How Not to Market on Twitter

Amen. They need to tie up the Magpies with Twine and feed them to the tweeter getter....

Plus one here. Ideeli.com (retail sample invite only site) has done the same thing, auto DMs saying "Hey! Join Me!" Kinda kill the exclusivity of the site.

Hey Chris, have you tried my Personal Brand? I think you'll like it. Check it out: http://twitter.com/ikepigott

Amen.

Doesn't it seem like there's some kind of a application gold-rush going on this week? It's all sort of disturbing, but mostly annoying.

Thanks, Chris --

The invites via direct message annoy me, too. Blip.fm will never get me to sign up now.

Thanks for share this Chris. This is a really bad practice in using Twitter.

Amen. I just hope that I don't lose my bearings one day and accidentally sign up for one of these spamming sites!

Sort of reminds me of the ole' Herbalife "Lose Weight Now Ask Me How" bit. Curiosity did more than kill the cat, it made him part with his money as well...

That's the thing about social media - it's a tool. It's not a substitute for connecting with your audience/customers, it's a WAY to do that. Tweets like this are about as effective as robocalls - marginally so in some circumstances but almost universally reviled.

I totally agree with this philosophy. Auto DM messages in Twitter do not show a personal relationship. One thing I appreciate of my interactions on Twitter is how I can interact with individuals and have a conversation. These conversations are truly two sided. Sometimes we agree, and sometimes we agree to disagree. I generally ignore most posts that just suggest trying out something or just give a link. From these DMs, I would not even click one to see what Twine is about. I consider this to be bad marketing form.

Agree 100%, Chris!
Social Medai is about relationships. Twitter is a village. I any village people relate, interact and also buy and sell from each other. But, a village is far more than a place to simply trade. That's why traveling salesmen had such a bad re in the old days. They were not a part of the group! They were only there to do business.
Thanks,
Judy Rey Wasserman
On Twitter @judyrey

As someone who I assume opted out of the two "biggies" in auto DMing, I'm guessing these people are using another service. Sigh. I understand why spammers do this, they're trying to steal your information. But if you're pushing a legitimate service, what makes you think obnoxious DM's are going to help build said service?! It's akin to a pushy car salesman who thinks berating is the way to sales.

You follow 38,624 people, probably 35,000 of which you don't know. Maybe you shouldn't. They can all DM you. Would you put your mobile phone number on a highway billboard? This isn't much different. Because the platform has remarkably few rules, absentee customer service, and amateur self-policing, people can do what they please.

I'm really surprised at this. I've been a member of Twine since the public beta and I've not seen them do anything like this before. Nova Spivack is behind the site and he's a clever guy, I'm sure he knows better.

i tried twine and it sucks. next....

Isnt the medium (in this case twitter) just begging to be exploited by advertising in some form or other? I think there's a rush at the moment because twitter has hit the headlines across Europe so loads of people are jumping onboard on top of the celebrity endorsements. Just like Google ads though, it will spike and ebb off as we all become more familiar so grin and bear it I say, just don't let it get to you.

Bear in mind that alot of people are seriously desperate for money at the moment and if this looks like a feasible way to make so extra can you really blame them for trying?

Me personally I don't mind the odd advert of someone if they make a few quid, I dont even mind people promoting affiliate links for themselves, its the SPAM that gets me, and which seems to have annoyed you on this occasion Chris.

A little bit of subtly goes along way and a heads up on adverts by the poster/twitterer is always appreciated but at the end of the day can we all agree it has a time and a place?

I've been getting a lot of those types of DMs lately.

I get a lot of flacking for only following, on average, about 60% of the people that follow me. But this is one of the main reasons why. It may take me time to check out every profile that follows me, but I want to see if the tweets there: educate, entertain or inspire me, If not one of their tweets on their profile page do that for me, I don't follow. I also don't get any DM spam.
Every week, I check out the profiles of people that follow me that I don't follow and re-evaluate. Sure that takes time, but it sure feels like it takes a lot less time than scanning the spam that used to litter my stream.
I also acknowledge that I am never going to crack the top 1000 Twitter and that is just fine with me. I am totally going for quality over quantity.
@beanfair

Thank you for this, Chris! This is a perfect example of something I try and explain to new Twitter users.

Chris,

That's the sort of stuff that gives Social Media tools a bad name.
What a great, short and very effective post. What is still filtering through here, though, is that there are NO short cuts. While the use of the tool may be free, that doesn't mean that this isn't time consuming, difficult and can be HUGELY effective.

People are looking for shortcuts, and i still get blank stares when i tell people that they actually have to invest time and money into their marketing plans, etc...and that you should have a social media strategy, and oh, by the way, you will get charged for that stuff.

Anyway...the Marketing Action Club's twitter account is @maclub ... I promise to keep it human!

Funny. I don't automatically re-follow folks and have never had this happen.

Coincidence?

Completely agree Chris! But I gotta admit, seeing the images of the tweets here made me click through to find out what the heck Twine is. So it kinda worked. Probably not if I had seen in on my Twitter feed, but you posting it inspired interest. Kinda like the recent "don't click" debacle...

