An Automatic Thank-You to Every New Twitter Follower

A message within seconds

Someone follows a local business on Twitter, and before they have scrolled past its last tweet a direct message arrives: thanks for following, check out our website, and a link.

The owner may not remember setting it up. Often it was switched on years ago through an app that promised to save time and grow the account, and it has run unattended ever since.

Every new follower gets the same words, at any hour, whoever they are. That sameness is exactly what gives it away.

How followers read it

People who use Twitter regularly have received many of these messages, and they recognise them at once. The speed, the identical wording and the link all mark the message as automated.

Direct messages carrying links have also been a favourite tool of spammers and of accounts taken over by intruders. Followers have learned to distrust them, and this one looks like the kind they were warned about.

So the first private word from the business is one the follower has learned to dismiss. Some delete it; some unfollow, mute or block the account; some report it as spam.

What the automatic message costs

The message was meant to start a relationship. In practice it works against that in several ways:

• It reads as a form letter, sent before anyone has said a word.
• It carries a link, the thing people distrust most in a direct message.
• It asks for attention from someone who has just given some.
• It invites the opposite of its aim: an unfollow, a mute or a report.
• It keeps an outside app connected with permission to send messages in your name.

The figures never show the reason. Followers who leave do so quietly, and nobody tells the business why.

The last item is easy to overlook: an app that can send direct messages for you can usually tweet for you too.

Switching it off

In the Twitter account's settings, the Apps section lists every outside app that has been given access. Each has a button to revoke that access, which stops the app at once.

Revoke the one that sends the message, then close the account with the service itself, so it does not ask to be reconnected or keep billing. While the list is open, remove any app nobody can explain.

Then follow the business from a personal account to confirm that nothing arrives. It takes a minute and settles the question.

What a real welcome looks like

Not every follower needs a message. Many follow to see what the business posts and want nothing more, and leaving them in peace is a courtesy.

For the followers who matter most, a customer you recognise or a business down the street, a short public reply or a follow back says more than any automated note. It is written by a person, for them.

Thanks also work best where others can see them. A public reply to a customer who mentioned the business shows every new follower how the account behaves.

The welcome that counts most is the next tweet. A follower who finds useful, local, occasional posts has every reason to stay.

A worked example

A typewriter repair shop in an older commercial block restores manual and electric machines, sells ribbons and refurbished typewriters, and ships repairs across the province. Its followers are collectors, writers and a few schools.

A former employee had connected an app that sent every new follower a direct message with a link to the shop's online store. Nobody had looked at it in two years.

The owner learned of it when a longtime customer mentioned, at the counter, that she had nearly unfollowed after receiving it. The Apps list showed the messaging app and two others nobody recognised.

All three were revoked. The owner now replies personally when someone local follows or mentions a machine, and the shop's bio says what it repairs, where it is and that it ships.

A pinned tweet shows the workbench and explains how to book a repair. The profile now answers, for anyone who looks, what the message used to push at everyone.

Let the profile do the work

A new follower usually looks at the profile at least once, and that visit can do what the automated message was trying to do.

The bio has room to say what you do, where you are and who you serve. The location and the website link sit beneath it, and the wide header image can show the place or the work.

A pinned tweet stays at the top of the profile. It can hold the one thing a new follower should know first: how to book, what is on this month, or where to find the shop.

Direct messages worth sending

Direct messages still have a place. When a customer asks a public question that needs an order number or an address in the answer, a direct message keeps those details private.

The difference is who started it. A message the follower asked for is service; one they did not ask for, with a link, is advertising in their private inbox.

Answer the direct messages people send you, and promptly. Someone who writes privately has chosen the way that suits them, and a reply days later wastes that.

The counter-case

Some owners find that the automatic message has started the odd conversation, and it may have. A follower who meant to write anyway will sometimes reply to whatever arrives first.

A small account that gains a few followers a week can also thank each one by hand, by name, without a link. That is not automation, and from a local shop it can be welcome.

The case here is against the machine, not the thanks. A personal note, written by someone who looked at the follower's profile first, is a different message entirely.

Replacing the automatic message

1. Follow your account from a personal one and see what arrives.
2. Open the Apps list in the account's settings.
3. Revoke the messaging app and any others nobody can explain.
4. Close the account with the service that sent the messages.
5. Rewrite the bio to say what you do and where.
6. Pin a tweet that answers the usual first question.
7. Reply in person to the followers who matter locally.

Step three matters beyond the message itself. An unknown app with permission to post for a business account is a risk worth closing today.

Choosing the header image, the profile photo and the pinned tweet with a small business in mind is what Twitter's new profile layout works through.

Frequently asked questions

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