Twitter Auto DM new followers? - How dare you?

Okay, like most newbies to the world of Twitter, when I joined in October of 2008 I came across Tweetlater my very first day. The offer to auto DM a thank you to new followers seemed like a great idea. I, like many of you, have a busy life. And I, like hopefully many of you, am generally a nice person and want to be sure to acknowledge a new follower.

As time went on I began to use Twitter a little bit more and more and pretty much forgot about the auto DM. For a while I tried to manually DM a thank you to new followers or post a “hello and welcome new followers” on the main stream when there was a swarm of them all at once. Then I started seeing people complaining about the auto DMs and at first I didn’t think much of it. Then more complaints and accusations of the tweep being lazy or disengaged or lame started streaming across my home page. I started to get tired of them myself, cluttering up my DM box. Then it dawned on me, I had done the same thing months ago. Was I lazy? No. Was I disengaged? Certainly not! Was I lame? I hoped not, though some may have their own points of view. I simply had clicked through a few suggestions thinking it was the best thing to do at the time, and being unaware of the so called “proper twitter etiquette”; which I harshly would be reprimanded for, even if not directly. I quietly slunk back to Tweetlater and removed my auto DM for new followers and hoped no one had noticed.

My reason for this post and my request to the judges of what is Twitter Right and Twitter Wrong is don’t be so quick to blame, judge and condemn. Simply state a slight dislike for auto DMs every so often and those that have followed you will eventually catch on and slink back to remove it as I did with tail between the legs and beg forgiveness for trying to be nice and not leave anyone unthanked.

Thanks.