Great article this morning. I can’t agree more. I see the automation popping up in so many places on twitter already, and it unfortunately mimics the way a lot of folks network/socialize in real life; just running a room to collect as many business cards as they can, as quickly as possible, but with as little substantive conversation as possible.

Keith

However, I prepared a rant anyway — and since I promised not to auto-DM it to the public at large, I’ll just plug it here:
http://www.lungbarrow.com/archive.asp?article=1842

The short answer: The most important part of marketing is tracking the metrics. So, the question is: Does auto-DM work or not?

One of the classic experiments in emotion science involves showing people affective photographs and measuring their physiological responses.

What is so cool about humanity is the way that we respond to other people. When we see a photograph of friendly people — especially with big smiles or babies — the entire physiological set of our body changes.

Our heart decelerates to facilitate stimulus intake (a long story, ask me why if you care), our sympathetic nervous system begins to activate so that we could approach the person/people, and the muscles that draw up the corners of our mouths and eyes activate in the beginning moments of a smile.

Now THAT’s automatic!

And these are photographs of strangers. Nonetheless, other humans make us happy.

Social media sites allow us to make these connections online. Just today I have had conversations with people from Canada to Vermont to California, and here I sit in rural West Texas.

So it is easy to make meaningful connections online. We can do so with companies, too, as I almost gave Burger King the advice they solicited online (I declined).

And I agree with you that automaticity short-circuits these connections. Whenever I DM a new follower, I always add some fact from their bio so that they know it comes from a real person.

Mr. Karr is not all wrong — and I added him on Twitter after reading his comment. Although he followed me back, I don’t have his DM yet. I see that he is from Indianapolis.

And because I earned my Ph.D. at IU, I like him already. See, that’s a human connection I made by looking at his actual Twitter page. Interestingly, I blew past his blog once I found the Twitter button. Maybe I’ll go back.

But automaticity screams “machine,” and that’s not very human.

And a company especially needs to make those human connections because they are a thing and not a human. So if you’re paying someone to work the Twitter feed, pay them enough to write back real DMs.

THAT would be amazing PR and a great emotional connection.

On the contrary, automation is a necessary part of marketing to ENSURE that your followers, customers, and prospects experience your emotion and authenticity.

I want people who follow me on Twitter to get to know me beyond my tweets. 140 characters isn’t enough to get to know me. I want people to subscribe to my blogs to get the total picture. The advice I provide will benefit them! So… I have an auto-reply that lets them know that.

It’s sincere, it’s authentic, and it carries emotion. And it’s automated.