Thanks For Following, Now Click On My Junk

Amber, I have experienced it too, on Twitter,Facebook, LinkedIn and in Ning communities. It bothers me too. People are impatient and not willing to let a business relationship develop naturally. They see social media as a time and cost efficient way to sell and by golly they’re not going to waste time trying to figure out if you’re even their market. Hopefully we can lead by example and educate along the way.

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Blogging (and I include Twitter as Micro Blogging) is about engagement and building up a level of trust. If you engage with a person in the correct manner then you encourage them to participate. You can then discuss and promote you business in the appropriant way.Its also about reciprecation namely sharing of expertise and information
I unfollow people who issue a bog standard thanks for following…this is my site. There is no effort (apart from the click of a mouse) made or attempt at engagement

Wait, what about an auto DM that simply thanks for the follow? I am no Twitter Star and I am truly thankful for the follow. Anyone that follows me deserves a thanks, trust me. I honestly don’t have time to thank all new followers in a timely manner so I use an automated system. Impersonal I know. I don’t have a blog or am peddling something. Question: should I can the auto thanks even of it means I miss thanking someone? Oh and thanks for the follow!!!!

I could not agree more. Often makes me want to unfollow them. I feel it’s a like a modern version of “Smell my finger” in a way.

This has really been bothering me lately too. And it bothers me even more if I get the DM after I’ve just return followed out of courtesy.

If you’re going to do an automatic DM, at least make it helpful instead of spammy. Here’s a recent one that’s okay in my book, from @CraftyCoach: Thanks for following me. What’s your most pressing craft marketing question? How can I help?

Alisons last blog post..Grounds for Conversation: Making Sure Your Investment Pans Out [episode #7]

This has really been bothering me lately too. And it bothers me even more if I get the DM after I’ve just return followed out of courtesy.

If you’re going to do an automatic DM, at least make it helpful instead of spammy. Here’s a recent one that’s okay in my book, from @CraftyCoach: Thanks for following me. What’s your most pressing craft marketing question? How can I help?

Alisons last blog post..Grounds for Conversation: Making Sure Your Investment Pans Out [episode #7]

Agreed! I always advocate the art of selling by not actually selling. Always be genuine and find out if that person actually needs your services or products before even telling them straight on their face.

Suddenly my inbox was flooded with comment follow-up notifications and I had to come over here because I was like, “Holy cow, there’s a party going on in Amber’s comments and I don’t want to be the odd man out!”

Now click on my junk.

Seriously, though. I was watching MAD TV the other day and it dawned on me that these “click my junk” tweeple are the online equivalent of that giant man-child character Stuart. You know, the one who’s always like, “Look what I can do!!” and does a stupid little dance just for attention. I am sooooo calling these people “Stuarts” from now on.

Well said, Amber. I don’t have too many followers, but I’m still blown away when I get a sincere message or follow-up from someone I just started following. We’ve all said it a million times: It’s about the conversation, however small it may be. And the best conversation is one that has at least two people willing to both share and listen.

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Cheapsuits @29: “I honestly don’t have time to thank all new followers in a timely manner”

Please hear the friendly but unrhetorical tone in my voice when I ask a question:

Seriously?

You could do this while you’re watching TV at night . . . you could do it at the end of the day, or when you have a few minutes before a meeting . . . takes 30 seconds per follower.

Believe me, I understand the press of time — I have three jobs and a family — but I just wonder whether you couldn’t find a couple of minutes here and there for this task.

Tim (@Twalk) Walkers last blog post..The root wisdom of marketing: people care about THEMSELVES.

You’ve obviously struck a chord, Amber. So good to see all these people who support what you are saying. Yes, “click on my junk” is brilliant.

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Amber – Well, it sounds as though the world is divided into the “thoughtful followers” and the, hmm, politically correct term… “loose followers.” To that I say, beware the extremists. There is plenty of grey space between.

I’ll start by simply saying that I agree with Stewart Mercer (hey there, still enjoying your blips!). For newbies, they have no sense for netiquette. Of course we all have a different sense for netiquette. I jumped on the net in 1988. Almost everything ON the internet now would be blown to smithereens in the eyes of the old guard of the net. Times change – it’s a bigger world of participation now.

I’ve been hearing similar “anti-follow” arguments since first jumping on LinkedIn many, many years ago. If I hadn’t broadened my horizons by expanding my network out beyond only those I “actually knew” – I would’ve never been able to have breakfast, lunch, dinner, drinks, or a walk around Copenhagen with people I previously only “virtually knew” and finally had a chance to meet in person halfway around the world.

There are MANY use cases, and neither you, nor I, nor anyone else has to agree as to what those are. Twitter, or LinkedIn, or many other things are simply works in progress for making connections.

You can always unfollow, you can always elect not to receive e-mail notifications of a follow, you can block, report, fold, spindle, mutilate, even simply ignore…

Personally, I’d rather follow first and rapidly unfollow if need be, then not have a chance to see what’s flowing by in the tweet stream.

This is a difference between actively looking to discover new sources of input, or specifically seeking out an answer.

My use cases, for example, are partly driven by the need as an analyst/researcher, to get a sense for what’s going on in the big wide world.

To be able to tap the big social well, why wouldn’t it be perfectly valid to engage people in multiple media? If pointing out your own blog or business is bad form, why do people in engage in PR? Sales? Marketing?

