Stop Selling Me, Damn it!

Has this happened to you?  Someone contacts you on Twitter via a follow.  You follow them back.  Then, through a “Direct Message” this person thanks you for the follow and then sells you on their service letting you know that their product  is indispensable and that you would be an intergalactic idiot if you did not participate.

Unfortunately this happens too often.  This insincere, misinformed social media moron who does understand that engaging with others sells instead is tenacious in his approach and  somehow believes this gives him leverage against his competition.

Of course, we know, it does not.

Usually in this case I will take a moment and DM the ill-informed that direct messaging is not an opportunity for direct selling and that they should re-examine their strategy.

But something remarkable happened yesterday.  After telling a new follower these words, he actually tried to convince me that he wasn’t selling me, merely that he is so wonderful that it will all sell itself.

His Quote was: I don’t have to (sell you)… The props and my cost WILL… Want me to send my latest list?… Message me your email.

To say the least he is a hopeless case but I make the point yet again — as more and more of us use Twitter as a direct sales marketing tool the less effective it becomes for the rest of us who choose to use it right.

After all, the space cannot sustain all of us (see outages as proof).

SO the next time you get one of those DM’s don’t be so polite.  You have my permission to get snarky. Because, in the end, it’s our space too, and we have to protect it.  Even from ourselves.