I recently received three direct messages from people after I followed them on Twitter:
1. Thanks for following. I try to mostly tweet interesting stuff I find. Hopefully you’ll find it interesting as well.
2. Thanks for following! I do check my messages daily, so be sure to DM me if you ever need anything in blogging & social media!
3. Thanks for following. I look forward to your tweets!
Direct messages are private messages that can only seen by the sender and receiver. You can only DM me if I follow you. If I follow you and you don’t follow me, I can’t DM you back.
While many people treat direct messages as fodder for personalized content, some are prone to send the same direct message in bulk to everyone. The above automatic messages were likely scheduled through applications such as Social Oomph.
By contrast, here are manual DMs I received from three other people. Note the personalization and inclusion of my name:
1. Ari – Thanks for the re-follow. I hope all is going well with you. Been busy?
2. Well hi Ari! Thank you for following me back! I am happy to be connected with you here! Hope this finds you well.
3. Thanks for following, Ari – I seriously appreciate being in your select few: hope the weather is getting a bit warmer for you now.
I don’t know about you, but I prefer to be treated as a name and not a number. Stop sending automatic DMs. You’re hurting your reputation.
exactly i was annoyed with those kind of people specially when you Dm someone of them and they don’t Reply , they totally loose their Reputation and Credibility
just most of them are thinking they don’t have the time to Dm new followers so they let this task to the Bulk DMs generators .
However i think auto DMs will be acceptable just if they reply to their auto messages , and in this case we can treat it as a generated welcome note
important article thanks alot 🙂
Hi, Ari.
I have almost given up on reading the DMs sent to me because it seems like every time I check up on it, I see automated messages. It was a good thing that I didn’t give up on it entirely though because I found genuine messages there from Susan Oakes and Brankica.
So, I totally get what you mean about being sincere and tweeting manually. I’d rather get two sincere DMs and read two genuine, manual tweets than 20 automated ones.
I mostly return the auto DM with an unfollow. My assumption (which I admit could be wrong) is that someone who auto DMs is either a spammer or all about them, neither of which I want to waste my time with.
Your assumption is not correct, for the three people I singled out above for sending those auto DMs are anyone but spammers. One of them comments on this blog frequently, for instance.
Ari, very good post! I totally agree with you. In twitter most people want to do the job “automatically”. If you don’t make it personal it won’t work.
Thanks for sharing,
John
I agree with you on this one John! When you lose the “personal” aspect of it people will notice.
I don’t send any direct messages because I don’t read any direct messages, as most of them are generated automatically anyway. I think the time spent on generating the direct messages can be used for something more useful.
I don’t ever send automated direct messages, because I don’t like receiving them. Every new follower I get gets a personalized, manually written note from me, thanking them for following me. I’m glad that you brought this subject up, and I am honored to be shown as an example of a “good” DM – thank you!
Of course, only you know you are there.
Oh gosh, maybe I wasn’t supposed to say anything? Sorry! I…err…I really like those three anonymous manual DM’s 🙂
Would you differentiate between auto-DM’s and automated tweets?
Good question, Danny.
1. When people check-in on Foursquare and their Twitter timelines are updated with content such as being a mayor, those are automated tweets.
2. When people write Facebook wall updates and their Twitter timelines are updated with content that is “sent from Facebook” and typically includes a fb.me URL, those are automated tweets.
3. When people sleep every night at 10 p.m. and awake every morning at 6 a.m. but their Twitter timelines include tweets at 2 a.m., those are likely scheduled to tweet in advance and are thus automated tweets. This is why best practice is to emulate companies like business card firm Vistaprint which you can see in their Twitter bio indicates the hours they tweet.
Essentially, anything that is shared on Twitter within seconds of being typed is manual. Anything that is shared either by some other social media site or scheduled in advance is automated. There’s nothing wrong, per se, with an automated tweet but an automated direct message has zero value to the receiver, especially since it’s supposed to be a private conversation. There’s nothing private when everyone sees the same thing.
