Confessions of a Six Figure Professional Blogger

The Case Against Auto-DM’s On Twitter

May 18, 2009 | Feature, Marketing, Social Media

The Twitter footprint into our society has been growing like crazy. Celebrities and news organizations are now parading the word “Twitter” around as part of our normal lexicon. Of course, this means Twitter is a huge communication platform now…for everybody….not just for the early adopters.

Sham Wow This attracts marketers who see Twitter as a new, untapped goldmine.

Now, let me make one thing clear. I see NOTHING wrong with marketing on Twitter. To make money, we need people. People are on Twitter. Enough said.

However, there is a right way to do it and there is a wrong way. The right way is to build up relationships with people on Twitter and they find out about what you do based on that relationship. The wrong way is to hit them over the head with your offer immediately.

In real life, when you go to a party or social gathering, what do you do? Well, chances are you introduce yourself to people and get to know them. You join in on conversations that are happening. Before long, the people there know you and like you. That relationship, then, may leave the confines of that social gathering and move into the world of business.

When you go to a seminar or conference, most of the time any deals that come out of that were made in the bar. You were just hanging out and socializing with people. Once that personal bond is made, then business deals can happen.

Do you see where I’m going with this?

If I walked up to a person at a party and immediately started hard-selling them on my products, they’d hate me. If I walked up to people at a conference and immediately said “Hey, my name is David Risley, buy my crap!”, they would never – EVER – want to do business with me.

Yet, every single day, this is EXACTLY what so many people do on Twitter in the form of the automatic direct message. I follow them on Twitter, and I am assaulted with a auto-DM with their link and some lame excuse for a headline.

Picture 1

Even when an auto-DM is not an overtly lame promotion attempt, look at the way it comes across to the receiving party:

  • You’re pimping your website at me when I don’t even know you yet.
  • Because of the timing of it, we all know that it isn’t personal and that it is automatic. So, all welcomes are completely hollow and meaningless.
  • I have DMs set to come to me as emails, so all these auto-DMs end up just spamming my inbox.

When I follow a person on Twitter, I do so because I think they might have similar interests to mine and I want to tap into their thought stream. But, I have an instant distaste in my mouth when I am immediately assaulted with a blatant ad for their business right out of the gate.

Lastly, I will just mention that the people who hit me up with these ads CLAIM to be experts, but they are anything but. If these people actually knew how to make money with Twitter, they would know that these tactics don’t work. These people are applying 90’s spamming logic to Twitter. The good old “spray and prey” approach where they spray their message all over the place and prey a few are stupid enough to click on it.

It is really unfortunate that so many people get into this habit of auto-DMing, thinking it is helping their online promotional efforts, and not stopping to give it the slightest bit of thought.

My position is obvious. Don’t use auto-DM. Let people build a relationship with you on Twitter. Your bond will be rock-solid when you do that and people like me will have infinitely more chance of doing business with you at some point.

Because right now, those chances are ZERO.

If you enjoyed this article, you might also like...

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  5. Stupidest DMs From The Last Month on Twitter

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Enter email:

  • David, I so agree with you! When people follow me, even though I get behind sometimes, I take the time to check out each and every profile, decide if I'm going to follow them (purely a business decision) and then send them a welcome message. If they're going to follow me, it's the least I can do!
  • I understand and personally agree with your points. I have a question, though. What I understand of traditional marketing says (in a nutshell), "Spam enough people and the measly 3% who respond to your impersonal, badly targeted, unsolicited offer will still be enough for your success."

    Isn't that approach pretty common, and they're just trying to apply it to the new medium? I'm just wondering 1) will people really stop if it still works? and 2) why do you think it won't work online?
  • The comedy just writes itself...
  • prasanna
    Sorry above link is not working
    IT is worth to try

    Get great tips,tricks to make money from twitter http://bit.ly/TlXWr
  • prasanna
    Yes TWITTER is a great tool to market your brand.Only thing you required is to target the right followers in your nice.
    First you need to make your followers to trust you,then start marketing your brand.

    How to increase your twitter followers http://bit.ly/qtTOg

    Get great tips,tricks to make money from twitter http://bit.ly/IUBiH
  • David,

    Thanks for the post!

    You make very valid and intelligent points. Auto-DMing sales pitches especially with no relationship established is completely unacceptable in my book. That's a sure-fire way of not only being "unfollowed" but also blocked.

