If you’re involved in a social media effort using Twitter, you know how crowded the tweet landscape is. The problem of garbage collection on Twitter is mainly related to the surrounding space junk and junk from spam marketing agencies and automated feed of similar tweets.

For various reasons unknown to me, search engine optimization and search engine marketing companies believe that if you automatically generate a Twitter following, combined with an aggregate of retweets and RSS or news feeds, that somehow it will hit the mark. utopia of social networks. However, that is far from the truth.

However, let’s get back to the basics of social media. By employing social media, you are effectively telling a customer that you will push yourself in a social atmosphere. In that environment, you are also committed to maintaining a certain online presence.

Also, you must reach a target audience. For example, if you are participating in a social media effort that deals with a customer who sells freshly baked bread. Obviously, you would need to engage chefs, bakers, and similar bakeries on Twitter, right?

However, here is the problem with that. Aside from Twitter’s efforts to improve the experience of its users, many of the so-called social media campaigns employ the use of automatic follow-up tactics. There are countless auto-followlists out there, of say 500 or more Twitter users or ‘tweeples’ that will automatically follow you, once you’ve followed them.

What is the problem with what you say? Well, social media is about respect and real information, at least at its core. If I generate a follower count of 50,000 users, using an automatic follow-up list, how many of those mentioned tweeps will be involved in what is said in my tweets, the answer? A handful or none.

There is a real dilemma with Twitter followers. Automatic followers are being fully refunded, when tweeple that keep leaving them, several days after the fact. What does this? Well, it’s a deceptive social media tactic aimed at increasing the fan count of the user who left you, while slyly reducing your followers. Why does this tactic work? The use of automatic tracking, of course. If you are going to employ automatic follow-up tactics, you are effectively preparing for this diversion tactic.

Automatic Twitter follow-up can be used effectively. Once you’ve built a reasonable set of followers, automatic tracking can prove valuable. If you think that people who are interested in what you have to say on Twitter, like the bakery example above, you can use automatic tracking effectively. Think of your Twitter account, after you’ve built a reasonable following, as a well-oiled machine. Once people take notice of you, you will start to gain a following that can relate to your industry, topic, and conversation. With auto-tracking enabled, you’ll be able to follow them quickly and easily. This is the correct way to use it.

It is obvious that anyone can be eliminated on Twitter, it is in the functionality. However, if you’ve built a real, active Twitter following, you won’t have to deal with sneaky detour tactics. If someone cracks your hand-crafted and crafted follower list, they most likely know who it was and possibly why.

The basics for earning respect on Twitter and actively participating are as follows:

• Start by following active friends who are interested in your business.
• Communicate with more – Follow relationships from industry and companies you know. Make sure they are actively involved on Twitter.
• Increase your Twitter following by actively participating, promoting, and staying up-to-date with current trends and news in your industry.
• Stay away from employing automatic follow-up tactics, feed / RSS feeds linking to Twitter, etc.
• Keep the information real and provide brief status updates: “We just did this …” or “Employee x thinks …”
• Never let your followers go. Twitter is all about consistency, so keep it that way, if you can.

It’s important to keep up your efforts with a social media campaign. While some social media experts may think of Twitter as a numbers game, it is not. While popularity is important, at least for any sales-driven business, it must be developed with an overall goal in mind. And that’s providing a real source of information about your product and your business. Therefore, Twitter, like other social networking sites, can be used to build a brand. With real followers listening to your tweets, you can send a message quickly, effectively, and to a large, interested audience. That is the goal.