Being a relatively prolific twitterer, I have a tendency to acquire new followers fairly regularly. This generally isn’t an issue for me, and I welcome followers. However here is where my gripe arises. :/

More and more lately I’m finding that new followers think they need to send me a DM to say hi, and welcome me to their Twitter stream. So, ok… this may seem like a good idea, but it gets very impersonal… I mean, how personal is it to get a message like…

"Hey! that"s great thanks for following me. I am looking forward to catching your tweets, let's not be strangers."
Um… I don’t know you at all… so we really are strangers, and this isn’t really helping your cause.
"Yipeee - welcome to this innovative and heart pumping space! - let's stay conncted!"
Oookkaaaayyy…..
"hey there, welcome to my world of twitter!"
Why? what’s wrong with my world of twitter?
"Hiya. Look fwd to tweeting with you. Feel free to send me a quick ‘hi’"
I followed you back… wasn’t that enough???
"Cheers on the follow."
well this was the most innocuous reply… but was it really necessary?
"Hi, thanks for following me, looking forward for conversation"
But twitter isn’t about conversations… You don’t really get it do you…
"Thanks for the add! Always great to meet like-minded people"
This one was actually ironic, as I’d met this person… and we aren’t like minded… well not in a number of things anyway.

I also know that I’m not the only Twitterer to have found these Auto-DM’s to be annoying. In fact, some people I follow have gone so far as to instigate their own policy of automatically blocking any new followers that perform this sort of practice.

So what am I trying to say with all this?

Well… If you are of the persuasion of “making friends and influencing people”, I’d suggest you don’t make a habit of this practice

I have to admit, I won’t block you for doing this to me, but take note that I’ll not appreciate it, and if I do block you, you’ll have deserved it.