By: Alan K’necht
Twitter recently announced that they have made change that would allow people to Direct Message (DM) your account even if you don’t follow them. This change is in the account settings and is disabled by default.
Upon hearing about this change I was initially shocked and thought “Why would anyone want to enable this?”. I remember the early days of Twitter anyone could DM anyone and was grateful when that option was eliminated.
Yet after mulling this over for a few days and hearing some feedback from my peers, I now can see the positive side of this new option. For personal accounts I’m still 100% against this to avoid spam, but from a brand perspective, I can honestly say there are specific benefits.
The most common benefit being tossed about is that it allows individuals to contact brands directly out of the public spotlight where they can add contact information (a phone number or email address), or of something of a private nature without the brand following them back. While this is an excellent reason from the brand’s perspective for enabling the DM feature it might not be the most critical.
All too often, with no other avenue available to brand customers turn to Twitter to complain about poor service or issues. These complaints are public and can quickly create a snowball effect as others join forces on the complaint. Yet by allowing the individual to DM the Brand, the complaint is kept private and out of the public eye.
Assuming the brand addresses these complaints in a timely and appropriate manner, it’s possible that no public escalation will occur protecting the brand’s image and reputation. While opening up your brand’s Twitter account to DMs might cause some spam to appear, the value of allowing your customers to contact you directly easily out way the cost of dealing with the spam.
Image Credit: Jonathan Riggall
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