I know what you are thinking, twitter should not have rules and anyone that suggest a rule is a complete jerk. And you are right. But, how many times have you followed someone you thought looked interesting and shortly after you follow, you get a direct message with a link to something. They are asking you to click on this junk too. Most of the time, and this is what makes a lot of us angry about it, the link takes you to some “get rich quick” tool. Something they claim if you use you will get 40,000 followers within a matter of days.
What is amazing about these DM’s, the person sending it to you and suggesting you will get these 40,000 followers within days, has less than 2000 followers. It is laughable.
Am I completely against auto DM’s that are sent out after someone follows you? No. In fact I use to send out an auto DM to new followers that simply said, “Thanks for the follow and welcome to my twitter stream.” I have sense stopped sending it out.
Should there be rules on twitter, no and I am not saying there should be. Should there be some type of best practice or common sense, yes. If you expect to get some good out of twitter, don’t send out those stupid auto DM’s asking me to click your junk. Personally, I usually unfollow and sometimes even go so far as to block these tweeters when I get them.
I routinely send thank you for following/nice to follow you DMs–but try to personalize whenever possible by pointing out commonalities (lawyer? NYC expatriate?) or praising either the tweeter’s other web content (enjoy your blog) or tweets (twitter backgrounds always can form the basis for praise). Hopefully, this gets me out of the auto-DM trap!
Edward – I do think the way you do it is a great way to connect with new followers. Especially since you personalize it to them. Thanks for sharing.
Flipside, of course, is that if I don’t know you from Adam, have no reason to do so, and don’t see myself as a buyer/user of your product/service, I don’t follow–obviating the need for a follow-up DM.
And using twitter this way for you works great. What people need to remember is to use twitter the way it works best for them. There is no “fit all” method of using twitter. And it is high time the so called social media “experts” realize this too. Thanks again for reading and commenting.
Hey Grant,
Couldn’t agree more. I ignore the auto-dms as I am desensitized to them. I just delete them. What is more egregious to me is that now I am seeing a trend where people @reply me with their links. People I am not even following – “Hey @KidsAreHeroes – check out my great site!” This is to me much more annoying – gets an instant block from me. Don’t think there should be rules, but education (what you are doing) is the best tool in this case.
Gabe – Could not agree more. It does seem the twammers are coming up with new ways every day to get their junk out there.
My rule is to only ask people that i’ve built a true relationship with. I won’t just ask at random or by auto DM. That’s not cool at all.
I also make it a point to promote other peoples stuff if it’s worthy. Giving in this way always helps build value in a relationship online.
http://twitter.com/franswaa