5 ms·

I made a tool to automate your Twitter DMs

17 points by ikoichi2112 4y ago

natly 4y ago
I would feel so awful if I thought I was interacting with a normal human and they didn't tell me they were categorizing my DMs to them in organized groups like 'web dev beginners' and automating their responses to me.
- devarifhossain 4y ago
  I feel the same sometimes.. But from a founder POV, automation saves a lot of time. so i guess it makes sense.
  - natly 4y ago
    It's definitely worth considering that these tools can have a counter productive effect though. It can be really off-putting to a lot of people to get a near instant DM right after following someone which seems pretty obviously automated. That could have been a real customer who now unfollowed or muted you when a non automated human interaction approach may have had a higher chance of conversion to a sale. So the decision to automate isn't always so clearly beneficial.
- ikoichi2112 4y ago
  Sometime the welcome message (that you can customize) discloses the automated nature of it. And it seems to be the best way to approach it.
miguelmurca 4y ago
My god, the last thing I'd want is for someone to auto-DM me after I follow them with "Thanks for following, how can I help you?" In fact, I'm almost sure that would make me unfollow immediately. That said, is this meant for people or for brands?
- 0des 4y ago
  A lot of folks did this in the early days of twitter and I'd unfollow every time because of how presumptuous and annoying it was. Youve immediately started the conversation on a robotic and overbearing foot when you do this.
- bjarneh 4y ago
  It seems pretty nuts for a person to do at least. I'm not using twitter to 'convert followers to leads' (whatever that means).
  - that_guy_iain 4y ago
    A lot of people are tho. And I mean a lot of people. There are numerous books on how to generate revenue via Twitter following and more books about how to build an audience to eventually sell to them.
- ikoichi2112 4y ago
  Hi there! You'll be surprise to discover that actually many people reply back, and a few unfollows happened due to that message in the last 6 months. It's suited to everyone who wants to kickstart conversations, the welcome message it's just an icebreaker, as you jump into the conversation after the reply. It's for indie hackers, product builders, SaaS founders, agencies, and so on.
  - samatman 4y ago
    It's for anyone who wants to use it. That's going to be spam bots mostly. I hope you have the good grace to retire the service once that becomes obvious, but let's just say HN requires me to assume good faith and I'll leave it at that.
PragmaticPulp 4y ago
> When you get a new follower, we send the welcome message. So you can focus on nurturing conversations and making leads. Seems like a tool to turn a Twitter account into a marketing chatbot that abuses follows as a trigger to start a conversation. Automatically inserting an uninvited chatbot into someone’s DMs isn’t a great way to foster a sense of authenticity. This is the kind of tool used by marketers who think every channel must be quickly exploited to either convert the person or make them so annoyed they disengage. Not great for long-term engagement. Side note: I’m always suspicious when PR pieces like this rocket up the front page. I wouldn’t expect a Twitter follow auto-DM chatbot targeted at social media marketers to organically collect this many upvotes from the generally anti-marketing, anti-social-media, anti-chatbot HN audience.
- ikoichi2112 4y ago
  Hey there! I totally understand your first reaction "this is tool for marketers willing to use automation tools to bother people" but actually it's not like that. The tool internally fosters a collaborative and helpful behavior, and clearly asks to avoid spammy content. The users of Hivoe are willing to kickstart conversations! And that's the way I've been using it since the beginning. If you behave differently, like in a spammy markerting only oriented way, the users will probably be likely to mark you as a spammer on Twitter. End of the account. I hope you got my point. Nice to share our opinions!
  - PragmaticPulp 4y ago
    > I totally understand your first reaction "this is tool for marketers willing to use automation tools to bother people" but actually it's not like that. > The tool internally fosters a collaborative and helpful behavior, and clearly asks to avoid spammy content. I hope you can see the other perspective, which is that simply asking your users to use a tool in positive ways doesn’t automatically make it a positive tool. The tool doesn’t really foster anything other than delivering messages to contacts that follow. Twitter is spammy enough as is. I don’t want my DMs hijacked to be another channel for unsolicited content generated by bots.
  - Volker_W 4y ago
UI_at_80x24 4y ago
I can easily imagine using old IRC style auto messaging/replying based on '/notice' '/onjoin' ...etc twitter activity.
hda111 4y ago
I would unfollow anyone that messages me only because I followed them. Especially when it’s an automatic message.
- ikoichi2112 4y ago
  I had the same doubts as you at the beginning. That's why I tested the feature myself before building the product. The results had been very good, so I started developing. A lot of users are very happy with that and had been able to kickstart many meaningful conversations
natly 4y ago
It's funny how tools like these are supposed to increase engagement but if you look at the feeds of the twitter accounts quoted at the bottom of the page they all get really awful engagement.
- ikoichi2112 4y ago
  Hi there! How do you measure engagement?
  - natly 4y ago
    First of all I wish you all the best and want to be clear that I'm not trying to be mean spirited. By engagement I mean something like likes per tweet to followers ratio, and I'm seeing around 5-10 likes per tweet on your account with about 2700 followers. This sounds really mean but you asked so that's my definition. Hope you have a great future startup career.
dchest 4y ago
“When you get a new follower, we send the welcome message.” This is against Twitter ToS: “ You may send automated Direct Messages to users so long as: - in advance of sending the Direct Message, the recipient(s) have requested or have clearly indicated an intent on Twitter to be contacted by you via Direct Message, for example by sending you a Direct Message; - and you provide a clear and easy way for such users to opt-out of receiving automated Direct Messages, and promptly honor all such opt-out requests. The fact that a user is technically able to receive a Direct Message from you (e.g. because the user follows you, has enabled the ability to receive Direct Messages from any account, or because the user is in a pre-existing Direct Message conversation with you) does not necessarily mean they have requested or expect to receive automated Direct Messages from you.” https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/twitter-automation https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/twitter-autom...
- ikoichi2112 4y ago
  Thanks for reaching out! I'll check it out.
nxmnxm99 4y ago

