Playing The Twitter Follow Game

Chasing followers on Twitter is a wonderfully ironic process. You want followers, so you choose people to follow, in the hope they'll follow you back. Conventional wisdom even tells you exactly how to track down good-quality followers. You're interested in X. Find the guru for X on Twitter. They're unlikely to follow you - so bring up the guru's followers, they're interested in X, too. Surely, they're your best bets?
 
Guess what? Conventional wisdom is wrong. Oh, you'll get followers, sure. But _quality_ followers? Forget it. Be warned, what I'm about to write will probably sound like the poison scene in _The Princess Bride_.
 
Put yourself in the bad guy's shoes - whoever the bad guy is for you - and see how they reason. Everyone is after the big guns' follower list. Those are huge lists. So huge, in fact, most players of the follow game only check the first page or two.
 
Drumroll, please. The best place to be if you're looking to snag followers under false pretenses is near the top of one of the big guys' lists. And the punchline? There's an easy way to get there. Simply unfollow and refollow the guru. Try it. I bet you'll get a brief burst ot unsolicited followers - I did. For the price of one follow, you've baited a trap for those smart enough to play the follow game. What's more, people duped into following the bad guy will poison their own well. You'll be right at the top of _that_ bad guy's list, for other bad guys to find, and the bad guy will auto-follow into _your_ list, detracting quality followers while inviting the vermin.
 
Ah-hah - I hear you say - but if I know that you know that I think... Yup, it's the poison cup scene, sure enough. So, the big question - how do you win the follow game?
 
_You don't_. The only way you're going to get quality followers on Twitter is to impress them with the reason you want to be followed! Your blog, your business, your wonderful personality... Not how well you play Twitter tag - that'll just get you quantity.

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