I made light of this about 10 minutes ago.

http://twitter.com/RizzoTees/status/1216620314

I have been asked to check out Twine about 10 times today. I have been told "Ask me about SocialToo when you get a chance" maybe 100 times, literally. Once, I DMed the person back - "Hey, awesome, can you tell me about SocialToo?" **CRICKETS** That's marketing Failboat™ right there

Personally, I am offended when I get these offers or obvious promotions. It is similar to the the notion that if you put some love into the meal you can taste it. Put some time into why you think I may like something and then share it. I will at least respect your conviction to spend some time on it. The simple pass it along is lousy.

I have to agree with Ann-Marie, I am at least curious to go to the site with all this commotion going on.

DM spam is really annoying and usually from relatively / inexperienced people. The truly unfortunate piece here is at least 2 fold IMHO.

New people don't listen / learn from their online sponsor / mentor (that is if the sponsor / mentor attempts to offer assistance) and there isn't a well laid out & thorough step by step tutorial to teach 'what to do & what NOT to do'.

John

The part that too many would-be viral marketers aren't getting is that our attention brain turns these into "noise" and starts to tune them out almost immediately. There's nothing in these messages that rewards the recipient, nothing that engages our actual attention. They are remarkable for nothing other than annoying pointless repetition.

If you want to manufacture word of mouth, make something interesting.

Great points Chris. There are those who are clearly trying to drum up business, and yet their 140 character messages do not encourage you to pursue the link.

I think that there has to be an establishment of "some" connection no matter how small and no matter how brief. I generally try to inform folks of upcoming shows on TV which might be of interest, because they are of interest to me: Lots of C-Span, PBS, Nat Geo, History Channel, Discovery Channel, etc. Anything that expands my view of the world and contributes to my knowledge, along with classic old movies on TCM. I also try to include a brief description of the program or a link to further info so that they can make a decision as to whether they will view it, or record it.

I've noted that people will follow without ever engaging me, and I can only assume that they are attracted to the same types of broadcasts, or information.

An(other) excellent example of the power of Twitter to foster communication between a business/brand and a consumer/user. In less than 1/2 a day's time, the concern was acknowledged and addressed. Kudos to Nova for handling the issue so humbly and intelligently and kudos to you, Chris, for spreading his communication as freely as you did your initial skepticism. This is great stuff.

I just found out today how to opt out of Tweetlater's auto-dm's. I recommend trying it - it might really help! Go to http://twitter.com/optmeout and follow the instructions, which are:

1) Follow @optmeout
2) Wait for follow back
3) Send @optmeout a DM
4) Unfollow @optmeout. Must be done in this order.

I did it just today and it seemed to work. We shall see! I am over-the-moon excited about this - that is a SUPER-SAD testament to how much crap we have to endure on our beloved Twitter. :-)

Hi Bill,

Thanks for your note! I couldn't agree more -- Twitter, and all social media, is about building relationships, not sending generic invites which amount to spam.

Thanks for posting!

Sandy

You ask if this is going to be tricky. Of course. The real gem of this post is the demonstration of the speed of communication. The whole thing took place over the span of an hour. What might have happened if the company hadn't been listening?

The fluidity and speed at which consumers and producers can communicate is the beauty of doing biz on Twitter. Great example.

Matt

I like the "marketing speed" :)

Maybe app created msg's should have a special tag that people could then opt-out of through their profile. This way apps could still use this to allow users to inform their friends, but not bother those of us who don't want to hear it.

If you market a business on twitter you will anger people. There are no two ways about it. The more commercial messages you send out the less likely people are to spend time on the site.

I hate companies marketing on twitter. I will unfollow you if you advertise a product, especially if you do so without it being personal.

It seems that Nova has not been able to apply the breaks yet. After seeing this post yesterday, I just got a bulk email from Twine last night telling me about the great new feature: "We've hooked into Twitter, and now you can invite your Twitter friends to join Twine or to a twine you think they would like to join. " followed by a link to the functionality. I didn't dare click on it for fear that I would be spamming my Twitter stream without warning.

Moral of the story - It's better to ask forgiveness than permission

Thanks Chris,

I'm glad you've mentioned this because Twitter runs the risk of losing market share if this kind of spamming gets worse.

Keep up the great work.
Karl
Promote your networking club in the UK

"This is the speed of marketing and business communications. Not days. Not usually even hours. This is going to be tricky. You think?"

Forget sleep!

I'm not a twitterer (gasp!) but it sounds as if these messages are unanticipated, impersonal, and irrelevant. If you have something worthwhile, why ruin belief, trust, and goodwill by sending out messages that smell strongly of spam? Build a relationship and permission instead!

I've found that when you bring things to the personal level, it's amazing what can be accomplished.
Technology is cool, when it's a tool. When a human it replaces, our society it defaces.

Cheers

George

Kudos to you for calling them out and to Twine for being open, listening and being willing to change the strategy. Warms my social media heart.

great post, so true
i find myself more often remove people i follow because of this, its absolutely spam
good work brogan

Chris:

Well done. I think Nova is a brilliant soul. I have been on Twine since mid-last year and I enjoy it. Two weeks ago I found him on twitter and connect w/ him (or vice-versa, don't remember), which I thought was great b/c I have seen him speak at conferences and I think he is amazing.