17 points by ikoichi2112 4y ago

I would feel so awful if I thought I was interacting with a normal human and they didn't tell me they were categorizing my DMs to them in organized groups like 'web dev beginners' and automating their responses to me.

devarifhossain 4y ago
I feel the same sometimes.. But from a founder POV, automation saves a lot of time. so i guess it makes sense.
- natly 4y ago
  It's definitely worth considering that these tools can have a counter productive effect though. It can be really off-putting to a lot of people to get a near instant DM right after following someone which seems pretty obviously automated. That could have been a real customer who now unfollowed or muted you when a non automated human interaction approach may have had a higher chance of conversion to a sale. So the decision to automate isn't always so clearly beneficial.
ikoichi2112 4y ago
Sometime the welcome message (that you can customize) discloses the automated nature of it. And it seems to be the best way to approach it.

miguelmurca 4y ago

My god, the last thing I'd want is for someone to auto-DM me after I follow them with "Thanks for following, how can I help you?" In fact, I'm almost sure that would make me unfollow immediately. That said, is this meant for people or for brands?

0des 4y ago
A lot of folks did this in the early days of twitter and I'd unfollow every time because of how presumptuous and annoying it was. Youve immediately started the conversation on a robotic and overbearing foot when you do this.
bjarneh 4y ago
It seems pretty nuts for a person to do at least. I'm not using twitter to 'convert followers to leads' (whatever that means).
- that_guy_iain 4y ago
  A lot of people are tho. And I mean a lot of people. There are numerous books on how to generate revenue via Twitter following and more books about how to build an audience to eventually sell to them.
ikoichi2112 4y ago
Hi there! You'll be surprise to discover that actually many people reply back, and a few unfollows happened due to that message in the last 6 months. It's suited to everyone who wants to kickstart conversations, the welcome message it's just an icebreaker, as you jump into the conversation after the reply. It's for indie hackers, product builders, SaaS founders, agencies, and so on.
- samatman 4y ago
  It's for anyone who wants to use it. That's going to be spam bots mostly. I hope you have the good grace to retire the service once that becomes obvious, but let's just say HN requires me to assume good faith and I'll leave it at that.

