I have to laugh every time I hear some big-name marketer whining about their Twitter in-box overflowing with auto-DMs. "What, you didn't expect it?"

Before you get all in a kerfuffle, let me say that I DON'T approve of sending multiple auto-DMs to the same person. One when they first follow you is generally fine (but please use it to welcome or share something genuinely useful or entertaining). Anything more belongs in a regular tweet.

Okay, now that I've cleared that up and only 98% of you still disagree with me, here's my point.

As I wrote elsewhere the other day (in the style of Gödel, Escher, Bach :-), the problem is over-following! (If you read "overflowing", go back and read that last word again). The ONLY way a person can get their message into your DM-box is if you follow them. If you get too many DMs, you're either following someone who sends too many, or (more likely), following a whole bunch of people you've got no good reason to follow.

Let's think about this. Why follow someone?

  • Because you want to read what they write. Can't argue with that one -- that's why I follow people.
  • Because they followed you...
    • ...so it's good manners to follow them back. I predict that as Twitter matures, this expectation will die (and with more and more big names finally waking up to the fact that they can't possibly follow the 30,000 people who're following them, I predict it'll happen soon). It makes little sense, and it's totally unsustainable.
    • ...so you owe it to them to follow them back. Baloney. In the first place, if they're "following" more than about 50-75 people, they're probably not actually going to read any of your tweets. So why should you be obligated to add them to your friends list? But it's really more than that -- no one has the right to obligate you to listen to them without your consent. If they get value from your tweets, you've "paid" them for following you. If not, they shouldn't be following you.
  • Because you want to get to know more people (whether purely social or professional). Okay, sounds reasonable. If that's what you're really there for, I imagine you'll be tweeting and messaging enough that auto-DMs will only be a tiny fraction of what you see.
  • So that they can use DMs to contact you. Let them "@ message" or reply to you (they can do that whether you follow them or not) or go to your helpdesk or contact form. Why on earth are you sending random strangers to an in-box where they're limited to 140 characters per message?
  • So they'll follow you back. I've already addressed the other side of this point. "What's bad for the goose is bad for the gooser." (Isn't that how they saying goes? :-) If you're trying to amass a large following for bragging rights or to spam with your marketing tweets...please stop. (Amassing a large following to market to is fine, as long as they're people who really chose to opt-in. Indiscriminately following people for the reciprocal follow so you can market to them is spamming).

If you're getting too many DMs, stop "following" people you don't actually follow.

Reader Comment:
Antone Roundy said:
Let me add one more thing -- my OPINION and my ADVICE aren't necessarily the same. Although auto-DMs aren't inherently evil, you might not want to use them. Why? Because a large percentage of your followers are probably following way too many peop...
(join the conversation below)

Problem solved.

Twitter doesn't need to block DM access from third party apps. You don't need to sign a petition asking everybody to stop auto-DMing. You don't need to rail against auto-DMs on you blog. You don't have to go to each auto-DM-sending site and opt out.

You just need to take down that silly marquee that says "all DMs accepted here."