Why Twitter DMing For New Followers is Stupid
The Issue
You are happily moving about the web and you stumble onto this website called ‘Twitter.’ Maybe you found it due to your love of Oprah or perhaps your friend pushed you there because they thought it would be a good thing for you. As a result, you run through the signup fields and start looking for people to follow. Soon you find that a couple of people have direct messaged (a tweet that only you see) you in thanks for your participation in following their tweets.
Why This is Not Personal
Ever walk through the office or perhaps the park for all you freelancers, and catch the eye of someone you think you have met before? You promptly go into a fear that forces your brain to throw yourself back through time, through your parties and raves, through your time pimping your services, etc. You come up with absolutely nothing and realize you are about to walk past the person and not say a word. Your response? What-is-up, the white man nod, hey, or any other phrase that you hope elicits a response in the person’s head but not via their mouth.
What You Have Accomplished
Nothing, nil, anger, a lost contact, a lost follower, someone blocking you, or simply…nada. Now that we have that out of the way, lets begin to actually understand why. Twitter was built to share a mass amount of information between people easily and quickly and by DMing new followers you accomplish absolutely none of this. You ask for no response, you provide no real information and you attempt to look better then most people because you have so many followers that you need a new follower DM. Hmm, I wonder for a second if that last sentence could be considered a run on for a lot of the verbiage folks out there. Anyway, I know this next comment will also get me into a lot of trouble but I definitely feel it; everyone is equal on twitter….EVERYBODY! We are all worth 140 characters and seriously that is all. To conclude, since you are not participating or creating a conversation and creating an air of “better,” which are two 404 errors in the twitter world, please stop DMing new followers…ciao.
