We’ve all seen them. You click follow on an interesting looking new Twitter profile, and soon receive an automatic message from them
Thanks [twitter name] for following me!
Thanks for the follow! My blog is [url]
Like my Facebook for more updates!
Auto DM’s aren’t a new thing, but they bring out the strongest opinions out of people. We asked you what you thought of them, here are a few responses…
https://twitter.com/alicej_t/status/580625285017665536
https://twitter.com/CMClaire/status/580623802708676608
https://twitter.com/thisgirlloves_/status/580623672358150144
We have been testing out an auto DM on our Twitter account to bring people to this site. The results surprised us – less than 5% of people who followed in the three days that we had this turned on unfollowed (and that seemed to be less influenced by the DM, and more to do with the account being the sort that follows and unfollows quickly to try and get more followers). It did encourage a few people to reply back to the DM as well, which was a great way to say hi to new people!
If you have them enabled, and don’t know how to get rid of them, then it’s worth heading over to your Apps page on Twitter and revoking access to anything you can’t identify what you regularly use.
What do you think? Are auto DM’s to welcome new followers a good idea?
I hate them and will often unfollow if the DM sends me links to sell me stuff.
I find them impersonal and, as another tweeter mentioned above, very robotic. I think sending a “real” and personalized message would be so much better :)