Thank you Ari! I completely agree with you. I’m on a mission to stamp out auto-DMs (especially the ones that say “Visit my website at…”). In fact, I wrote a blog post, “Death to Auto-DMs on Twitter”:
http://www.kayross.com/blog/2011/02/17/death-to-auto-dms-on-twitter/
I recognize one of those DM’s, oddly enough. 😉
I realize some people hate them. But this one works remarkably well – since using it, I have build some nice private engagement with new followers as well as gotten some great post ideas because people really do send me back some great questions. It’s helped me in jump starting my communication with them.
Would I love to do personal messages? Sure. When I first got started and only had a few followers every so many odd days, I did write a personalized message. But now, I get anywhere from 10 – 50 followers a day, and that just isn’t scalable. Plus I would probably just end up wasting my time between bots and people who thought I somehow auto-generated a customized message and hate me for it anyway because I believe there is some service out there that does pull the name through for the DM’s to make it look “personalized.”
Anyway, love it or hate it, it works for me more times than not.
I think Kristi has a point here. While I do agree with Ari that personalized manual DMs are definitely better (and I believe Kristi agrees, too), if you’re getting 10 to 50 new followers per day, then it becomes just too time consuming to manually DM each of them. You could hire a VA to do it for you, but then, how many of those you send that manual DM to would believe it was a real person and not a bot that sent the message anyway?
My knee-jerk reaction would be to say that if you can’t reply to each of them manually, then why not just forget about it and not send the DM at all? But I suppress that knee-jerk reaction because Kristi says her automated DMs have helped her, and I can’t argue with evidence.
Different strokes for different folks, perhaps?
Help me comprehend the “why” in needing to send a DM to a new follower, whether manual or automatic. Why DM the person at all?
“People hate telemarketing but it works, so let’s keep doing it.”
“People hate getting interrupted when they walk past mall kiosks but it works, so let’s keep doing it.”
“People hate getting squirted with fragrance when they walk into a store but it works, so let’s keep doing it.”
I thought we were saying good bye to the interruption era and welcoming a new social era marked by respect for the recipient, personalization, two-way connections and dialog. Automated spamming that–data shows–most people hate may work for a minority of new followers, but it says something about the sender: “I don’t care about my recipients; I care about my own influence and network.” This is why so many people unfollow or report as spam the auto DMs they receive.
If living the tenants of social media isn’t enough of an argument to sway those who use Auto DMs, then consider this: Spam worked–for a while. Then email tools got wise to it and deliverability plummeted. And black hat SEO worked–for a while. Then search engines got wise to it and search engine relevance plummeted.
Auto DMs may work today, but will they next month or next year? If Twitter or Twitter apps go the way of email and search engines before them (and they will), then those people using Auto DMs could find that they lose their accounts or cannot get their tweets through social media spam filters. If this happens, there is little those people can do to undo the damage that has been done.
When you write you receive “engagement with new followers” resulting from those DMs, care to share any metrics? How frequently do people DM you as the direct response of your DM to them? And, why do you feel you need to DM the person in the first place? That’s akin to the generic thank you message I receive from organizations after sending in a donation. There’s a reason why I write the donation and I don’t need to receive a generic thank you. But that’s me.
Hi Ari,
I agree with you, these auto DM’s really look very unprofessional and irritating, the same reason why I have stopped checking my DM’s. Do you know any tools which can help us know who followed us recently, so that we can DM them personally (I have just started using twitter more actively but I still don’t know all that stuffs)
Regards,
Shiva
Huh? Whether on twitter.com or a third-party tool, you are able to see your followers in reverse chronological order.
I tweet for a company and when I first started I sent each new follower a personal DM using their name, and asked them if they’d tried the product that they were now following. I try, in all my communication, to be very friendly and easy going so I don’t think it was a hard sell. After all, they were choosing to follow a product!
I received zero response. After a few weeks I gave up on DMs to followers. I have a feeling most people are unaware of DMs much less know to check their @mentions. I’ve only had success with Twitter for the product by running the odd contest. Not a good vehicle I’m finding for this particular enterprise.
Twitter is GREAT for us writers! Loving it as a poet!
For organizations the key is to integrate your tweeting. Don’t focus on a DM, don’t focus on a contest; but complement tweeting with other media.
