Which Side of the Auto DM Fence are You On?

I’ll go first and say that I’m still sitting on the fence. I know many of you have your feet firmly planted on the ground on one side of the fence or the other, but I can see both sides of the argument. I am definitely leaning more toward one side than the other, but still on the fence, none the less.

For those of you who are new to Twitter and aren’t familiar with what I’m talking about, auto DMs are direct messages that are sent automatically by a service, like TweetLater or SocialToo, in response to a new follow. Some people use them to say something simple like, “Thanks for the follow” and others go too far (in my opinion), and ask you to follow a friend or worse, check out their website and then provide a link. Although the latter may not technically be spam based on the dictionary definition, it sure comes close. I may have followed you but that hardly qualifies as opting in and giving you permission to advertise to me.

It is possible to cut out most of the auto DM clutter by opting out in a couple places, but it takes a little effort. To opt out of auto DMs sent by SocialToo you need to open an account, provide them with your Twitter ID and password, and then select the opt out box. It’s a bit easier to do on TweetLater and you won’t need to sign up for their service first. The process is fairly simple. First you need to follow @optmeout and then reply to a DM, but opting out of TweetLater DMs will only stop the ones sent using TweetLater. SocialToo claims that by using their service they opt you out of all services but I’m still getting DMs that I’m pretty sure are auto sent even though I’ve opted out on both sites.

I want to be clear that this post is about auto DMs specifically because I have no problem with a personal direct message that is sent when I follow someone. How can you tell the difference? Because a personal DM will say something like, “Hi Hugh, thanks for the follow. I checked out your website and love your backgrounds. Nice blog too.” Who would be upset about a DM like that? It’s obviously personal; couldn’t have been constructed automatically; and it’s complimentary and everyone appreciates compliments.

So back to auto DMs and what I don’t like about them. Sure, some of you think that it’s polite to thank someone for following you, like shaking hands with someone, but if I know it was sent automatically by a service, why would I perceive it as a personal thank you? It’s totally impersonal as a matter of fact. Like watching a politician shake hands with people. It’s a reflex and means nothing.

Here’s my suggestion. If you get a few followers a day and want to take the time to thank them with a DM and actually personalize the message in some way, more power to you. But, if you get a lot of followers or use an auto follow service and also use that service to send auto DMs, please stop. And, if you send me an auto DM with a link to check out, BAM, say hello to my leetle unfollow.