This morning while I was reading an article about Twitter flat lining, (slow growth) over the last month something dawned on me... It could be way too many twitters have decided to automate their system too much, making it not near as effective.

I'll admit I used the auto DM feature for a couple of months and it was handy to know every person following you was getting a taste of my tweets. In fact many times folks would respond back to me so I would check their profile & start relationship bulding, it worked great for awhile. Like most other automated tools it had run it course for me anyway and I've now quit using anything automated connected with twitter.

Actually I feel most folks start using the auto DM feature to save time. I wanted to give new followers benefit sfor following me (free tools) and attempt to connect on a more personal level with out it looking like an obvious DM.

Here is the auto DM I ran on my twitter account for a few months...

"Hi, Here r couple of free tools I use; twhirl.org & tweetlater.com, saves time. Send me a DM & I'll check your profile."

I've gotta say this message did the trick "until" many twitterers caught on the the auto DM feature and many others started auto DM's. The sad part of the whole auto DM mess is many didn't understand how to attract new followers into building a personal relationship, by giving value first.

As an example here are some of the auto DM's I received...

Thanks for the following! Want to know more about the real estate market? http://spamurl...
Get 25,000 Followers Quick! - http://spamurl...
Please join me. I'd like to recruit you as a spymaster to my spy ring - http://spamurl...
Thanks for following. Looking forward to your tweets. Please let us know what you think of our product http://spamulr Take the effort out of weight loss...

 In the twitter community auto DM's are getting annoying especially if your account is growing at a fast pace. When you reach this point it's time to stop and focus on REAL relationship building.

Another automated twitter tool I enjoyed for awhile is auto following back those who followed me. This was becoming more of a hassle going in and un-following the folks who didn't take the time to add their profile picture or the obvious spammers who were following in hopes that my system had an auto-follow back.  Today I go in and follow only the new followers who qualify.

My qualification rules for a follow in twitter.

• Have a profile picture
• Not look like an obvious spammer

If I was just starting out on twitter,  I would probably use some of the many automated tools to get my system up and having enough followers to respond to my tweets. There comes a time on twitter that you just need to buckle down and build relationships with the twitter network you have. I think that magic number is different for everyone depending on your marketing strategy for twitter.

Twitter considers the threshold 2000 following/followers ratio to let you keep or freeze your account. You will need to keep your following/ follower ratio even going through the "2000" number. When I look at a new followers profile I also look at how many times they have updated their account. If they haven't had many updates but have a huge following/followers ratio I know they are automating their account to build it fast.  Then I look tweets they've done if they are actually communicating and not just promoting (spaming) then I follow them back.

KEYWORDS: Marketing Strategies, Twitter, Cindy McAsey