The Twitter DM – Abuse?

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twitterisscaryIt is true. I am following people on Twitter now.

It’s been a drawn out battle, but for the sake of communication, it’ll be better in the long run. The simple fact is that people couldn’t DM me important information about stuff.

But, here’s the question I pose to you: Do people, generally speaking, abuse their DM privileges?

Now that I’m following everyone that follows me (unless you’re a spam bot or just marketing product) I have 1,000+ people direct access to my already-insane email inbox.

Did I just PWN myself?

30 thoughts on “The Twitter DM – Abuse?”

  2. I have found that more and more people are DMing responses that could very well have been @replied. On the whole though, I think it'll be ok for you, especially if you set up a filter in your inbox to handle the DMs (which I am sure you've already done!)

  3. As I've started following more people I've noticed that a number of people send those automated "Thanks for following me, check-out my blog" DMs… which are very annoying, but other than that people seem to be pretty respectful in their use of DMs.

  4. I don't get much, only from my family usually. It's usually personal stuff, abiding by the @MichaelHyatt rule. The thing that drives me crazy is the autofollow DMs, like "Thanks for following, go to my site to make some extra money." You may get a few of those…

  5. I've never had anyone abuse my DM, but then again, I am a lot less known that you are.
    I hate when I follow someone and they respond with a DM giving me a link to their website or newsletter, etc. That gets quite annoying at times.

  6. Ha! Yeah, I just noticed I got a follow notification from you, so I knew something was up. I've rarely gotten unwanted DMs. However, this was the one anoying feature that I think has mostly gone away now becasue enough people got angry about it. Many twitter's have some kind of auto-follow service active that automatically follows people who follow them. Many of them also have an automatic DM message that goes out saying thanks for following or something like that. It wasn't personal at all, just automation. there would be times where I would sit down and follow a few hundred new people some of my friends follow and the next day my inbox would be loaded full of DMs. What a pain. Like I said, most people have turned this off because it just sucks all around, but you'll still get a handful.

  7. I haven't seen any DM abuse.. Granted I'm following < 400 but still. The only time I've seen DM's are ususally the auto DM's when I follow someone. Other than that they've been legit ones.

  9. I almost never DM anyone. I usually @reply and then if the other person moves it into DM then I am happy to leave it there. Only exceptions are phone numbers or emails that aren't public or private prayer requests or suggestions that I don't want to embarass or call people out for.

  10. I don't know how most folks choose. I only use DM when what I'm saying isn't for public consumption.
    And oh, yeah, those DMs about check out this/that/mememe I'm ready to block 'em! If it's just a thanks for the follow, I'm cool with that, mostly because most never DM me again!

  11. Are you really letting all Twitter DM's go directly to your Inbox without any filtering? If you keep it to TweetDeck or similiar app, I'm sure you will be able to manage them. Plus, most DM's aren't time sensitive –otherwise you'd get it via email or phone. Or course you can set-up an auto-respond DM to let people know that.

  13. For the most part no. Had an interesting one today and I just stopped DMing back. I would have told you this sooner but you were not following me, so I couldn't DM you. But I got even and stopped following you. So we are even. Your move.

  14. Wise move. Although I don’t agree 100% with @MichaelHyatt. Sometimes he is engaged in an interesting and general conversation – he then switches to DM. You are left wondering what happened. If the conversation is public – keep it public all the way. I’m not bothered by people’s back and forths, that’s why I’m on twitter.

  15. for the most part, people have been good about not abusing DM's on my end. I'll have the occasional follower that will DM an initial "thanks for following me" post…but never DM again. Those I can handle.

    • FTR…you just finally talked me into installing Intense on my blog. Better be worth it….or I'm punching Barney.
      Isn't it nice how John becomes personally responsible for all in this world that is WordPress? lol

  18. yay, my life is complete, I can finally DM John.
    he he he

    I don't really understand the point of DM if u can email.
    do u get points for DM'ing.
    I also hate DMs that are obviously automatic, grrrrr.

  19. i like to write back to people…one of my faves:
    "Together, we will uncover the advantages of creating and building online income streams."
    ME: "I am so excited to be in on your scam and can't wait to waste my time. "