By Brad Shorr of Word Sell, Inc. – follow him @bradshorr
When someone follows you on Twitter, it’s possible to then Tweet him/her back with an automated, direct message (DM) response. There are different schools of thought on whether this is a good practice, and it’s an issue well worth considering – an automated response, if sent, is the first impression you make on a new follower.
Within my 1200+ network of followers, many object to autoresponding – some, vehemently. The usual reasons -
- Autoresponses are impersonal
- Autoresponses are blatant attempts at self promotion
TweetLater, the autoresponder service that I used, certainly makes it easy. Enter your autoresponse DM, make a couple clicks, and you’re good to go. The service encourages you to make your DM a simple greeting or a non-promotional message focused on the follower. Good advice.
For about six months I used an auto-DM, but eventually decided it ditch it. My reasons -
- Twitter users are amazingly different. A one-size fits all auto-DM was beyond my ability to write.
- People rarely replied to my auto-DM
- I rarely reply to or even read auto-DMs sent to me
- Even though sending the right kind of auto-DM is a polite gesture, I sensed its value is washed away in the flood of far more meaningful Tweeting.
Is it worth responding individually every time someone follows you? Probably, but I’m hoping someone does a TwiTip on Twitter time management, because I don’t know where I’d find the time to do it.
If you decide to auto-DM …
- Do not try to promote yourself or sell something. Twitter is not a direct mail marketing model. You can’t afford to tick off 97 people to get 3 orders. The negative Tweet backlash will kill your credibility.
- Consider who is likely to follow you. If you use Twitter for personal and business chat, your message needs to appeal to everyone.
- Use a little restraint. Don’t say, “I’m SURE we’re going to become lifelong friends!!” when you obviously don’t have the slightest idea who you’re talking to.
- Think about why you are sending it. In my case, it was simply to be polite. If you’re using the DM to spark conversation or cultivate a relationship, there are better ways.
[image via Wikipedia]
@sunilpathak
I believe auto DM are impersonal
You need to spare some time for your follower, if you really want to build long term relation ship with them. i know its not easy to send thank you note every time some one follow you. but its worth the effort.
@Deafmom
I absolutely can’t stand auto-DMs, especially the ones that say, “Check me out!” If I’m following you, it’s because I have checked you out and deemed you worthy to follow– please don’t use this cheap attempt to market to me.
Rant over.
@RobertHruzek
All excellent reasons, and most of ‘em are why I don’t use auto-follows either. Personally, I don’t automatically follow everyone who follows me because until they make an attempt to actually, y’know, talk to me, then it’s probably just about the numbers to them. Or so it comes across.
@alina_popescu
Brad, I’m not entirely against autoresponse DMs. But I don’t love them either. I sometimes get annoyed by those working too hard on promoting something I’m not really interested in, but most of the time, I ignore them. That’s why I don’t use them
Even if I don’t annoy people, the majority will ignore my DMs anyway! Hardly anyone replies to them, so why waste my follower’s time?
@mickmel
If someone auto-DMs me I immediately unfollow them. Every time. I HATE those things.
@lunaKM
I use the auto DM feature on tweetlater, but I also use rotating DMs so they aren’t all the same. I like to tell new followers what they can expect from my tweets, such as NSFW or something sort of like an intro to me and invite them to talk to me. My personal account is fun and flirty sometimes so I warn them of that.
On my business account I again tell them what they will expect from my tweets and ask them if there is anything I can do for them that they can DM me. Personal yet opens the door to professional options.
I agree that I dislike ones that say thanks here’s my website and avoid doing that. My website is on my twitter profile, I don’t need it sent to the new follow too.
@EzyBlogger
I have stopped using auto DMs totally. Good for me.
@writerdad
I have stopped using auto DM’s entirely. I may be silly, but I almost see it as a breach of personal space. It isn’t my preferred method of communication to begin with, and if it’s going out automatically than why does it need to be private?
@deeziner
I like to say “thanks for following me” to each person who chooses to follow, because I think it’s good to show appreciation and make some initial contact. But I don’t have time to write 100 DM’s every few days … I like the Tweetlater ability to add multiple auto-DM’s with different messages that get rotated, so not everyone gets the same DM.