I think we all have varying degrees of the idea of “personal online space” (as opposed to personal PHYSICAL space), and what may seem aggressive to some is completely normal to others.

BTW – solving the “[fill in the blank media] spam” problem is almost impossible. I covered e-mail filtering solutions for years, and have heard of hundreds of ideas for filtering spammers. None are perfect, most are far from perfect. At the crux of the problem… exactly what IS spam?

SOME of it is “obvious” – but most, is not. If it was, spam wouldn’t work at all.

Twitter could use a bit of reputation filtering, as others have said here. In that regard, the “props” side of blip.fm has twitter beat, interestingly enough. There is no “thumbs down” however, which would lead the feedback to only ever spiral up… ah, the pros and cons of emergence!

The real short response – we’re all figuring this out. The vast majority of the inhabitants of this planet have never heard of twitter, and never will. In that regard, we’re all anti-social weirdos.

Cheers,
Dan

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Wow – no, I never add links to my welcome tweets nor do I DM people with links. I figure they can check my bio and find the link to my web site if they want to. Now that’s not agressive marketing, but hey – I’m not at Twitter *just* to market my real estate biz – I’m there to learn, to help, to meet people and as an aside, just like at a cocktail party or other social function, bring up my business if it’s helpful or answer questions if the answer will be helpful. That’s assertive marketing, not agressive marketing and it’s the kind I like best for me.

I don’t do the DM welcome thing. In fact, I don’t pay too much attention to who follows me. There are only two times I care…

1. When I want to DM somebody because I don’t want to post something private or sensitive or just inappropriate to shout out in a loud room, like “What’s your email address? I have an idea you might like.”

2. Once I actually start interacting based on what one or both of us is tweeting.

I pretty much ignore welcome DMs unless they are incredibly personal for the same reasons as in this post; I am following with the intention to know the person or at least benefit from the information in his/her tweets…but we don’t know each other yet.

I totally agree with that. I nearly immediately unfollow someone if I think they’re just around to send me links all the time and promote rather than communicate.

However, you lost 3 somewhere in that post.

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Amber, this struck a chord with me as well. In fact, I’ve just sheepishly disabled my autoreply!

Twitter is such a powerful tool for expanding your reach very quickly. Yet, the tools to try to parse out the information overload (sippy cup vs. fire hydrant) are still somewhat lacking. I think it’s easy to get caught up in each new twad (twitter fad?) that comes our way.

Just watched a video of Seth Godin talking about the importance of building networks with people in meaningful ways and realized how quickly I’d managed to get so far from that.

A big THANK YOU for another reminder!

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(In fact, I’m following up each auto reply with a personal reply right now.

I’m also making a point to visit their websites if they have one posted.

Thanks again!)

faryls last blog post..Dad Dreams: Like the Original Becky, But Way Better

I use a different approach – I send an auto-reply with a video introduction. The feedback has been significantly positive, and therefore I don’t feel it’s “spammy” of me to do. I would love to hear your thoughts: http://robinsontechnology.com/blog/2008/12/07/twitter-spam-or-welcome-innovation/

Thanks,
-Brian

Brian R. Robinsons last blog post..Twitter Spam or Welcome Innovation?

I came here via BRob on Tech’s blog link.

I liked his standard intro video. I thought that it provided an opportunity for us to connect in a more meaningful way right away.

I don’t use an auto-responder. I make a quick decision on whether to return the follow based upon a peek at last few tweets, twitter bio and sometimes a click through on any link offered in bio.

But I am thinking about going to an auto-follow, auto-respond so thanks for this post.

I thank followers with this DM:

Amber, txs 4 the follow. gift here: http://twurl.nl/vqw70i reviews: http://twurl.nl/wz686b pls join this series: http://twurl.nl/raza2n

The ebook represents a lot of work on my part. I think it is a useful doc and I share the reviews so that they can be assured of that and will hopefully share their feedback.

I invite people into the SoCap&Brand series, because I think it is a great, important discussion for the social media, early adoptor types found on twitter to get involved in.

I have over 600 followers and have had only one complaint so far that was withdrawn after I called them on it.

But, I am interested in how this thread unfolds.

I invite you and others who are weighing this issue to DM or email me at michael (at) socialcapitalvalueadd.com with simply advice … skip the linked up welcome message or go for it, value packed links are always welcomed.

In any event, I think the welcome vid is a good idea.

What would you say if Brian included some sort of value add (like a link to the experience evolving out of this post) in the video to sweeten the link?

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Thanks for being open to discussing this Amber …

I agree about the dynamics of a cocktail party.

I have heard this metaphor to describe twitter before. How far does a metaphor go in describing a new 140 character medium that most users employ for business purposes?

Do you think it depends on the project as well? If my project is a perfume campaign, that is one thing, but if I am trying to bring people into a discussion of the difference between social capital as a new corporate asset and brand … is it not fair to act on the permission expressed by a “follow” with something that is very likely the motive for that follow?

Anywhoo, perhaps debate is self defeating? If my goal is to engage people with the idea of Social Capital Value Add and I am immediately turning them off, then it is time to change tactics.

I hope that folks will email me with their advice as requested above.

Michael Cayleys last blog post..Innovation: You Need to Eat Your Children