PragmaticPulp 4y ago

> When you get a new follower, we send the welcome message. So you can focus on nurturing conversations and making leads. Seems like a tool to turn a Twitter account into a marketing chatbot that abuses follows as a trigger to start a conversation. Automatically inserting an uninvited chatbot into someone’s DMs isn’t a great way to foster a sense of authenticity. This is the kind of tool used by marketers who think every channel must be quickly exploited to either convert the person or make them so annoyed they disengage. Not great for long-term engagement. Side note: I’m always suspicious when PR pieces like this rocket up the front page. I wouldn’t expect a Twitter follow auto-DM chatbot targeted at social media marketers to organically collect this many upvotes from the generally anti-marketing, anti-social-media, anti-chatbot HN audience.

ikoichi2112 4y ago
Hey there! I totally understand your first reaction "this is tool for marketers willing to use automation tools to bother people" but actually it's not like that. The tool internally fosters a collaborative and helpful behavior, and clearly asks to avoid spammy content. The users of Hivoe are willing to kickstart conversations! And that's the way I've been using it since the beginning. If you behave differently, like in a spammy markerting only oriented way, the users will probably be likely to mark you as a spammer on Twitter. End of the account. I hope you got my point. Nice to share our opinions!
- PragmaticPulp 4y ago
  > I totally understand your first reaction "this is tool for marketers willing to use automation tools to bother people" but actually it's not like that. > The tool internally fosters a collaborative and helpful behavior, and clearly asks to avoid spammy content. I hope you can see the other perspective, which is that simply asking your users to use a tool in positive ways doesn’t automatically make it a positive tool. The tool doesn’t really foster anything other than delivering messages to contacts that follow. Twitter is spammy enough as is. I don’t want my DMs hijacked to be another channel for unsolicited content generated by bots.
- Volker_W 4y ago

UI_at_80x24 4y ago

I can easily imagine using old IRC style auto messaging/replying based on '/notice' '/onjoin' ...etc twitter activity.

hda111 4y ago

I would unfollow anyone that messages me only because I followed them. Especially when it’s an automatic message.

ikoichi2112 4y ago
I had the same doubts as you at the beginning. That's why I tested the feature myself before building the product. The results had been very good, so I started developing. A lot of users are very happy with that and had been able to kickstart many meaningful conversations

natly 4y ago

It's funny how tools like these are supposed to increase engagement but if you look at the feeds of the twitter accounts quoted at the bottom of the page they all get really awful engagement.

ikoichi2112 4y ago
Hi there! How do you measure engagement?
- natly 4y ago
  First of all I wish you all the best and want to be clear that I'm not trying to be mean spirited. By engagement I mean something like likes per tweet to followers ratio, and I'm seeing around 5-10 likes per tweet on your account with about 2700 followers. This sounds really mean but you asked so that's my definition. Hope you have a great future startup career.

dchest 4y ago

“When you get a new follower, we send the welcome message.” This is against Twitter ToS: “ You may send automated Direct Messages to users so long as: - in advance of sending the Direct Message, the recipient(s) have requested or have clearly indicated an intent on Twitter to be contacted by you via Direct Message, for example by sending you a Direct Message; - and you provide a clear and easy way for such users to opt-out of receiving automated Direct Messages, and promptly honor all such opt-out requests. The fact that a user is technically able to receive a Direct Message from you (e.g. because the user follows you, has enabled the ability to receive Direct Messages from any account, or because the user is in a pre-existing Direct Message conversation with you) does not necessarily mean they have requested or expect to receive automated Direct Messages from you.” https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/twitter-automation https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/twitter-autom...

ikoichi2112 4y ago
Thanks for reaching out! I'll check it out.

nxmnxm99 4y ago