From personal experience, using a program to auto follow back on Twitter is a great way to make your follower count go up.
Weird huh? Because why would you get more followers by following back the people who already decided to follow you?
I don’t know. But it works.
This is something I tried and tested, but I don’t do it anymore. I’ll explain more about that in a minute, but first here is how to auto follow back if you think you want to try it.
How To Auto Follow Back New Followers On Twitter
Step 1: Create and account with SocialOomph. 
If you aren’t already familiar with the site, you will find a lot of different shortcuts that this site can help you with, including scheduling status updates, checking statistics, and sending auto direct messages to new followers (EWWW please don’t do this! That’s a whole ‘nother blog post in itself).
Step 2: Mouse over “Social Accounts”, then “Add New Account”, then “Add Twitter”. Follow the steps to allow SocialOomph authorization to work with your Twitter account.
Step 3: Back on the home screen, mouse over ”Social Accounts” again and click “Manage Accounts”. The Twitter account that you authorized should be listed on the new screen.
Step 4: Click the “Edit” button that is in the same row as the name of your Twitter account.
Step 5: Once you have reached the “Optional Twitter Account Automation” click the box marked “Automatically follow people (new followers) who follow me from this point forward. Click Save.
There ya go. From now on, SocialOomph will make sure that anyone who follows you will be followed back (maybe not immediately, but within 24 hours).
Why You Shouldn’t Auto Follow Back
There are many people on Twitter who are only in it for the game of the high follower count (celeb status, if you will) and in turn are constantly following people to get them as followers, and then unfollowing them as they move up.
But Amy, I need social proof therefore I need followers! I don’t care what their motives are in all this. They are still helping me when they become my follower.
Oh I’m sorry. I thought you were trying to make money. If this is your argument, you are focused on the wrong metrics.
Having a boatload of spam followers does not give you social proof. It only wastes the precious marketing time that you are spending on social media.
Don’t get one thing wrong: YOU SHOULD ABSOLUTELY BE FOLLOWING BACK YOUR FOLLOWERS! But auto follow back is not the way to go because checking out your new followers on a daily basis to see who is interested in you is A) good research and B) a great way to ignore spammers and not fill your Twitter stream with the likes of:
Are you following your followers back? Why or why not?
