Debating the Auto DM on Twitter

Considering Auto Direct Messaging on Twitter

Should I use Twitter Auto Direct Messages (auto dm)?

I just recently began my journey on Twitter and for the most part have found it to be a great tool. Not only can I communicate with current clients, but I can also promote my website’s articles and get my ideas out to a number of others that might not have otherwise found this website! After only a couple weeks, I have nearly 100 followers, most of which just decided to follow me for reasons unknown to me. That’s pretty cool!

After playing around for a bit, I have found a few cool programs to  help automate posting to Twitter and have seen a few “tricks” along the way. One of these “tricks” is called the Auto DM. The DM is a direct message to a follower and with an Auto DM a new DM is sent to a new follower automatically. Ideally, an Auto DM should be a “thank you for following me” message. Unfortunately, spammers as well as very aggressive marketeers have abused the Auto DM giving it a bad name. Do a search on Twitter for “autodm” and you will see a lot of angry Twitter users crying out for an end to the practice!

Personally, I think a carefully crafted message would be more than appropriate. Something along the lines of “Hey @user, thank you for following my Tweets. I look forward to reading yours as well! Ed” would be a great DM. I have even looked around for services that handled the Auto DM for me. Sadly, the more I have researched this, the more I have come to realize that the Auto DM has been too badly abused and seems to have such a poor stigma, that to do this may be a bad move on my part. So, for now, I have decided not to use the Auto DM on Twitter just yet and will research it some more.

If you are a Twitter user and have an opinion on the Auto DM, please share it with me. Do you recommend using it, or staying away from the practice? I’d love to get some real feedback on this one!

Thanks

Ed