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Dear Auto-dmer’s,
See her? A few moments ago she was flitting about petting butterflies in my garden. Now she is dead. I hope you’re happy.
You see, every time I get an auto dm on twitter asking me to like someone’s FB page, a fairy falls over dead. Your DM’s annoy me so much that a fairy has to leave her peaceful flower garden to sprinkle me with pixie dust so that I don’t reach through my laptop and punch you in the throat. In her gallant effort to rush here to save your throat, she invariably suffers heart failure and falls to the ground dead shortly after.
And for what? REALLY? Do people actually rush over to facebook and follow you? Do you get responses like:
Oh, thank goodness, I was looking all over facebook for a link to like you & could only find your twitter account!
or
If I follow you on facebook, can I please get more spam messages like this?
or
I know we just met but I can tell in your last 140 characters you feel the connection too. Let’s FB chat!
Cause I am kinda thinking you don’t. Or if you do, you may want to look into places that provide bulk restraining orders.
I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt and hope that somewhere in some social media ‘class‘ some ‘guru‘ told you this was a great idea. Or perhaps you read an article on building social media presence that was written in 2008. It’s OK. We all make mistakes. I admit I had my fun with an auto-dm too. Then this decade started.
But now that you know you have made one? Stop doing it OK?
I promise that besides needlessly killing fairies you are most certainly harming any chance you have of building ‘trust capital’.
Sincerely Yours,
and if I dm’d you this link in response to yours, know that I am only trying to help you. I followed you because I thought you were interesting but then you blew it with a horrible first impression. Buy me a drink and we will be good.
Lori Lavender Luz says
Bulk restraining order!
You can bet I’ll be sending this back to auto-DMers. Right before I unfollow.
Save the fairies!
barb says
Thanks Lori. I was betting it would resonate with a few people. SAVE THE FAIRIES
Here is my auto-reply to the auto-dm if you want to use it:
Hey, I know we just met, and this is kinda crazy, but here is my post, read it maybe? http://bit.ly/U2fZcX
Chris Bird says
Mind if I steal this?
thedoseofreality says
I wonder if we could all take this and make it our own personal response to auto DM’s. That would be awesome! 😉
This is so totally fabulous, I love it!!
barb says
Thanks!!
You are welcome to use this one:
Hey, I know we just met, and this is kinda crazy, but here is my post, read it maybe? http://bit.ly/U2fZcX
Daria @ Mom in Management says
LOL – so fun. Great post.
Amber's Crazy Bloggin' Canuck says
They need to add this to their official policies!!!!!!
Susan says
I just DM’d you my fan page. Could you like it?
Thanks for this post, Barb! I HATE the stupid auto-DM’s and do auto unfollow them. I have wondered myself why people continue to have them after it is well known that it is super annoying. I may just share your follow up DM.
Julie Cohn says
I just found this, but it’s brilliant!!