The “Turnabout is Fair Play” Strategy for Twitter Auto DMs

How often does this happen to you? You see you’ve been followed by someone. You check out their tweets, decide there’s enough there to warrant a return follow. Soon thereafter, Tweetdeck or email let you know you have a new DM. Oh joy!

It’s one of those damn auto-DMs. Often helpfully giving you links to some thing about which you care little.

Do people like getting these auto-DMs? Here’s a search on Twitter for ‘auto dms’:

And check out this FriendFeed discussion from last February. Tiring of these, a thought occurred to me. I can’t stop these auto-DMs. Why not respond in kind?

Send a “return-DM” to the auto-DMer.

I mean, the theory is that the auto-DM might include links you’re interested in. After all, you followed the person, right?

So I’m going to start sending a return-DM back to everyone that auto-DMs me. Note – I’m not going to auto-DM those that follow me. But I do want to make sure whoever takes the time to thoughtfully craft a personal auto-DM, gets the return favor.

My initial return-DM will be:

Hey, love your tweets! Here’s a post I think you’ll enjoy: Enterprise 2.0 and the Trough of Disillusionment http://bit.ly/YSBDk Rock on!

I’ll mix up the blog posts I include. It won’t stop the auto-DMs, but it’ll feel good letting the other person know I’m thinking about them.