How NOT to gain Twitter followers

Have you done a Google Search for "twitter followers" lately? Go ahead, try it out. What you will find is that everyone seems to know how to "Get Twitter Followers Now" and achieve "Explosive Twitter Growth". And while these scams may increase your following for the short term, it is more important for Twitter users (and users of all social networking mediums for that matter) to be concerned with how influential and significant their following is rather than the size of their following.

Here are a few lessons I have learned on how NOT to grow your Twitter following:

1. Do not used paid services which simply allow you to follow mass amounts of people who are likely not interested in what you are talking about, in hopes that they will follow you back. While it is true that one of the best ways to gain Twitter followers is by following others first, that logic only goes so far. People are smart enough to only follow you back if your content is interesting and valuable to them.
2. Do not rely too heavily on @Replies. A lot of people on Twitter think that the more your content is "retweeted" or replied to, the more followers you will gain. And while this logic has some merit, it does not always work. I'll give you a perfect example. A few week's ago, Jonathan Martin (Senior Political Writer for Politico) linked to my Sayfie Review column regarding Florida's most influential Twitterers while citing my Twitter username in his tweet. I was ecstatic! With 3,000+ followers and more importantly a great reputation, Jonathan Martin was sure to drive me followers, right? Wrong. I never saw the "Martin surge" of followers some Twitterers would come to expect after such exposure.
3. Flooding the zone. While this varies for each Twitter user, as a general rule of thumb I think it is safe to say that your followers don't want your tweets to be the only thing they see everytime they login to Twitter. The line of thinking that the more you tweet the more they follow is not necessarily true, but again this is something you have to determine for yourself.
   

At the end of the day, growing a significant social network following that is truly interested and engaged in what you are talking about takes a lot of time and a lot of work. Like everything in life, true success on Twitter does not come quickly or without serious effort, so get to work!