5 reasons to send Direct Messages on Twitter

March 10, 2009

Asked on LinkedIn: Why do you send a Direct Message on Twitter?

Here are five reasons to send a direct message on Twitter:

  • You’re correcting or warning someone about something they posted publicly on Twitter.
  • Your friend or colleague is logged off of IM/Skype, and you want to tell them to log in so you can send them a REAL private message.
  • You’re sending a simple or logistical message (a scheduling detail, a status update) that is too boring for anyone else to bother reading.
  • You’re sending a non-lewd love message that is too gushy for anyone else to tolerate reading.
  • You need to communicate something that is too short to be worth emailing, and yet not time sensitive enough to be worth calling about.

And when NOT to DM:
Because what you’re saying is confidential. (HINT: imagine how you’d feel if your DM accidentally got sent to the world)

This week I went on one of my periodic LinkedIn answering binges. Since LinkedIn doesn’t provide me with a way of directly aggregating my own answers back onto our site (!!) I’m manually posting my answers back to this site.