Good news in Twitterverse! Well, maybe for some of you. In case you hadn’t heard that sometimes annoying Twitter Direct Message restriction of only being able to share DM’s with those you follow and following you has been lifted somewhat!
Without out much promotion or hashtag fan fare, Twitter quietly added an option to our accounts that allows us to receive DMs from any follower, even if you’re not following them.
That’s good news for some of you, but I imagine some of you saying, “I get too much spam in my DM inbox already. Why allow myself to receive more?” Hard to argue that point, but there may be some benefits to the lift of the Twitter DM restriction such as:
1. Potential customers and business leads that don’t want to publicly ask you a question, now can potentially request information or a quote without their followers seeing it. Sounds like what you can do with a fan page on Facebook, doesn’t it? But keep in mind Twitter had it first!
2. Now you as a business owner can potentially start a conversation with a business lead privately that could convert them not only to a follower but a customer without an audience.
3. As a brand or company on the platform, the lift of the Twitter Direct Message restriction could mean better customer service. Should a complaint need to be responded to from a follower, you can respond more quickly without having to follow them back. But of course, you do want to return the follow of some of your customers.
So how do you turn on this new feature? On Twitter.com, visit your profile settings and click “account” to see if it’s been added. Twitter hasn’t rolled it out to everyone just yet, so be patient. Sheer Social, has it enabled already.
I suggest you give the new option a try. If you get an onslaught of spammy DMs, then at least you have the option to disable this function or better yet block those abusing the system. Have a Twitter question, please feel free to ask in the comments below.