On the other hand, I agree that the “Check me out! Buy this! Download my ebook” are not the first messages I like to see from anyone. I tend to un-follow people who send me those. It only takes a short time to write a few nice messages that are not blatant self-promotion – I think it’s worthwhile.
And, I’ve gotten DMs from people I’ve followed who clearly are using an auto follow but took the time to write friendly (not promotional) messages – I think it’s nice to get those.
@goodwordediting
“Twitter is not a direct mail marketing model.” Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.
@ehdesign
I understand that you think you are welcoming, friendly, etc. when you send an auto-reply. But we all know the reality. That’s the fundamental problem with auto DM’s – we know that you aren’t REALLY being friendly. You aren’t REALLY being welcoming. You aren’t REALLY even acknowledging my follow.
What you ARE doing (at least in my opinion) is proving that you know how to use a service and proving that your DM is not personal. Which I think is exactly the opposite of what you wanted to do.
Feel free to disagree.
Fort Wayne Web Design
@TylerIngram
I dislike auto-directmsg. I read them because they show up when I check my DMs in Twhirl. I ignore them because they are generally the same and are pretty impersonal.
@techvenkat
auto dms to followers is mechanical ,ther should be human reaction to followers than automated.followers may knwo it as auto dm funniest thing comes who is wishing the follower a machiine or a human.
@jasondrohn
In the early days, I played with auto DM but that’s about it. I set up analytics to track in and everything else. (I know, I’m a nerd :0) ) There was next to no ‘return’ on it, even for a free download. I ended up losing more followers than anything else. I set up analytics to track in and everything else. (I know, I’m a nerd :0) )
@beyondbeeton
I’m not a fan of auto DM as a general rule. They irritate me and I don’t follow people *unless* I already am interested in them as a person/what they sell etc and it feels like preaching to the converted.
Personally, I don’t have a huge number of followers and get about 4-5 new (genuine) followers a day. When someone follows me I’ll check out their previous tweets and link if they have one (unless they have an offensive profile or the link is obscured by a shortening service so I can’t see where it goes..)
If I have something in common, find them interesting or amusing, I will usually follow back. I then make an effort to send them a personal DM or @ them with a comment about their website or a reply to a tweet or whatever within the first day or so.
I haven’t always done this, but I have found it really valuable to start a conversation this way and so will continue.
I also will usually @ someone new to tell them why I’m following them (ie. found them via someone else’s tweet and found their website interesting etc). I do this when I follow someone I haven’t “met” before.
@rickybuchanan
I hate all auto DMs, but it’s the “fake personal” DMs that annoy me the most – ones which are worded so at first glance they look somewhat personal. The ones which are obviously sales/marketing/promotion I can delete almost without reading them, but ones which look like they may be “real” DMs require a second look which inspires extra hatred for them.
Put it this way: Have you EVER received an auto-DM which provided value to you as a consumer? I haven’t.
@miscellaneaarts
I absolutely hate Twitter auto DMs–even the ones that just say “Thanks for following me” because they’re impersonal and waste my time; if you (the sender), equate gratitude with spam, maybe you should rethink that.
I’ve not yet gone the route of unfollowing those who use auto DM because I understand the senders are trying to figure out how to be personal and good networkers with such high volume–but I’m getting darn close. Ricky says it best in his last point and, like him, nothing I’ve received by auto DM has ever been useful or welcome.
@RenaR
I have 2 twitter accounts. I started using TweetLater because I wanted to send tweets about certain things at certain times. When I signed up for service, I thought great – automating DMs will really help people understand what my sites twitter account is for, without putting in a lot of effort. I didn’t realize how annoying it was until I was bumbarded DMs when I would follow people. I think that it does a lot more harm than good. I have turned off auto DMs.
@bradshorr
Thanks to all for reading and commenting. I really like what Ricky says about the “fake personal” DM – that was an approach I tried and found didn’t work too well. I guess I’m in the same boat as Deeziner. Politeness says “respond”, but time constraints say “how?”