    Queuing this up for a RT!
  • I think most users on Twitter are there primarily to get exposure. i think some go way too far. Most of those who post are just posting links after links. It does get old real fast.

    I am not a Twitter Freak, every once in a while, I will just say Hello to everyone.
  • I have a great deal of sympathy for your comparison of Twitter to a party -- and then using both sides of the discussion to figure out what behavior is appropriate and what isn't. Seems to me that all too often -- people leverage the anonymity of sites on the Internet, or the possibility of it being a "new" environment, and behave like idiots, plain and simple. The reality is, we're still humans, and whether we like it or not, the vast majority of the time there are rules and norms to social interaction. Just because the web is a new place, doesn't mean anything goes. Great point here.
  • If you honestly care about making a relationship, there is no reason you would auto-DM. And if you would like to make a relationship with the people you follow, I've noticed that it really helps to put the name of the person you are messaging, just so they know it's not an automated message.
  • I totally agree with this! When I get an auto-DM, I often unfollow that person right away. Some of them seem like infommercials... "Trouble losing weight. We have a guaranteed solution! Check out my site..." Having real relationships is much more effective, and just like the non-cyber world, it takes time to develop them.
  • Absolutely. There is no reason to ever use an auto-DM. Twitter should phase them out.
  • Leif Stenlund
    Interesting post. Now, I signed up for twitter about a week ago, so I'm very new to this stuff. Your points is valid and I will follow your advise. I will not use auto-DM. Thanks, mate!
  • You don't have to follow anyone that you don't want to. Also don't get into Follow me and I will follow you thing also if you don't like the whole auto-dm's on Twitter.

    I follow anyone that want's to follow me. I also use the auto-dm for my twitter account if you follow me. Greg Ellison
  • Marie
    I'm fairly new to Twitter but as soon as I got involved and following people - who I thought had something in common with my business interests - I was insulted with the most timewasting "tweets" with, yes, the quotations, the boring info about "I'm having lunch with my mom" from people I don't know... and the constant assulat of bit.ly URLs to click on with various types of business scams. I thought Twitter was something completely different. And the number of people I want to follow...why do I want to follow thousands? I barely have the time to read comments from 10 or so. Is there some sort of record to be broken? I don't want to follow thousands, and I don't see the sense in having thousands follow me.
  • Agree wholeheartedly. When I first started on Twitter a few months ago, I just followed anyone at first, just to get the ball rolling and see what was out there. There are a LOT of the Internet Marketing type people out there. I have since pared it down quite a bit to people I actually enjoy interacting with, learn something from, or who are interested in the same things (of course with my varied interests, I have a lot of random-seeming connections there).

    You are one of only about 5 of the "internet guys" I have kept on my list. One because we live near each other, so we may actually be able to have a chat in person at an event or something, but also because of your approach. I have a huge distaste for "salespeople", even though that's what most of us are in one form or another.

    Anyone who auto DM's, spams out 10-20 links to their blog faster than anyone else on my Twitter stream can get in one, or any other kind of bot gets auto-unfollowed.

    Did you spell "spray and PREY" like that intentionally? ;-)
  • 100% agree with this post. Do Not Use. Even when the autoDM messages are "personal" as opposed to business pitches, the sender can look silly.

    I set up a second Twitter account for my website as opposed to my personal site. Almost exactly the same name so my followers would understand it was still a version of me. I had over 20 DMs in my mailbox--19 of which were auto DMs.

    It made the people looks stupid because they were all "Thanks for following! Can't wait to get to know you!" when I already have relationships with almost all of them.

    The one that stood out was a friend that said "haha I thought I was already following you but I like you, I'll follow this alterego of you!" because it was personal.
  • Agree with all of this, I absolutely hate the whole auto DM thing. Sadly, there seems to be a whole industry springing up where people are being TAUGHT by these so called experts to do this.

    The biggest joke of all is the "Increase your Twitter followers" DM's.....when they're from people with 23 followers. Can't they see the irony in that?

    The other thing that is starting to really irritate me is the inane "Quotations" thing, where people auto tweet (using something like Tweetlater) "inspirational" quotes every 15 minutes interspersed every 4 tweets with a link to some cheesy sales page.
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