Favoriting is not a new Twitter concept — but it kicked off last year when you were able to instantly tell the writer of the tweet that you liked it. In the past, favoriting a tweet was only known to you (or to someone who clicked into your favorites). Now, if I tweet something and you favorite it, I’m alerted.
Think of a Twitter favorite as a Facebook like.
You do it because you identify with it.
People tend to favorite tweets because they want to save it for future reading, it is funny, or it could spark a future tweet or blog post.
I analogize my favorites as LinkedIn testimonials. If someone tweets something noteworthy about me (or if the person tweeting me is noteworthy such as “The Voice” Season 1 runner-up Dia Frampton), I add that tweet to my list of favorites.
Whatever your reason for favoriting a tweet, or whether or not you do it, be aware that you will now be notified when someone favorites you — as the top of the following screenshot indicates.
About Ari Herzog
Just my opinion Ari: I think Twitter favorites feature is pretty useless. Twitter is NOT Facebook, and hence favorites cannot be compared with likes. The only real use of favorites is if you want to bookmark someone’s tweet as a reminder, in order to read it/refer to it later. As far as acknowledgement goes, retweet wins.
Ask 100 people how they use Twitter and get 100 different responses. Ditto for features on the system. Thanks for sharing your opinion Kevin.
Favoriting tweets is like a secret weapon in understanding how people feel about what you’re doing on Twitter. It’s funny… Just a few days ago I decided to turn back on all my Twitter email alerts because I wanted to keep a closer eye on things and better understand others’ reactions to my tweets. I noticed favorites in a way I never did before and it gives you insight into what others find valuable. Most people do not blithely favorite stuff the same way they retweet links without even looking at them.
To each his own, Michael, but my perspective is people will tweet something that is “favoritable” because of what I do outside of Twitter and they want to so-called lifestream it on their feed.
Buh?
My comment essentially agreed with the premise of your post. Now you’re saying”…but…” like we have a difference of opinion? I must not be understanding you, somehow, here.