@BlogAngel
As is often the case, my take on auto-DMs goes against the majority here – although interestingly I don’t disagree with anything you’ve said Brad… but I’m with deeziner; I do use auto-DMs.
I say something like “Thanks, I don’t auto-follow. Gimme some time to check your profile out.” I say that because it’s how it is for me, ie. it’s what I would say, if I had time to respond to each follow individually.
Of course, it makes absolutely no sense if I followed them first, so I should tweak it, but if people are offended by it, then I don’t think we’re really going to ‘click’ anyway. Plus there ways to auto-archive those messages or switch them off altogether. I have to say, I get plenty of people responding to that message positively – and I ALWAYS respond to those. I’ve only had one person slate me for it, but they weren’t someone whose opinion or tweets held any value for me – which as harsh as it sounds, matters. I also know that I lose followers every day and reading these comments, I guess some will be because I auto-DMd them. So be it.
Ricky Buchanan asks, “Have you EVER received an auto-DM which provided value to you as a consumer?”
Well, no… but I’m not in Twitter to consume. I’m there to make new friends/partners, be helpful where I can and to learn and discover stuff.
Have I ever received an auto-DM which provided value to me? Absolutely! (Though nothing to do with getting more money/followers/’action’!) The best example being when I followed a guy in Australia. He’d caught my attention, I followed, and his subsequent auto-DM resulted in a couple of ‘learnings’, a potential JV partner and a blog post: http://is.gd/mJh6 Actually, I’ll add a link to this conversation in the comments there – so people know I’m in the minority!)
I guess with all things in life, you can’t please all the people all the time. And nor do I want to. I want to build relationships with people I like and respect. The feeling isn’t always going to be mutual and hooray for that – keeps the world interesting.
)
@FlashDriveDT
Good decision to ditch, congrats! I have 70 DMs sitting in my inbox and only one is “real”. Imagine my shock when I got it. When I wrote the person back he felt quite honored about having been my first genuine DM, lol. Now granted, there’s a couple of messages that mention my name but still look automated . Can this be done too? Bots are so clever these days…
@jkohlbach
I personally hate the “fake personal” DMs and agree with 90% of what everyone is saying here.
I personally do use an auto DM, but don’t try to ram product or services down my follower’s through. It’s simple a thank you, and if they want to know a bit more about me, have a look at my blog.
I’m not seeking responses, but do occasionally get them. When I do I always DM back and answer any questions.
I would never promote a book or product via them, that just shits me. Even if it’s an automatic message, I think you can still afford to be somewhat genuine.
Very interesting discussion so far on one of the most over-abused features of twitter…
@jkohlbach
Actually.. further to this, it’s gotten me thinking about how I might be being perceived by new followers (that might have even come from my blog anyway).. My intentions are good in trying to connect with people, but I think maybe people (myself included) approach the whole auto DM thing the wrong way.
I’m going to try an experiment to see if a more personable approach of asking them for info about themselves first solicits more reply direct messages.
Let me know if you are interested in what the results are like and I’ll let you know how it goes.
@mykalburns
Auto-DMs = immediate unfollow. Not only are they impersonal, they’re annoying. Often, DMs result in a text message to the user’s phone. Those users aren’t always in your time zone. A lame auto-DM woke me up at 5:30am the other morning. Just a polite “Hi, thanks for following. Hope you like my content.” suddenly created one really pissed off (and tired) follower. I mean, ex-follower. Although I was pissed at being awakened at that hour, I was still able to unfollow before falling back to sleep.
@KriziaMissK
Ok, I missed the boat on this one because I didn’t know about auto-DM.
I’m also starting to understand why my successful on Twitter has been so-so.
I’m not sharing more about my daily activities and I’m getting more readers
Krizia
@www.blinkyit.com
In my case i heat doze sponsor DM they juts show that they really don’t even care who are fallowing them, and thats suck. did they think that if you fallow them probably you already know about they web, blog or what ever you send true that DM?
I don’t send DM, i only do it if its something really personal that i cant say juts like that in the public line. than you for the pots cool.-
@bambooforest
I think autoresponses are cheesy. I think most feel this way too. In the end… and what it comes down too… is I’m unsure it wins respect from those who follow you.
