The Fake Twitter Follower Syndrome - Don't Fall For It

There seems to be an interesting trend on Twitter... Well, OK, there are a lot of trends going on in the small world of "the Twitter."  But one of note is where many Twitter users are banking on automatic follow-backs to get your statistic under their belt.  But don't fall for it.  Over half your followers may be nothing but ruses.

What I mean by ruses is that, the premise of following seems to be embedded with users automatically following their new follower back.  It seems to be the polite thing to do.  But if you're careful, you might notice your new follower is not as polite as you.

Way back in the beginning, I had started to auto-follow my new followers too.  But two things started happening that I took notice of.

One was that my feed was so full of *&! that I it was really hard to keep track of the important Twitter feeds.

The other thing I noticed was that despite all these new follower emails I'm getting from Twitter, my stats didn't show a huge or any increase in my follower numbers.  It was confounding, because, well, I don't think like a-holes and the premise never came to me.  That premise is to follow then unfollow a Twitter user immediately.  If many folk follow the "polite feeling" mode, they follow back. 

But here's what I've taken to doing... not only because I'm polite.  Not only because I appreciate it, but now, it's a quality check.

When I see a new follower email, the next day I'll direct message them to thank them for their follow.  And as you might suspect, 99% of my new followers can't be direct messaged because they need to be following me for me to be able to D @them.

So the question remains...  do I just move on or do I do start a small campaign to highlight these "people."  These used-car salesmen.  Part of me would like to point the finger, but then part of me worries it will bring them more attention.  Sigh.