I recently sent out a Direct Message on Twitter to all of my followers using the Tweet Later service.
There were some good and bad things about the experience.
The Tweet I sent out said, "10 Leadership Secrets Whispered by Horses" Would you write a blurb for it for me? At the end of this tweet, I added a shorten URL to a squeeze page that asked for a name and e-mail address before they could get the book.
The purpose of sending out this short e-book was to add people to my mailing list.
I sent this Direct Message to about 2,800 followers.
Here are some pros and cons to sending out this mass Direct Message: Con: While Tweet Later has permission to send out thousands of Direct Messages, Twitter only allows 1,000 direct messages per day per account.
Even though all 2,800 tweets were sent out, as a result, I was locked out of sending Direct Message for a an entire day.
This was stressful because people were DMing me in response to my mass DM, and I could not reply.
I had to look for them on their web sites and try to find their e-mail addresses in order to respond to them.
Pro: I learned a lot about my followers that way.
And if, I decided to send out a mass DM again, I would send it out early Sunday morning, so it would not seem so rude to not reply until Monday morning.
Con: Some people thought it was rude to put a specific request in a Direct Message.
It seemed like I was asking them specifically for help.
I know that I always ignore Direct Messages that say, "Make a million dollars with my e-book.
" But, it's not often that someone is asked to do a specific task in a DM, so it seemed like a personal request, but it wasn't.
Pro: Dozens of people responded to my request because it seemed so personal, and very few of them complained.
Con: A couple of people thought I was offering them paying work.
One Virtual Assistant got really annoyed with me for marketing this way and threatened to unfollow me.
We had a considerable e-mail correspondence and I felt bad for annoying her.
She and I have different ideas on how social media should be done.
I will ask her to read this article, and she may unfollow me yet.
Pro: Out of 2,800 messages sent, I had two complaints and more than 500 people went to my squeeze page.
I may just have to allow people who were annoyed with me to unfollow me.
Con: It just doesn't feel right.
I felt a little deceptive by asking that question in that way.
Pro: I got a lot of traffic to my squeeze page and about 75 people ended up downloading the e-book.
Many people said they are passing it around.
I think it will be a good calling card for my business.
When all is said and done, would I do it again? I think probably not.
While it was a successful gimmick, it doesn't really fit with how I feel social media should be used.
I was thrilled with the success of it, but it may have been a tad too intrusive.
I was also frustrated by not being able to send Direct Messages for a day.
It would be great to get comments from others.
There were some good and bad things about the experience.
The Tweet I sent out said, "10 Leadership Secrets Whispered by Horses" Would you write a blurb for it for me? At the end of this tweet, I added a shorten URL to a squeeze page that asked for a name and e-mail address before they could get the book.
The purpose of sending out this short e-book was to add people to my mailing list.
I sent this Direct Message to about 2,800 followers.
Here are some pros and cons to sending out this mass Direct Message: Con: While Tweet Later has permission to send out thousands of Direct Messages, Twitter only allows 1,000 direct messages per day per account.
Even though all 2,800 tweets were sent out, as a result, I was locked out of sending Direct Message for a an entire day.
This was stressful because people were DMing me in response to my mass DM, and I could not reply.
I had to look for them on their web sites and try to find their e-mail addresses in order to respond to them.
Pro: I learned a lot about my followers that way.
And if, I decided to send out a mass DM again, I would send it out early Sunday morning, so it would not seem so rude to not reply until Monday morning.
Con: Some people thought it was rude to put a specific request in a Direct Message.
It seemed like I was asking them specifically for help.
I know that I always ignore Direct Messages that say, "Make a million dollars with my e-book.
" But, it's not often that someone is asked to do a specific task in a DM, so it seemed like a personal request, but it wasn't.
Pro: Dozens of people responded to my request because it seemed so personal, and very few of them complained.
Con: A couple of people thought I was offering them paying work.
One Virtual Assistant got really annoyed with me for marketing this way and threatened to unfollow me.
We had a considerable e-mail correspondence and I felt bad for annoying her.
She and I have different ideas on how social media should be done.
I will ask her to read this article, and she may unfollow me yet.
Pro: Out of 2,800 messages sent, I had two complaints and more than 500 people went to my squeeze page.
I may just have to allow people who were annoyed with me to unfollow me.
Con: It just doesn't feel right.
I felt a little deceptive by asking that question in that way.
Pro: I got a lot of traffic to my squeeze page and about 75 people ended up downloading the e-book.
Many people said they are passing it around.
I think it will be a good calling card for my business.
When all is said and done, would I do it again? I think probably not.
While it was a successful gimmick, it doesn't really fit with how I feel social media should be used.
I was thrilled with the success of it, but it may have been a tad too intrusive.
I was also frustrated by not being able to send Direct Messages for a day.
It would be great to get comments from others.
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