I noticed the new Twitter follower Emails got a facelift today and they are actually encourage interaction. I’ve often wondered why the current one was so limited note the lack of any useful links for interaction:
The new one actually gives you an easier view of the usernames including their own(some people have multiple twitter accounts) and provides some encouraging links at the bottom which is probably the smartest move. Also note the “if you believe <user> is engaging in abusive behavior on Twitter” link:
It was great to see this improvement but I am sure someone at Twitter is thinking “Duh, why didn’t we think of this sooner.”
The only real change is a few more links that don't seem to serve much purpose to me at all. The first is a link to the new follower's profile which already existed in the old version. The next two are links to send an @reply or a Direct Message. First of all, who sends an @reply to a new follower they probably don't know anything about yet? Same question for a DM and further, until you follow them they can't send a DM back to you. Frankly I think this will just lead to more spam. If they wanted to offer us some useful information how about the new followers bio and a few of their latest tweets. We could actually use that information to decide if we wanted to follow them back or not.
Both excellent ideas Hugh, especially the recent tweets. The only real exception is if you are already familiar with the new follower because you followed them first. That is probably more the exception than the rule of course but perhaps not for the “typical” user?