I recently received three direct messages from people after I followed them on Twitter:
1. Thanks for following. I try to mostly tweet interesting stuff I find. Hopefully you'll find it interesting as well.
2. Thanks for following! I do check my messages daily, so be sure to DM me if you ever need anything in blogging & social media!
3. Thanks for following. I look forward to your tweets!
Direct messages are private messages that can only seen by the sender and receiver. You can only DM me if I follow you. If I follow you and you don't follow me, I can't DM you back.
While many people treat direct messages as fodder for personalized content, some are prone to send the same direct message in bulk to everyone. The above automatic messages were likely scheduled through applications such as Social Oomph.
By contrast, here are manual DMs I received from three other people. Note the personalization and inclusion of my name:
1. Ari - Thanks for the re-follow. I hope all is going well with you. Been busy?
2. Well hi Ari! Thank you for following me back! I am happy to be connected with you here! Hope this finds you well.
3. Thanks for following, Ari - I seriously appreciate being in your select few: hope the weather is getting a bit warmer for you now.
I don't know about you, but I prefer to be treated as a name and not a number. Stop sending automatic DMs. You're hurting your reputation.