How to set up Twitter DMs for business

Twitter is the most conversational social media platform. It’s where a regular Joe can chime in on a celebrity’s choice of Sunday roast, or an aspiring entrepreneur can interact with their idol. It’s where people all over the world can pipe up and join in with anyone’s conversation, and virtually mingle with virtually anybody.

Why is direct messaging an important marketing tool on Twitter if you can openly chat with whoever you want? It’s all about taking a conversation away from the public eye. In this blog, we’ll show you how to set up your DMs, so you’ll be getting the messages you want and filtering out spam.

Your DM Settings

To find your direct messaging settings on your phone:

1. Open the Twitter app
2. Select the envelope in the bottom right-hand corner
3. Select the settings cog in the top right-hand corner
   

To find your direct messaging settings on your desktop:

1. Go to Twitter.com and sign in
2. Select ‘Messages’ from the left-hand panel
3. Select the settings cog in the top-centre of the page
   

Choose Who Can Message You

You can decide whether to allow message requests from everyone, or to only allow message requests from profiles you follow. If you allow message requests, you still need to accept the request to reply to the message.

Whether you decide to toggle this feature on or off will depend on the level of privacy you are after, but from a business perspective it can be a good idea to allow message requests from anyone. This means customers can DM for support and other business opportunities can present themselves. However, if you are a small business owner or only have so much manpower and time to dedicate to responding to messages, you may want to limit messages through this function.

Filter Low Quality Messages

Spam, spam, spam. No-one is immune to it, but the low quality filter might just help. Avoid messages to get-quick-rich schemes, links to dodgy websites, single emojis and more by turning on this filter. Filtering out low-quality messages helps you spend more time responding to the DMs that mean something to your brand.

Show Read Receipts

If you’re planning to cherry pick the important messages to respond to after skimming over many, you might want to turn this feature off. Showing the sender that you have read the message but haven’t taken the time to respond can be really bad for how that person will feel about your brand… and people talk.

However, read receipts can be useful as they let the sender know that you have viewed their message. If you are planning to respond to all messages and have the manpower to do this, having read receipts can take the guessing out of whether you’ve received and read the message.

There are many opinions on whether having read receipts on is good etiquette or a way to spark outrage. Whether you choose to show read receipts depends on whether it makes sense for your business and staff structure. A general rule of thumb is that if you find they are not useful to your followers, turn them off.

Automated Messaging

Want to automatically send welcome messages or mass Twitter DMs? Using programs like socialoomph or Crowdfire allows you to do this. You can set up chat bots or automated messaging to be as complex as you like, but often a simple‘thank you for the follow’ can go a long way. Just make sure, whatever your messaging set up, that it serves your following. If you were receiving the message, would you see it as useful, enriching or an annoyance?

Now that you’ve got your Twitter DMs set up for success, we look forward to sharing our tips for DM marketing in a follow-up blog. Keep your eyes peeled! In the meantime, check out your social media marketing progress with Minter.io - helping you strengthen your business with in-depth social media analytics.