Many people use tweetlater or similar services to automatically follow back. Indeed, there are those who believe that everyone who is kind enough to follow you deserves a follow in return. Of course, there are also those who think autofollow was created by a particularly malevolent devil.
One of the features of most autofollow systems is the ability to send direct messages with your follow. We’ve seen a lot of these, and here are some autofollow mistakes, and how you can avoid them. In all cases, we have –snipped- out usernames and links to protect the guilty party.
1. When someone does you the courtesy of following you, don’t mention colon cleansing, or the benefits of a high fiber diet, or anything else related prodigious quantities of poop.
Update – Butch, Counter Terrorism Unit Police lost 40 lbs. with 14-day EZ Colon Cleanse – his story here -snip-
Seriously, who wants to imagine that?
2. Don’t flatter with false praise and other platitudes.
Good choice in following me ! I tend to send out links to about articles im writing or researching, be sure to google -snip-
In this case, your new friend seems to be complimenting you, but you then realize that she’s really complimenting herself.
3. Don’t try to sell us.
Earn up to $150 an hour for your opinions, up to $25 an hour to preview movie trailers, get paid to test products.
Let’s see the conversion statistics on this ad. Twitter is certainly becoming more and more ad-driven, but that’s no excuse to sell before you say Hi, or Thanks.
4. Don’t make up words or try reverse psychology or use texting terms like lol and afaik. Certainly never do all three of these in the same follow reply.
Twalk to you soon! But DON’T YOU DARE visit my site:-snip- Why? Because! lol.
Twalk isn’t a word. Neither is lol. We’re also on to the reverse psychology, so we’ll take you at your word and won’t dare visiting your site. Why? Because! lol.
5. Learn how to use your message rotator, otherwise just stop using it:
Thanks for following. My gift is this Tip: great way to get more Followers Live today 07/01/09. –snip- |Thanks for following. My gift is a Tip: You can increase traffic to your website by getting listed in directori
Even though this message attempts to sell, it’s not so bad as the previous one. The bigger sin is that your new friend can’t figure out how to create rotating autofollow messages, which either makes them an idiot or careless. Have you unfollowed them yet?
6. Edit, proofread, and rewrite badly composed messages.
Welcome followers we have overlooked a very important part of our economic growth in the U.S. today. Its the college student that is spending money when other are not, to the tune of 2.6 billion in Phoenix alone .That is a lot of stemless package that the
Your new friend clearly has something important on her mind, but you’ll never know what that is. That’s because you unfollowed her after seeing her truncated, brain dump reply to your follow. How hard is it to stick to a length limit? Also, if you paste your message into Microsoft Word before you send it, you can think of those little green and red squiggly lines as composition guardrails. Use them.
7. Let us be the judge of what we think is interesting.
Thx for the follow. I’m eclectic and interesting.
We like the brevity of this message, but suspect our new friend should have included something about their penchant for self-aggrandizement and exaggeration.
So there you go. There are obviously many more mistakes that you could make, but these seem to be some of the critical errors that you should really work to avoid. In general, the best autofollow messages are short, they show your appreciation for the follow, and they avoid anything that could alienate your new friend. For many people, followers are potential customers, so do you really want to start that relationship by annoying them?
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
“you can think of those little green and red squiggly lines as composition guardrails. Use them.”
Nice!