@bambooforest
@writerdad: You nailed it. Well said.
@benhomie
I kinda had enough of auto-dms that I made a point to unfollow anyone immediately who auto-dms me, whatever the message is.
@bradshorr
Josh, Good luck with your experiment. I’m interested to know how it turns out.
Flash Drive, I’ve noticed those personalized but suspiciously auto generated DMs as well. They must be programmed. Who would manually write out the same form letter every time?
Claire, You aren’t alone in liking DMs – even some of us in this conversation who dislike them use or have used them. If you see value in it – and no downside – I don’t see why you shouldn’t keep it up.
Thanks again to everyone for jumping into the conversation. One thing’s for sure – auto DMs are an emotional subject!
@AuctionDirect
Not a fan of auto-DM’s either; I make a point to send each “real” follower a personalized message, thank them & ask them to take my follower’s interview at http://www.TweetandGreet.com
I’m not sending them to my main site & I’m not looking to sell them anything – just a simple way for me to truly get to know my followers. (So far I’ve had 200+ people take the interview – Darren included.)
@GeoffShort
Thanks for the great post. For the record I too,have shut off the auto response feature on Tweet Later – although at least I was using rotating messages. And I’m in total agreement that promoting stuff in a greeting is tacky at best. It would be great if you could at least wait until we’ve shared a couple twoots to start shilling your crappy E-Book with “50 tips on how to make a million dollars by spamming with tweet greetings”. But I just have to say I think it’s hilarious that all of us in Tweet Land are taking ourselves so seriously with this issue. C’mon people..we’re talking about doing something called “tweeting” for God’s sake! Yeah…an auto DM is a little impersonal…so what? These people are not my best friends! Are my feelings really that hurt? And while I appreciate a new, and, possibly mutually beneficial business contact as much as the next guy, I certainly am not going to take it as a personal affront to get a very polite, if somewhat mechanical response to a follow and “immediately UN-follow” these charlatans who would dare refuse me the time to script a heartfelt response to ME… perfect stranger that I am! A person could write the warmest, most unique greeting to me and chances are I still will probably never get the chance to look them in the eye and shake their hand. I just think we need a little perspective and to lighten up a bit. That being said, (cue robot voice) “Thanks for the follow! I really look forward to learning more about you and sharing information soon. Learn more by downloading my new E-Book at http://www.lightenup.com!” Peace.
@AndreaTannouri
I agree with the lighten up comment. If Auto DMs bug you, just block em! Why are you wasting so much time griping about something so trivial? Just because someone chooses to try and be polite or do what they think is the right thing (if they thought it would get them unfollowed/blocked/dismissed why would they do it?) you are going to shun them forever?
I do Auto DM. And I do block and tell my followers how to opt out on a regular basis. So unfollow me. It’s a free Internet. =D
@HolisticMom
PS. Visit http://www.Twitter.com/OptMeOut to see how to opt out from Tweetlater Auto DMs
@GeoffShort
As a follow up…I just now got an auto DM w/ link saying “In thanks for following me, please accept my free gift The Adsense Income Blueprint ebook”. Hilarious!
@CoBPEZ
I fail to see why you would want to mindlessly greet a follower to begin with. I only message a new follower if I find something in their bio or tweet stream that interests me enough. Auto-DM:s add absolutely nothing. When I get them I most often just unfollow immediately. Who knows what more automated messages might come from that source?
@h_blunck
I notice followers, and good followers will be followed back. Guaranteed.
But auto-DM ticks me off. I must say I receive plenty of e-mails already and I see no point in telling a person I now know they follow me. I believe in intelligent followers who are able to discern that fact after they have hit the “Follow” button.
I would never be as indecent as to send an auto-DM when I don’t like them myself.
So if anyone is offended for not receiving any auto-DM, let me say I treat people as I hope to be treated myself, and that’s why I won’t do anything to others I don’t like done towards me.
@FireBossarticle
I agree with what the majority seems to be saying as well. Auto-DM makes twitter look like a big spam box most of the time. Let people make their own decisions