Can we chat? I want to talk about something that I have been seeing a lot on Twitter: Follow Baiting. (Yes, I coined that term and yes, you can use it.)

It's when:

1. You follow someone

2. Wait until they follow you

3. Then unfollow that person

What is the purpose of this? When nice people see that someone is following, they usually follow back. There are people out there that have learned how to exploit nice people. These people believe that if your following number is much lower than your follower number you look like an expert with, well, a following. These people will do anything to make their follower numbers inflate, from buying followers to follow baiting.

There are several reasons why you shouldn't follow bait. First, it's kinda mean taking advantage of people's niceness to make yourself look better. Second, who's to say you aren't follow baiting someone who is just going to unfollow you right back when you unfollow?

I've been tracking follow baiting for the past few weeks. Here's the pattern I've observed:

1. One guy follows someone

2. Waits for the follow

3. Then unfollows

4. The other guy unfollows the first guy because they got unfollowed

5. A few days later, the first guy refollows the second guy

6. The process restarts all over again

It's a big old fat waste of time for everyone involved. People today use sites like Just Unfollow to track who's following them and who isn't. If you follow bait, you aren't fooling anyone. Get your followers with legit tactics, like tweeting things that people want to read and share, or hire someone to do it for you, like me.

Follow me on Twitter: @alinabradford