I got this Direct Message about 9 hours after I followed someone on Twitter recently. Let’s call him “Twidiot,” for short. You’ll see why in a second.
I first found Twidiot’s stream when he followed our corporate account, @conductorinc, – and when we followed him back, we received a personal response. “Thanks for following! Looking forward to getting to know you. How’s business?” Wow – what a nice thing to say to someone who follows you. Well done, Twidiot.
Now, this is a person I’ve bumped into at a couple of search conferences, and I wanted to check and see if he was coming to New York for SES. I’m a big believer in sending messages from personal twitter accounts, and using the corporate accounts for more of an alert channel. So since I wanted to send Twidiot a message, I followed him with the @dotterer tag. If he’s interested in chatting, he can follow me back – and I’ll reach out. If not – I was interested in seeing what he had to say anyway.
So I get a follow back on @dotterer, and send a direct message asking Twidiot if he wants to meet in NY. We’re having a networking dinner, and I figure I’ll invite him. Message sent, and back to the marketing automation project I’m working on.
Several hours after that, Twidiot reaches out to me. “”Thanks for following! Looking forward to getting to know you. How’s business?” The SAME response as to the corporate account, but on a nine hour delay.
Ok, so I get you’re busy and all, but seriously, either just have the bot say “Thanks for following, ” and get on with it, or don’t have a bot.
But if you’re going to add ‘How’s business’ – you better respond to the DM. Otherwise it’s just bad personal branding. I’ll run into this person multiple times at conferences again – and every time I see him I’ll think ‘phony.’
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