We have all see it, you follow someone and as soon as you do an auto generated direct message is sent to your inbox on Twitter from them. I personally don’t like canned auto direct messages but that’s my preference. You can debate if auto generated direct messages are good or bad and maybe they are a good thing if you are getting hundreds of new followers a day but I wanted to address another important part of direct messages.

I consider the first direct message sent to someone after they follow you the very most important message you can send, it’s almost like a first impression. These messages should not be focused on asking your new follower to do something (go to my blog, download my eBook, click on my affiliate link, etc), remember this person just followed you and you could leave a very bad taste in their mouth.

Your first message to your new follower should be about them and them only. You should thank them for following you and let them know you appreciate them. Ask not what your followers can do for you but what you can do for your followers! If you take the time to make a good introduction you will build a better relationship with that person.

We have plenty of time after we build a relationship with a person to send another direct message or @ reply tweet with a link to our blog, website, etc. After a relationship has been established and trust is built they will be more likely to click the link then, rather than having it shoved in their face the first time we make contact with them.

We must remember that the people following us are real people and they have real feelings and should be treated with respect. It has also been said if you help enough people get what they want then you will also get the things you want. I am a strong believer in paying things forward, how about you?

I’ve had a debate going on with someone about one way Twitter relationships. I have to wonder when I see someone with thousands of followers and they are only following a few hundred if they have missed the entire point of Twitter.

The whole point of social media is to be social, instead of thinking you are a Hollywood socialite that everyone should bow down to. Harsh? Maybe a little but anyway…

The other person in the debate said in the defense of the people that never follow back and I quote “Personally, I don’t follow hundreds or thousands of people because it makes things too cluttered and overwhelming. I’d rather be able to effectively follow a smaller number of people.” Cluttered huh?

I agree about effectively following people, I want to follow people I have something in common with but then again, opposites attract. I will even go so far as saying I am following people that are not in my industry and don’t have the same interests that I do but I follow them anyway because I like what they tweet and the personality they have on Twitter.

I still can’t get past one way relationships though, when there is a 10,000 to 300 ratio. Something seems wrong to me, it’s not like if you follow more people you will have so many tweets you won’t be able to read them is it?

The fact is most people don’t speed tweet and of all the people I follow everyone seems great. I think by not following back the majority of people that follow you (unless they are spammers, porn related, etc) you take the chance of missing something really good.

Maybe I am looking at it in a non cyber world way, if I go to a gathering or a social mixer and do all the talking but never listen to anyone else would I be considered a rude person?

How do you feel about one way Twitter relationships?

Personal branding is a term that a lot of us are hearing today and I think its something we are going to be hearing a lot more of in the future. What exactly is personal branding? There is a great definition of personal branding here.

Is personal branding really a new thing though? It may be new in ways it is being used now but as far as being a new idea, no, I think personal branding is a very old idea that most businesses have gotten away from. As a matter of fact I will go so far as to call personal branding “old school”.

Personal branding to me is getting to know the person behind the business, not trying to hide behind the face or logo of a business. Anyone can create a business name and a logo and hide behind that but the fact is real people should not have to hide behind a company façade, that is being an outright coward.

Did you ever have those light bulb moments? You know when the light just seems to come on and something that was so evident yet was hidden just hits you in the face? This is one of those times.

Years ago the business owners before us practiced personal branding, they built relationships with their customers and they did it on a very personal level. Hop in the time machine and go back several years, go in the old country store or to the insurance office or some other establishment, what do you think it will be like? They will call you by name, they will make you feel important and they will ask about you and truly be interested.

The bottom line is the cold hard fact that you are your business, not the name or the logo you hide behind. I am Proimpulse (Me, Anthony McMurray), not the name that took me 2 weeks to come up with over eight years ago, not the logo I designed. Seriously, who is Microsoft? Bill Gates. Who is Amazon? Jeff Bezos. Who is McDonalds? Ray Kroc. Who is Kentucky Fried Chicken? Colonel Sanders. You get my point.

Now I have never talked to any of these people in person but my point here is we have come full circle and we are getting back to the old ways of doing business we just have a better vehicle which is social media.

Are business names and logos important still? Yeah I think so, we will continue to need those but we need to open ourselves up and let people know there is a human behind them.

Another great example of personal branding is something that happened to me not long ago. My dear wife made the statement “It seems like a lot of your old friends never call you unless they have a question or issue with their computer or something involving the internet”. At first it really upset me and I thought to myself if they can’t call me just to say hello they were they ever really my friends to start with? A few days later I was with one of my long time friends (a police officer) and I decided to confront him, I told him what my wife said and his answer blew me away.

His reaction made so much sense I had to laugh at myself for thinking the silly selfish thoughts earlier. His words were “When we call you and ask you a question about the computer or the internet its not that we just come to you when we have a problem it’s the fact that we come to you because you are our expert in that field, the same reason if you have a law question you call me. Besides, we are guys and we think different than women do.”

The world is cold enough as it is, we all want to feel important and feel special. I love to walk into a business and have the owner say “Hey Anthony, how’s it going?”

I look back at the many testimonials that clients have sent to me and it amazes me what they say, “Anthony was…” or “It was a pleasure Anthony”, or “I called Anthony and he…” Was I really that blind? Have we become that cold and insensitive?

I know personally I am focusing on getting back to grass roots of getting to know people and the way business should be, what are you going to do with it?