How do you find people to follow on Twitter? Most likely you value the recommendations of your friends. Now take that down to a local level. Who are the users worth following in your community? That’s the idea behind #wmweds.

#wmweds or West Michigan Wednesday is a way in which people recommend local users to follow on Twitter. First a bit of background.

Background

West Michigan Wednesday was inspired by FollowFriday. Started by Micah Baldwin in January of 2009, FollowFriday was a way to recommend Twitter users worth following to his friends. Mykl Roventine suggested the hashtag #followfriday. The rest is Twitter history.

So what the heck is a hashtag?

Because Twitter provided no easy way to group tweets or add extra data, the Twitter community came up with their own way: hashtags. A hashtag adds additional context and metadata to a tweet. You create a hashtag simply by prefixing a word with a hash symbol: #hashtag. More information.

How to play #wmweds:

1) Login to Twitter. Not on Twitter yet? Create an account. It’s easy and fun not to mention an amazing way to market your business. Think of Twitter as status updates on Facebook.

2) Search for #wmweds at http://search.twitter.com.

3) Recommend your favorite West Michigan Twitter users with a #wmweds and the @username in your tweets. For example:

4) Have fun!

#wmweds works because it’s easy, local and fun to recommend people to follow. Give it a try this Wednesday and help build a following for your favorite West Michigan Twitter users!