So yaa, the video is *cough* really neat. (Original? Breakthrough? Revolutionary? Let’s not get carried away.)
But yaa, I’d say auto-respond is evidence of “don’t get it”.

With Twitter I’m loathe to follow people with tons and tons of connections. I don’t really see much to brag about if you have thousands of followers, and I think auto following in return suggests it doesn’t really matter to you whether you follow someone or not. I looked at your tweets and you respond to people - evidence that you’re using Twitter not as a broadcast medium, but as a social one.

I find a lot of the people who brag about the number of followers they have are broadcasters, and their thank you for following messages typically sound like a “thanks for tuning in” sort of thing. Your video said something else entirely. I think it’s a great idea. I’m going to do one myself, and maybe even try to do personalized ones sometimes, too (as suggested by another commenter).

No one ever made a statue for a critic. I wouldn’t worry about those who criticize your approach. I thought it was a nice touch.

I’ve been accused of sending Twitter Spam, but I don’t worry about it. In fact, the person who was vocal about it actually ALSO sent ME an autoresponse using Social Too.

I actually use a different autoresponder for my welcome tweets. And I definately DON’T include any links or “find out more about ME” stuff in my response. Mine is cordial and rather generic in nature.

I find that one good rule of thumb with Twitter is to only follow those who follow you back within 24-48 hours. After all, relationships are a two-way thing. So I auto-follow anyone who follows me. And I go back and unfollow those who don’t follow me within 24-48 hours.

I rarely click the links in people’s DM’s to me, because I think it smells of “It’s all about me”. With you I made an exception, because you said 3 key things:

1. 30 seconds - good length
2. video - good choice
3. introduction - good concept

It was short, to the point, video, and you labeled it an introduction. Very good psychology.

Thanks, Brian. I am looking forward to reading and watching more of your stuff.

Tim Jensen

http://www.twitter.com/TimJensen

I sent out a tweet that went something like: twitter tip add an auto-response with a welcome video for a personal touch when new people follow you.

One person @replied and said something like: it’s not personal if it’s an auto-response…to which I replied, “touche, but the personal touch that I speak of is not necessarily in creating the auto-response and it going out, but in the fact that when people follow and view the video they have a glimpse into who the PERSON behind the twitter account is.” To me that IS a personal touch.

Anyways, so far it’s been working nicely. I think I implemented it Monday or Tuesday and I also got the idea from the same site you did after doing a search on maximizing twitter or something of the sort.

Great post.

My experiment here: Post on Twitter Welcome Vid

Michael, truth be told, I was taken aback by the sheer volume of links in your DM to me, and didn’t check them out until having seen you mention them (publicly) to other users.

Andrea Mercado - That’s a very good idea about setting your Twitter profile web link to an introductory video…I’m seriously considering switching to that.

I have to admit, it does bother me that anyone considers what I’m doing to be spam, even if you are in the minority. What I find interesting is that the dissenters are more influential (as measured by # of twitter followers - in the thousands), though there have been similarly influential people who favor the video introduction as well (@jstorerj for example). Additionally, I’ve had a certain dissenter who was privately seemingly very angry about it, though it is hard to discern tone from flat text on a screen. Still, to think that I caused that disturbs me. Regardless, perhaps the differences lie in the value system of the individuals involved. Many appreciate cleverness over courtesy; others, vice versa.

Ben, that’s a very insightful take on it. The results show that option (A) does seemingly carry more weight with most people…but making a ‘deep’ connection is more valuable. I’ve experienced it myself…I love that I’ve made real life connections with people I met on Twitter (the online magazine guy).

I guess what I’m after with this video introduction thing is to differentiate myself a bit from the regular user. When I received a that video welcome, it made an impression on me, and I follow Alex Barger’s tweets regularly as a result. We’ve had good conversations on Twitter, and have a positive connection. If he hadn’t made that video, I’m not sure we would have had those valuable exchanges.

I’m still mulling this all over, but I’m finding the discussion very interesting. I sincerely thank you all for your comments and insights!

Your video just made it a bit more personal and transparent. I just turned on SocialToo, but it hasn’t been working for me yet, so I have to manually follow.

http://christen.dybenko.net/2008/12/08/twitter-to-follow-or-not-to-follow/