Don’t F4F-"Follow-Up" Instead!

We are seceding from follow-for-follow

I’m sure you’ve heard of the ongoing debate: f4f versus anti-f4f. But just in case you haven’t, I’ll summarize.

“Follow-for-follow,” or f4f, is a method of following people so they’ll follow you back. There are right and wrong ways to do it, as I described in my article to CEO Tony:

But there’s a lot of people that hate f4f. They tend to lump all f4f into the “wrong” camp, assuming that everyone that practices it is being spammy, annoying, and cheating.

Let’s end the debate today, together.

Read through to the Most Important Rule!

No Longer F4f

All the “right” ways of practicing f4f are no longer f4f. Instead of continuing to fight for semantics, let’s differentiate ourselves from the obviously problematic f4f and rebrand.

Our way is now the “follow-up” method.

All the variations of [previously known as f4f] make more sense under this name than f4f. To “follow-up” evokes a sense of engagement, of intention, and curiosity.

Things that are wholly absent from the bad f4f practices, which don’t easily make the same transition.

A summary of the new proposed perspective on each of the other practices:

Askers

When asking for a follow, there are no demands or expectations. You’re asking for a follow-up; how people respond to it is always up to them. It’s also preferred to only ask on articles about followers — again, following-up on the article by asking.

Broad Engagement

Finding people to follow, and then reading, clapping, and commenting on an article depends on the author’s follow-up of the interaction. There’s rarely any mention of follows here, just the hope that curiosity may spark the follow in return.

Narrow Engagement

The same rules apply as broad; the only difference is that there’s a more cohesive theme to the people you follow.

Follower-Follow

Clicking follow on the people your followers follow (or the follows of other people you’ve followed, whatever variation) without engagement hopes that curious people will follow-up and check out the new follower.

Why F4f Isn’t Follow-Up

Rats on a sinking ship will jump on any solid ground they can. I don’t intend to leave any solid ground for f4f’s to jump to:

• Spam isn’t curious. It isn’t caring or engaging.
• Bots aren’t human.
• Paid follows aren’t curious, and won’t care or engage.
• Copy/pasting is generic, not genuine.
• Malicious unfollowing is abusive.
• Demanding anything isn’t supportive.
• Mentioning follows randomly isn’t considerate (did you read their article?)

Those that practiced f4f under these rules cannot and will not be recognized as follow-up.

The Most Important Rule Of Follow-Up

While the practices under “follow-up” center around community, engagement, and encouragement, there’s one very important rule that binds them all:

Follows are NEVER obligatory.

The follow-up method hopes for follows. It never expects them, and no one on the other end should feel obligated by the interaction, no matter how badly someone wants follows.

The follow-up methods, at the heart of it all, hopes to turn those followers into readers. And readers, as a general rule, tend to follow up with the writers they read.

So the follow-up methods are a bridge connecting strangers with meaningful interactions.

And that kind of thing just isn’t follow-for-follow material, is it?

Help me get this bandwagon rolling — spread the word, write your own articles about the follow-up methods, and let’s separate ourselves from the bad seeds once and for all!

Looking for active writers to follow-up?

Check out Follower To Follower for regular stories and new writers during the week. It’s a good place to practice the follow-up method while building a community through engagement, too!

Until next time, follow each other, follow the dopamine, and follow yourself, always!

Hey, look: a newsletter. And also Twitter. And Facebook.

Support writers, read without limits, and be part of the community — all for $5.