It’s friday already? Here’s your weekend reading list!

Busy week, right? I had about 2-3 other blog posts lined up that I wanted to get out the door, but time got away from me and here we are – Friday already.

In any case, I wanted to quickly share a few interesting posts that I came across in the last week which particularly struck me as adding value to the “conversation”. I recommend taking a few minutes over the weekend to browse through them, and if you have more than a few minutes, dig through the archives of some of the websites I’ve pointed out – there’s a treasure trove of advice and content to be had if you just know where to look. On that note, here’s this weekend’s reading list –

How To Be Like Zappos in 3 Easy Steps – It’s common knowledge that the company culture over at Zappos is one of the best in the business, so how can you take their lead and apply the same principles to your business?

How Online Marketing Drives Offline Success – KISSMetrics never fails to deliver insightful content, and this infographic connects the lines between the online and offline world in a way that should help any marketer bridge the gap. Hint: need something to share? People love infographics – so go for it!

A Blogging State of Mind – Get your head right! Think you know what drives your blogging decisions? Think again.

The Future of Community – What will the future of your online community actually look like? Chris Brogan shares some very insightful thoughts.

B2B: Social Marketing and a Cautionary Tale – Many marketers fail to accomplish their goals simply because they approach leads and influencers in the wrong way. This brief article is a great real world example of how easily things can go wrong.

Stay warm and enjoy your weekend everyone!

Twitter D.O.A. | The Death of Auto-DM

If you’re reading this, you’re most likely a Twitter user. If you’re a Twitter user, at some point you’ve probably followed someone who sent you a direct message auto-reply after you followed them. Here’s one I recently received:

“Thanks.Will be happy to tweeting with you.Please follow me on facebook

Yep, that was the exact reply – including the lack of spaces and poor grammar. Suffice it to say, I immediately unfollowed them. Has anyone in the history of social media ever received an auto-DM when they followed someone and thought “wow, this is such a personal connection I’ve just built with this person I don’t really know but follow online that they want me to also connect with them on Facebook and be best friends!” (phew!!)

No, they haven’t, because auto-dm’s are lame, and in my opinion they carry with them the stank of the “social media guru”.

You know the type of person I’m talking about – they follow 72,364 people and have 72,465 followers, they can “help you make money online”, they’re a “social and new media expert”, and they’re on “#TeamFollowBack”. They’re fanatical about #hashtags, and love leaving inane link-bait comments on your blog like “Nice article! We enjoy and use your innovative marketing advice at our e-commerce site .”.

These people pollute Twitter, and contribute to a user experience which drives away many well-intentioned people who see Twitter only as a useless forum for blatant self promotion. Those of us who are experienced Twitter users do our best to steer clear of them, but they’re not going away; in fact it seems that they’re only growing in number. So what are we going to do about it?

I propose an immediate boycott of any Twitter user who sends auto-DM’s upon new follows. If you follow someone and they auto-DM you shortly thereafter, immediately unfollow them. People like this will only change their behavior if they see that it affects their potential to distribute marketing messages, and unfollowing them en masse hits ’em where it hurts. More importantly, I implore you to stop the practice of auto-DM’ing if you’re a part of it – it reflects badly on your character, and lumps you into a class of individuals which I’m sure you don’t want to be associated with. Do yourself a favor, and do us a favor – give it up. If I followed you it’s because I’m already interested in what you have to say – you don’t need to send me a carbon copy follow-up message to make me feel extra warm and fuzzy on the inside. All you need to do is keep up a useful dialog with your followers, contribute insightful commentary to our discussions, and share interesting, valuable content I might find interesting.

Sound hard? It’s not. Just be yourself. Share this with your friends and let’s make it happen.

This is the death of auto-DM. Shout out to Jay-Z for the inspirational acronym.