A few weeks ago my heart sang as my phone gave me that delightful little notification jingle to alert me someone on Twitter thought I was cool. I checked my phone and saw a newly launched web design agency in Indy had decided to tick my follower count up a notch.
Since I love keeping up with the marketing and design world in my backyard, I perused their website and gave them a follow, looking forward to keeping up with their venture.
But within 5 minutes of me following them back they set our relationship potential in flames with one little action: an ill-worded DM.
“Hey – I was looking at your site and thought I could help put a new spin on it. Let me know if you are interested.”
On the surface this isn’t a terrible message. No f-bombs. Nothing that makes me throw my computer across the room. But here’s why it didn’t work:
- I designed my own website, so implying to me that it sucks right off the bat? Not the way to go. They probably wouldn’t have known that for sure, but had they followed me a while they might have learned that I’ve been slowly learning web design and launching my own projects.
- There was no thank you for following them.
- They went for the sale–and not just a little sale, a $1000+ sale–right off the bat without making any attempt to build a relationship. Why would I want to give them that kind of money when I didn’t even know they existed 15 minutes ago?
Based on the time that passed between the follow and the message, I’m assuming they have an autoresponder dishing out this gem to every person who follows, which is probably not-so-great news for them.
[Tweet “No one likes your DM. Here’s why:”]
Overall, I’m not a fan of auto DMs, and neither is anyone else, really. The Edgar team just recently discussed that auto DMs dramatically boost your chances of an unfollow (they’re the #1 reason for an unfollow reported in 2014). Thanking every single person who follows you isn’t necessary by any means, but if you’re going to reach out to people in a DM, make it genuine! Use your brand voice. Don’t ask them for anything. Don’t send them a thousand links of other places to connect. They’re connecting with you on Twitter already and that’s more than they owe you, so embrace it!
A few week’s prior to the web agency’s DM, I got a follow from a nearby marketing agency. They’d been on my radar already and I quickly gave them a follow back. That same day, though not immediately, they sent a quick DM:
“Hey! It’s friggin’ awesome of you to follow us. Seriously. Thanks.”
I liked it so much, I actually tweeted a screenshot saying that it was one of my fave post-follow DMs I’d received, which then led them to re-tweet me.
[Tweet “Want to send a DM to your new follower? Don’t do this!”]
Why did I like it so much? It’s short and sweet, made me feel like they really did appreciate my follow, and it was loaded with their signature humor & communication style. It also didn’t come off as an autoresponder, which made me feel more valued as a follower (and if they do use one, they did all right things to mask it). I’ve been building a relationship with them on Twitter since.
Auto-DMs? Not in a million years 🙂
Regular ol DM’s? No, not really. If someone follows me that I’d like to connect with, I just send them a regular @reply. I see DMs are a private space for sharing information that’s, well, private.
I guess I, like Havi Brooks, see Twitter a bit like a bar, where people hang out, jump in and out of conversations, comment something they overhear etc.
DMs is like getting someone to a secluded table and getting… intimate I suppose, in a totally not-sexual way.
In the same manner, I see a DM like the one you describe as a violation of my personal space.
But maybe I’m just weird 🙂
I haven’t had as much experience with Twiter Auto Responders, but the auto IG comments are terrible! At first I wondered who has time to go through and put comments on people’s photos that don’t even make much since, but then I realized it’s being automatically done. There a plenty of things you can automate, but these kinds of interactions on SOCIAL media just aren’t one of them. The on auto responder you mentioned was pretty awesome though. Kudos to them!