If you read a few e-books or blog posts about Twitter you’ll soon find that there is a great divide among Internet marketers – successful Internet marketers nonetheless – about whether or not you should use auto-follow to follow other tweeters.

Auto-follow is a software that automatically follows people when they follow you. There are several different programs out there that do this and a few variations on it. Try them at your own risk. But the two ways of thinking about auto-follow are this:

• Yes, Do It – The ‘yes, do it’ crowd believes you should auto-follow because it shows people that you care about them. If they followed you then you should reciprocate as an act of kindness.
• No, Don’t Do It – The ‘don’t do it’ crowd argue that you should only follow people you find interesting because to auto-follow people you aren’t really interested in is disingenuous.

I fall into the ‘don’t do it’ crowd.

If you follow everyone who follows you and unfollow everyone who unfollows you then it demonstrates that you are only interested in people for what they can do for you. Nothing more. That’s pretty selfish. I think a better plan is to follow people you genuinely have an interest in and build relationships with them. That’s the human thing to do. And, it works.