Tweeting automatically can be of great help but I feel there is just no fun in tweeting automatically. There is a difference between machine automated and tweeting manually. I’d rather enjoy pouring down my thoughts and being myself, it really feels great to get followed.
I’m with you, Ari! I also hate impersonal messages that’s why I ignore practically all e-mail marketing letters and offers sent by e-mail without my name and some things that can make me feel I’m special.
Although I understand that I’m one out of hundred or thousand, I want to be treated as a human, not as a tool for doing business and earning money. I feel annoyed with twitter 🙂 in some ways.
To me, a new follower is a gift (unless they are clearly just trying build up their follow numbers or are pushing porn or marketing, in which case I won’t be following them back anyway so they get no DM response). If I choose to follow them back, then their initial follow of me is “a gift” and the polite thing to do when you get a gift is to say thank you. By personalizing my response, it makes it a memorable experience for both of us. If I say “I’m from Missouri too” or “I have Squidoo pages too” (information I glean from reading their bio or Twitter stream) it helps me remember who they are and hopefully, makes me more memorable to them. By doing this it helps both of us.
Marti, I don’t mind those kinds of DMs. They show you’ve spent a bit of time getting to know your followers and personalizing the Thank You. Those aren’t auto-DMs.
But I’m curious. How often do you get a response? I tried personalized DMs in my early twitter days, and I never received a response, so I gave up.
Juli, I don’t get many responses to a “Thanks for following” DM, but that’s OK. I just feel like it’s the right and polite thing to do, so I do it 🙂
The conflict occurs, as Juli also comments, when your presumption of a gift is not perceived as such by the person following you.
I’m just a “thank you” kind of person – I never dreamed that saying it to someone would upset them. That’s kind of sad.
Whether personalized or not, a “thanks for following” DM is nothing but noise. We’re all on Twitter to connect, and as you amass hundreds or thousands of followers, all those “thank you” messages aren’t welcome communications but noise that prevents one from seeing the DMs that really matter–the ones that contain true personalized messages. If you want to thank followers, post tweets that are valuable to them–that’s the way to show gratitude and respect for followers.
Augie, I don’t think I would ever get to the point that having someone say “Thank you” to me would be considered “noise”. But if you do, then that’s how you feel. Everyone is different. Peace to you.
Marti, the data speaks for itself: http://blogs.forrester.com/augie_ray/10-11-10-survey_twitter_auto_dms_are_unwelcome_diminish_influence
I’d ask you to remember that it isn’t the intent of the sender that matters but the message decoded by the recipient. A HUGE percentage of people dislike these sorts of DMs, so it’s up to you to decide whether you respect that opinion. I appreciate your desire to thank people, but your need to express gratitude shouldn’t, I’d suggest, outweigh others’ preference to NOT be thanked by dozens of people a day for merely doing what Twitter is for.
If you were thanked with a message every time you visited a web site, or every time you turned on your TV to a particular network, or every time you started your car, that would get annoying and unwelcome. I’m afraid that on Twitter where people follow and are followedby the thousands, the annoyance factor easily outweighs the appreciation.
Best of luck to you. I hope you find the survey results persuasive!
Augie, the survey you sited was specifically about automated DM’s. I don’t send automated DM’s. Do you have any evidence showing that a polite, personalized “Thank you” direct message is equally unwelcome?
I don’t have data on that, but if you were to ask your followers if they welcome “thank you” DMs for following, I am quite confident you’ll get the same answer. After all, what’s the difference between, “Thanks for following me” and “Thanks for following me, Augie”? They’re both essentially meaningless DMs that get in the way of people who are really trying to reach me with info I’d appreciate and with whom I have an existing relationship.
Twitter is there to follow and be followed–a thank you is no more required that it is for you to thank the person who hit the brakes behind you when you came to a stoplight. (You don’t get out of the car to thank the person behind you, do you?)
In my opinion, it is the act of respecting people by NOT annoying them and by furnishing worthwhile information in your tweets that shows gratitude. You may intend your DMs as authentic expressions of gratitude, but my guess is that for most people it is something quite opposite that gets communicated by you.
