"Follow Fridays" for Bloggers

Fridays on Twitter have become a day to share lists of people you follow with others, called "FollowFriday". On Twitter you can use a # sign before a word (this is called a hash tag) or phrase to make it a indexed term where all other posts with that tag can be searched as a group and read.

Thus, every post on Twitter (called a Tweet) that has #FollowFriday is conglomerated into a massive Twitter stream. You could just go and start following everyone who comes up on that search, which I don't recommend, or you could start following just new people who people you follow recommend. Or you could just sit back and enjoy the show...I do a little of both and I recommend many of my followers on Follow Friday. I'm going to try to be more descriptive of why folks should follow to add some signal to all the noise.

In blogging, our "hash tag" is our blogroll, I guess, but that's such a static and often forgotten thing. I think it would be wonderful to share on a more frequent basis the blogs we wish more people would read. If you read The Art Bead Scene or Margot Potter or The Crafty Princess blogs, you'll see that every week they do a link round up of each other and a handful of other blogs. While that's great for them as a group, what I'm thinking of is much more expansive - sharing different blogs, could just be one or two, each week.

So my idea is to request that you please leave suggestions for me of new, and maybe you think, little noticed blogs, in the comments. Consider doing a post like this on Fridays or whatever day you'd like. What are the blogs you'd like other people to be reading because they're important reads for you? I'll visit those blogs and add them to my Wanderings post on Sunday, and follow them in my blogger list. This is just one more way to build community and 'pay it forward'.

Edited to add: Look what I just found: a cute Twitter bird pendant at Etsy!

Please don't forget, on Sunday I post a weekly Wandering Around the Beadosphere to share blogs I found interesting, inspiring, or amusing. I also archive it and my Thursday review/interview posts on a separate blog called Dawno's Beadosphere so you can easily scroll through and find past links more easily (it's also got a search tool). I'd love for you to 'follow' that blog using the widget on it or add it to your RSS feed.

You are also welcome to cut and paste my "wanderings" on your blog (it'd be nice to get a mention, too!) and add some of your own.

hey! I found this Twitter Tutorial [ Twitorial? :-) ]

Add This!

First, for those of you who will be having Passover seder tonight (and maybe tomorrow night as well) - Chag Kasher V’Sameach.

Next, I would like to plug Chocolate and Steel's blog, great pictures, fun information and on Mondays she posts a "Undiscovered Uncovered" feature about new Etsy shops, which is a wonderful way to support fellow artisans!

Next to last, I discovered on Chocolate and Steel that Lora, of Lora Hart Jewels, is having a giveaway on her blog. Beautiful precious metal clay designs (and another medium I'd like to work in, eventually - not really set up in my little back bedroom "studio" for using torches) and she's going to give one away next week - click the 'giveaway' link above to read and participate.

Lastly, the other day I talked about readers and blog traffic (The Long Tail post). Saw a great post on Simply Shiny today with a recommendation to use the AddThis button. (They've got a blog, too, in case you're also into reading about techie stuff).

I've had a number of little icons at the end of my posts that give readers the option to share with various services like Digg or StumbleUpon, but decided to switch to AddThis and see what happens. Mostly because they have analytics - if anyone was sharing my posts somewhere before, I had no clue. This way I can (I think) check the analytics and see if anything was shared.

So how does it work? When you hover over the AddThis button a list of options pops up and you can select from which ever one you want - the process is quite simple - AddThis does a lot of the work for you. If you've got an AddThis or other similar feature on your blog, I'll certainly return the favor.

One last thing - I just followed someone on Twitter whose tweets seem to be very funny - if you want to grin, follow @mkramer (Melody Kramer).

Why I Don't Have One of those Nifty "Follow" Widgets

I have been on Blogger for three and a half years (this blog isn't that old, but with my other blog) and I customized the template they provided at that time. I've done a lot of tweaking and adding and changing both the CSS and the HTML to get things approximately the way I want them.

I say approximately because there are some things I'd like to do but can't because I don't have the technical knowledge, or I find the directions confusing, or won't switch to the new template - which is why I don't have the follower's widget because you have to be on the new Blogger Layouts templates to use it.

However, you can still follow me - just go to your dashboard and plug in my URL: http://beadedbadgelanyards.blogspot.com

It'd be nifty if you would!