Twitter Autofollow and Auto DM Etiquette

Mari,

I was in a session on Twitter at Podcamp Toronto and this subject came up. A VERY heated discussion ensued. The consensus was people HATE automated DMs. Several people said they immediately unfollow anyone who sends an auto DM.

I wrote about it on my blog and got a lot of interesting comments from my readers too. http://cli.gs/LUGmus

I personally like the links … if they are offering something free and of value. The generic, thanks for following comments I don’t like. I know they’re not from a live person.

I am grateful that you are addressing this Mari. I don’t auto DM because I find them so hollow when I receive them especially when they are self-promoting.

As for autofollow I still select people who are actually participating. Anyone with 1 promotional update following thousands I don’t boher but I can see that your strategy is much more efficient. I may try it in the future I still like to check people out to see if they are someone that I want to connect with right away about their site or something they are talking about.

Sandy McMullen’s last blog post.. Survival Games by Design: Know Yourself and Stay Alive

Mari;

I auto follow and auto dm.

However, my auto dm’s are very different.

I do not promote myself or try to engage in discussion.

Instead, I provide a simple link to an article that was NOT written by me on a topic I know my audience is interested in.

Now, here’s some food for thought.

When email first came out, it was a very private thing and people hated getting auto-response messages after a form was filled out (for example opting into a newsletter).

But over time, it became a common and smart marketing practice to try and engage people.

I see Twitter a lot like someone filling out a form on my site.

I think as marketers we need to weigh the importance of engaging the follower in the same way we engage the email follower.

Those who do not, I think risk the possibility of never connecting with a follower.

Just put your marketing cap on and realize that we are using a social medium for a marketing purpose.

Auto DMs are a fact of life. They will never go away. So let’s get smart about using them and not cave just because a few vocal people say stop. Rather let’s actually give people something valuable and non-promotional.

Michael Stelzner’s last blog post.. Smart Marketing: Video Interview With David Meerman Scott

Good Post Mari!
I have also gone through the same issues. I do auto delete those who unfollow me it’s only fair.
“I always say what goes around comes around, be careful!”

I used to read auto-dms and check out the links but it became difficult to keep up because I got so many. I understand that for some (OK, for a small number), it will be the only self-promotion they do on Twitter, but I’ve still turned them off. I get too much email to make them a priority anymore.

Like you, I auto-follow for the exact same reason. I never know who knows someone who knows someone else who needs my services, even if my follower doesn’t fit the profile of a potential client. After all, Twitter IS all about networking, right?

Mari,

Great question, and I like that you have shared your experiences with us.

I’m a fairly new user of Twitter and still kind of learning the ropes.

Currently, I do Auto DM, and have to be honest it does not feel authentic, but its a quick way for me to reach out to people who decide to follow me.

Just like when you are introduced to someone, a quick hello and then you start building the relationship.

In the beginning I did have a link to my website, but it just did not feel right, and frankly they can easily just click on my link from my bio.

Then I changed it to a simple message similar to yours, but could not keep up.

Then when I started following “carrie wilkerson” I really liked her Auto DM and somewhat changed mine modeling hers, becuase it did not feel so robotic, if you know what i mean.

And that’s how I’ve left it for now.

I don’t auto follow everyone, but I do try to check out everyone who follows me and select to follow people who are actively participating & providing value. Not just self-promoting.

However, your points on Auto Follow are very valid and its food for thought for me.

I think you just have to experiment and see what works best for you and it also depends on your biz strategy too. I guess just be active & provide value its all about networking - right?

Anyhoo, for me the jury is still out.
For now, a quick hello (no self-promotion) and then making sure you interact with your new followers (if time permits) works for me.

Bravo, on this post, Mari!

I unfollow if you start magpies and using ads. I want to hear about what YOU are doing however, I do not want an ad

Dr Letitia Wright
The Wright Place TV Show
http://www.wrightplacetv.com
http://www.twitter.com/drwright1

Thanks for the post Mari, I often wonder how others are thinking on this subject.

I go back and forth in my mind about auto-follow and auto-dm.

I love the time it saves me, and I’m all about saving time. (My life is not spent plugged in, I have a family to look after and a business to run).

What I dislike is the way people abuse these features and start spamming. I am adamantly opposed to people auto-following/auto-dm’ing me with links, I think that’s tacky. If you really want me to read something, why not put it in the public stream and gift it to everyone?

For now, I will continue using it as it saves me time. But I’m going to keep a close watch on things and weigh out whether stopping this practice is worth it.

Nancy

I don’t think auto-follow or auto-dm is a good thing. How is automating those being social?

BTW, you can read more about our move on our blog - http://blog.socialtoo.com

I agree about following back. It seesm kind of arrogant to me that I might have people follow me but not be prepared to DM them when invited. I have a tweetlater auto Dm with definitely NO links. It just thanks the person for following and looks forward to getting to know them. Thanks for the tips on jesse’s aoftware. Will check it out!
Sam

Check this link, it might alter your question:
http://TwitPWR.com/6Vy/

yberDon

Mari,
Thanks for the great post. When I first joined Twitter I was excited to DM people after they started following me but yes, after awhile it became too much. The auto DMs are so annoying and fake. I get very discouraged when I get an auto DM from a new follow.