Unfortunately, shortly after I connect I get that ridiculous tweet that you documented. I replied telling him, "Please, no bots...", and that he is a brilliant mind, please don't ask me to join Twine when I have already been using it for some time. I think I mentioned the Semantic Web and how I wish it was here!

He was kind in his reply, but I am glad someone like you took them to task on this b/c we don't have time for it currently and it easily changes our perception of him and his site-that is not needed since I, and many, hold him in his site in the highest regard.

I am glad they are seeing the error in their ways; special thanks to you for speaking for many of us that don't have the clout that you wield.

I will continue to use Twine.com and follow Nova with much more interest now that I know this episode is over.

I'm not a fan of these auto-post DM's where the first thing that a person says is - check out "Whatever" I'm selling/promoting/pushing... This is a great way to get unfollowed quickly. However it's great to see Twine step up, take notice and begin to change things.

Matt
@emailkarma

This is one of the many reasons why I left twitter because of how some companies market themselves and it is to me an unauthentic voice. I even was unfollowing people who were using twit later (I think that is the name) where it was a robotic response. It drove me insane.

I prefer being an observer and reading blogs now instead of using twitter as much as I did.

I appreciate your blog on this, Chris!
[I used to be @thejenntafur on twitter]

I confess to using Tweetlater to send auto-DMs to new followers. There, I said it! lol

However, I should point out that:

1. In my profile, I do warn you that I'm going to send you an auto-DM, and I tell you what it's going to be about. I think if someone is that serious about Twitter, they should review who it is they're about to follow, and if you did that with me, you'd be forewarned that I'm going to DM you.

2. I do market my business - yes, I have t-shirts I want to sell you - but I do spend a heckuva lot of time NOT talking about tees. I'm close to 6,000 posts now - I love Twitter, and would be there whether or not I had a company. I do spend time helping others with advice, sales leads, and just silly links to silly stuff.

For some, auto-DMs and marketing are the scourges that ruin Twitter. To me, it seems symptomatic of a problem - just really bad marketing by a group of folks - and I am delusional enough to think I am not part of this group!

I DO have a DM message saying thanks for following me, and I autofollow by return. But I don't invite people to view my website or find out more about me...just presume this will happen naturally via the Tweets ;-)

Well I am against Auto DMs so much that I wrote a detailed blog post about it two nights ago. @fatheaddesign seems to think there is a trend going on. I think that it is unnatural and if you wouldn't give out your calling card at the start of an event at a live event why would you AUTO DM someone. That isn't good marketing and the only way you find out about someone is with interaction. No one is asking you to be friends with everyone but you should be able to spark some interest with a few common people that will benefit.

Whenever i see " have you tried...", or "do you like...", i immediately cringe and move on. These type of posts are indeed the most annoying. Kind of funny how they are oblivious to this.

Hi Chris - Thanks for taking the time to come by my blog and commenting. I figured you may have had a Google alert set up:)

You say that's modern communication - 10 years ago couldn't they have called you on the phone and solved this? I mean the update would not be seen by 100% of the people who saw the criticism, but then the reach being about the same with the update, you might arguably still do them good for thse reading how Nova is a good egg etc.

What do you think?

Hi everyone.
I'm going to chime in on this one because I do use Twitter and I do use it to build relationships in order to market. it's that simple. I seek relationships over the internet in hopes that people will consider doing business with me. So, in a sense. Don't we all market in some way. To join my business, visit my website or follow my blog? It's all the same thing as far as Im concerned.

If the technology wont support it, it wont. People will be part of the land rush, if they dont get results..they move on. I guess it does not bother me because its easy enough to un-follow someone. I dont feel this is a big deal because...to me it's really not.

I never used to follow people just because they followed me (because of the ad pushes)... but then I found out about Tweet Deck, and I thought, 'what's the harm'. What I find kind of annoying is when I actually do respond to someone's 'pitch'... I've rarely received a reply back??? If you're going to spend the energy either pushing ur messages by hand or application, at least have the decency to respectfully follow up... isn't that what 'social marketing' is kind of about? ;)

Thanks Chris. I learned alot this last hour reading your articles on social media do's and don'ts! I like what and how you explain everything. IT all requires patience, and willingness to learn. And most importantly, to connect with the people you are following and vice versa... I really am enjoying twitter.. wish I had more time to read... for me, it takes so much less time than my continually stacking up emails... and is more newsworthy, for the most part. I actually was excited this am when listening to the local weather channel tv, the newscaster actually said "and look for me on Twitter if you want to follow up" before signing off the show! Of course I did!
again, thanks and kudos to you!
cathy b

Twitter is a wonderful service but, like all web 2.0 applications, interactions are a must. Robotic systems will not work on Twitter. You must create relationship by building trust.

Thanks for posting this Chris. Hopefully your tips will rub off on a lot of the twitter community.

hah i knew this wud happen, thanx.

Best way to get unfollowed is to give the appearance of spam. Bad bad bad. That he fixed it - good good good.