Clearly, I’m not going to convince you, but I wish you’d think about it from the recipient’s point of view and not your own. You are likely followed by 10 to 20 people a day–do you really want to wade through 10 or 20 thank you messages? And how would it make you feel if you missed a DM from a true fan of your book because it got lost in a constant stream of “thank you,” thank you,” “thank you,” thank you,” “thank you,” thank you,” “thank you,” thank you,” “thank you,” thank you,” “thank you,” thank you,” “thank you,” thank you,” “thank you,” thank you,” “thank you,” thank you,” “thank you,” thank you,” “thank you,” “thank you,” “thank you,” thank you,” “thank you,” thank you,” “thank you,” “I like your book,” “thank you,” “thank you,” “thank you,” “thank you,” “thank you,” “thank you,” thank you,” “thank you,” thank you,” “thank you,” thank you.”
P.S. Did you notice the “I like your book” I inserted into that stream of thank you’s? I’ll bet not!
Augie, you are a hoot and a half! (That’s southern-speak for you made me smile) I’m not sure you convinced me, but you have certainly given me something to think about. I don’t want to be rude or annoying to anyone.
I’ve been on Twitter for 4 years and I’ve never heard a complaint about me saying “thanks for following” but I suppose someone could have been bothered by it. I will re-consider sending new followers a personalized DM (but it feels so wrong! Arg!)
And yes, I saw “I like your book” but I’m a proofreader by nature. I actually hope you will consider taking a peek at my book, even though I know you were just making a point 🙂
This has been an enlightening conversation and I appreciate your input. All the best to you!
Marti, You made me laugh as well. You must be great proofreader!
Best of luck. (And for what it’s worth, people won’t take the time to complain if they don’t like your DMs, they’ll just unfollow. Who knows–you may have another thousand followers by now without them!)
If someone unfollowed me for saying thank you, so be it *shrug*. But I genuinely do not want to be an annoyance, so I will think about not sending thank you’s.
I don’t use Twitter that often anymore and it was always about connecting with people I enjoyed having conversations with, not about building up big numbers. If I made you smile, I’m happy. My goal is to share joy and laughter with people, to make their day a little brighter. All the best to you!
I personally don’t think there is anything wrong with sending automatic “welcome” messages as long as you send something unique and/or change it a bit, and no I don’t send any automatic messages (yet).
Not everyone has the time to send thank you messages to everyone that follows them. I personally work full time and it would take a long time to message everyone that follows me.
However, I do dislike people that have everything automated like auto-replying to message. When someone messages me a question or a suggestion, then I would reply manually.
I was kinda directed here by Marti after seeing a tweet of hers about this subject. Although it is laudable that she does include this personal touch, it can still come across as annoying or irritating to receive a DM that could just as easily be sent as an open @reply.
My reasoning for this is DM’s are meant to be for private stuff, why is a ‘Hello & welcome’ private? If your pimping something I can understand you don’t want to appear that way in your timeline, but why don’t people send an open @reply instead. It would encourage the open conversation that twitter is all about, rather than be seen as some sort of automated spammer.
Good advice and interesting discussion, perhaps a follow up post is needed to sumarise all the comments and views expressed here?
I’m so glad you liked the cartoon and shared it with your readers – and that this post sparked such an interesting conversation.
And I’m with you on the issue of auto-DMs (although, cartoon notwithstanding, I probably wouldn’t go for imprisonment as my first solution to the problem). I haven’t received one yet that really added anything to my knowledge of the person I’d followed – at least, not in a positive way.
Thanks for drawing the cartoon, Rob!
Hi Ari,
In the beginning, everyone was sending DMs automatically and it was the thing to do. I never did though… not because I`m against anyone who does this. But you know.. it just didn’t feel right. And I`m all about feeling that something is natural.. especially when it comes to connecting with people. And so many spammers are doing it now that it just doesn’t seem to be good for us to do what they`re doing and be perceived wrongly. So I agree with you that automatic DMs on Twitter isn’t the best overall strategy.
Great cartoon by the way.
All the best,
Eren