socialtoo

Chris Brogan sounded off this morning about “Robot Behavior” in Social Media, and specifically “auto-dms.” Here are some results of a pretty unscientific survey on them from early October. The questions concern “automatic direct messages.” These are short private messages on Twitter that you can automatically send (using 3rd-party services) when someone “follows” you (subscribes to your content stream) there.

Their use is becoming common, but it’s not clear that’s terribly smart. They are pretty unpopular with those who responded to this survey. Of note, “special offers” are loathed, and opinions about how a “company” Twitter account uses them are very specific.

Companies take note – your Twitter accounts are definitely considered a “special case” on this matter. You’ll want to be really thoughtful about how you use these tools if you choose to.

My comment from Chris’ post:

I took a survey on this (but never got a chance to publish the results), and people were pretty clear about HATING auto-dms with “links to my stuff” “free eBooks,”or anything self-promotional. Most people agreed that a simple “thanks for following” was okay. Feelings towards companies using these tools were pretty specific and different from the “rules” for personal Twitter accounts.

Realistically, I think they’re probably not nearly as irritating when they are in frequent. For most users, they’re just not that frequent. For accounts that are fast-growing, they are a real annoyance.

I also think the numbers we saw are probably outdated, as in the 6 weeks since I did the survey, use of them has become MUCH more prevalent.

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