Auto DMs Suck and If You Use Them You Might Suck, Too
By virtue of the work that I do, I spend a lot of time on Twitter. I keep Tweetdeck and the official Twitter app open on my Macbook through out the day, and check in every few minutes to see what’s going on.
Social media is a (relatvely) new frontier, so many businessses and companies are still figuring out best practices to get the most use out of their networks, and I totally understand that. However, there is one practice on Twitter that for me, is almost unforgivable. The Auto DM.
If you don’t know what an auto DM is, users can utilize a third party service which sends an automatic direct message to anyone who follows them. The practice is designed to create additional interaction by creating a dialogue, but because they are mass sent and impersonal, they often do the opposite.
According to Optify.com, auto DMs resulted in a 245% unfollow rate!