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Moment of Silence – The Death of the Auto-DM

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Why the Death of the Auto DM?

Woke up one to many people

I was rudely woken up last night. — 3:15AM to be exact…

My phone vibrates underneath my cheek and its twitter letting me know about my most recent DM. I open the email expecting something important. This is what I find,

“Hey lets connect on FB (LInk) And Linkedin (Link) Have you heard of my new Ebook (LINK).”

Lets just say I wasn’t happy. Actually, lets take that a step further – I was ready to send a virus to whoever invented whatever tool it was that the tool who sent the DM was using.

Embarrassment Tool 101

How often have you replied back to a DM saying “Hey, Thanks for the Follow! What are you passionate about?” – None? Good for you. Me? Once and a half. I stopped half way through the reply when I realized it was an Auto-DM. You know that its an Auto-DM because the person never replies and when you check their twitter page you realize everything is coming from API and Twitterfeed. No Retweets, no replies and although they have 30,000 followers – They only are listed in 20 groups.

Turning Nice People into…spam

If you use any Auto-DM tool you’re a human piece of Spam ruining a great product for your own personal gain. It may benefit you in the short term to send out these automated DM’s but I bet if you weren’t so lazy and put in solid effort you would find better gains. I loved this definition of spam,

  • Nobody wants it or ever asks for it.
  • No one ever eats it; its the first item to be pushed to the side.
  • Sometimes it is actually tasty, like 1% of the time.

Its just plain Lazy – Laziness will get you no where

I mean, seriously people; how difficult is it to write a customized message in 140 characters or less? No one likes a lazy person and no one likes a lazy twitterer. If you are automating everything on your twitter page you will more than likely be wasting your time. UNLESS, you are making money off of spamming people on a regular basis. I have never met an automated DM that I liked. If you can show me one I’d love to see it. I’ve never sent out an Auto-DM and never will sign up for a program that will allow me to do so.

“A lazy person, whatever the talents with which he starts out, have condemned himself to second-rate thoughts, and to second-rate friends”
– Cyril Connoly

Its Insulting if Anything

Sending an automated DM is sort of a slap in the face. I mean, you’re basically telling people that you want them to be your friend but you don’t have time to write the 140 characters yourself. Get over yourself and write a customized tweet!

Earlier this week, Scott Stratten made the post Mannequin Networking – Why Twitter Automation Is Bad. While I agree with some of his points and disagree with others. This post added some sticks to an already burning fire. Lets just say that it had a significant part in igniting this rant about auto direct messages.

This is the death of the Auto-DM! There is no purpose for it in the social media world. Well okay, I retract that statement – There is a purpose; if you want to make your money in a sleazy way. Ladies and Gents, I’m here to announce Death of the Auto-DM – Off with its head!

If Jay-Z can proclaim the Death of Autotune I can proclaim the Death of Auto-DM.

Down with Monologue, Cheers to the Dialogue!