I applaud you for being able to follow everyone back. After my 300th Real Estate follower and my 400th Social Media Expert and my 200th fitness/bodybuilding expert - I decided to look a persons feed over before I follow them back. I am very proud of the quality of my twitter feed. I only wish there were more hours in the day to read all of them.

I also found using http://friendorfollow.com/ is a great tool to see of your followers who is following you back and who is following you and you aren’t following back.

Hope that is of some help and again thanks for all you do Mari!

Amanda o”Brien’s last blog post.. Facebook Changing Layout Again

Hey Mari,

Great post! I too have debated on this subject. Until I found SocialToo I did it all manually - follows and DMs. SocialToo has made it easier to reciprocate followers because I believe in following back. I was using the auto-DM feature but in a non-robotic way. I got great response from it! I am disappointed to find out it has been removed. After reading Jesse’s blog post it makes sense. Thanks Jesse! I agree that many are abusing DMs. I’m a big believer in using social networks as a 2-way street. I help bands promote themselves on Myspace and it’s frustrating to see so many of them disable HTML code in their comment box only to use it widely themselves. They don’t get it.

Madalyn Sklar’s last blog post.. FREE Teleseminar: "The Ins & Outs of Facebook and Twitter"

Mari,

I’m still a relative newbie to social media so take my thoughts with a grain of salt. I’m taking an incremental, specific path to increasing both followers and followings, both in the neighborhood of 300 at this time. Yes like the rest of the bandwagon I could follow techniques outlined to increase your followers to 1000 or 10,000, but the numbers mean nothing without knowledge and a plan.

I’m running along in very manual mode, not running with auto-dm’s or auto-follow’s yet. Laboriously manual mode - I first look at a potential’s bio/twitter page and look at the numbers of followers, how many they are following, and the number of tweets. I probably follow 90% of those who find me, my business account. Most of the other look like spam material. 2000 followers and 3 tweets, you know. Or maybe they’re so far off target that it doesn’t make sense.

I will not be able to do this much longer, but I make an effort to read and learn from as many Tweets as possible. I set up a taxonomy for organizing educational tweets into categories - blogging, CMS, Twitter, social media, SEO. Thus for me, at this time, I need to filter out, in advance, what isn’t “relevant”. I’m sure this will change as I get further along, but for now “auto’s” just aren’t happening.

P.S. Regarding the Twitter Power Workshop with Joel Comm last Monday - I hung out in the audience; that was great!

-Bob

You rock Mari! I have been keeping up with you for a while and I really like where you went with this article. I believe only in genuine social networking; I don’t know how I will manage when I get as many followers as you; but I love the fact that you are being transparent and regrouped your technique to be more personable; and thanks for the insites I will definately be using and sharing them.
-Andrea

I autofollow everyone because I feel that if they were interested in hearing what I have to say I’d like to hear from them too.

I stopped the Auto DM maddness. Like you, I started to get annoyed by it so I stopped sending what I didn’t want to receive.

Trevor Yannayon’s last blog post.. You Got Facebook in My TweetDeck

No, I don’t autofollow and am happy to read through the Washington Post tonight that Twitter is disabling this feature. If I’m one of 7,000+ people who follow you and that you then follow, I know you aren’t following me because you care about what I have to say. You simply can’t follow that many people’s individual posts. However, if you’re not following them, you can still receive @ replies from people and respond to them. A manual response is what tells me that someone cares about what I have to say. Maybe I’m the exception, but I really wish people wouldn’t autofollow me. I would rather they followed me because they truly do care about what I have to say, not because they’re doing it out of some mistaken idea that it’s somehow polite to act like you’re paying attention to me.

[...] it continues.  And I am not the only one, if you search #unfollow you will find many many tweeps preaching against this horrible [...]

Mari, I’m with you on this one 200% - DM is an important communication media and AutoDM simply kills it! I also posted on it this week and included some Twitter Polls results to show people who use it how the Twitterers actually feel about it!

Perhaps it will help some to see the errors of their way!

Alex

Alex Sysoef’s last blog post.. Using Your Global Blog For Local Search Results Domination

I stand pat on auto-DM - no. It is so abused that it has become a niche for spammers and self-promoters. If someone ran a report on the terms FREE or VISIT MY in auto DM’s I’m sure that the stats would be eye-openers. It may seem like proper etiquette to auto-follow as well, but first give me a snapshot of your bio and your last 20 or so tweets before I decide. Life is about choices.

[...] SocialToo - one of my longtime faves by @jesse for selective autofollowing. (I was the only one on the panel who autofollows! See this post for further insights: Twitter Autofollow and Auto DM etiquette) [...]