I recently decided to follow everyone on Twitter who was following me, both as a sign of reciprocation (accepting they’re e-friendship) and so they could DM me. This has worked well in some cases; I’ve met some great people. Some of whom I’ve met and had great conversations with. One I’ve helped to create her online brand, and one who gave me a freelance job (see Lift Summit 2010 posts).

On the other hand, I’ve been inundated with spammy automated DMs. They thank me for following them and include a link to their Facebook page or website. Although some of these links may be helpful to me, and the DM may say something complimentary like “I’m very impressed,” I know they are automated. I have a problem with this. Why? Not only is it irritating, but it’s also the opposite of best practices for social media.

The great thing about social media is that it’s bringing back the human, and with that, personal connections. Automated mass messages through social media say to me that you don’t care. That you just want to push your product or service. I realize that personally responding to each new follower is an impossible task. I tried it for about five minutes. These people probably thought my DMs were automated and spammy too, no matter how I tried to personalize them. So I stopped.

So what’s the answer? I don’t know. I just follow everyone who follows me to open up the lines of communication, and when I see something interesting, I comment on it with an @ message. I’d rather say nothing than be mistaken as a spammer.

There is one good thing that’s come out of these spammy DMs though: I know who to unfollow pretty quickly.

What’s your perspective on automatic “Thanks for the follow” DMs? Do you have an alternative that’s different than mine?

Photo by freezelight