Set your timer for 12 minutes and write/send as many follow Friday tweets as you can during that time. Experiment! Write some follow Friday tweets that are lists, if you want. Write some personalized and specific tweets. If you have a regular practice of sending out follow Friday recommendations, do something different today.

How will you spend your 12 minutes today?

My friend Wally Bock shares daily tips for leaders at the Three Star Leadership Blog. You can read his tips here.

Becky Robinson

I am the founder/CEO of the Weaving Influence team, the author of Reach: Creating the Biggest Possible Audience for Your Message, Book, or Cause, and the host of the Book Marketing Action Podcast. I’m a wife and mom of three kids, and I enjoy running, reading, writing, coffee, and dark chocolate.