Today I hopped on Twitter to catch up with friends and contacts that I haven’t spoken to this busy weekend. Upon logging in, I noticed a bunch of new followers. Yay! Sort of… Here’s a shot of the Direct Message inbox:
Some of these people are users that have followed me and then, this is the message I received when i followed back. With robotic auto-reply messages like these, how “social” are we, really? Twitter is a great place to connect with others like yourself or others you hope to form relationships with. Auto-messaging may hinder that by feeling like a piece of direct mail rather than a hand shake.
Don’t get me wrong, I would love to receive a message from every person i follow; I just hope its genuine.
This is important to keep in mind when building a new or a current Twitter account. People know when they are being “sold” something, so take a second to learn a little bit about someone you’re reaching out to. After all, this is social media.
Having said that, I also understand that it can be hard to reach all your followers, especially if you’ve got thousands. Unfortunately, Twitter has sort of become an arms race to the most followers, but the number of followers isn’t as important as the relationships you make. For a great guide on what NOT to do, check out @PRsarahevans‘ post on how NOT to build your Twitter account.
