As you know, in keeping with the rash of recent Google changes, our Site-Reference motto has been “community-building – not just linkbuilding” for quite some time now. Today, it’s all about creating a brand for yourself, networking with peers in your niche, and building your brand into true authority status over time for maximum exposure and ranking power in the SERPs.

You’re likely aware that social networking plays a vital role in building your brand, and rightfully so. Users of social media have exploded in recent years, and Twitter is one of the primary platforms of choice for webmasters to be seen. Nowhere else can you communicate with your followers in real-time and keep your peers up-to-date with all the latest happenings in your site’s neck of the woods.

Unfortunately, Twitter’s been abused quite a bit over the last few years. Fake followers are big business, and even the most well-respected public figures have been found guilty of purchasing fake followers for the sake of appearances. Twitter’s even filed lawsuits against auto-tweeting and automatic following software in an attempt to wipe spam from the platform.

Gaining legitimate followers for your brand’s Twitter account is important because you don’t want your reputation tarnished by accusations of playing dirty to get a higher follower count. It’s much more than that, however – every real follower you gain is a person willing to listen to what you have to say and potentially share it with their followers as well. That said, why in the world would you want to attract anything other than the real thing?

Let’s look at some great ways to beef up your follower count – and keep your efforts aboveboard in the process.

Step One: Find and Eradicate Fake Followers

Before you attempt to up your follower count, do a little spring-cleaning. There’s no point adding followers to your existing number if you’ve already got an army of fake followers mucking up your stats. If you clean out your list and start fresh, once you employ the soon-to-be-discussed techniques, you’ll have a far more accurate reflection of real people who are following your brand.

You can accomplish this one of two ways. If you only have a modest number of followers, then it may be worth setting aside an afternoon and hand-purging your list. Check the profiles of each and every one of your followers to ensure there are no dormant accounts or spambots posing as real users.

If you already have a large number of followers, that’s great! However, a large number will also make hand-purging a rather tedious (and loathsome) task. Try out an automated service to help you weed out the bad guys quickly, such as this one recommended in a recent Tech Crunch article:

Step Two: Attract Hoards of New Followers

There are quite a few ways to gain new followers, and some methods work better than others. However, one thing’s for sure: simply slapping up a “Follow Me on Twitter” icon on your website and calling it a day is selling yourself tragically short. Go a step further in order to maximize the ROI for your follower-attracting efforts.

As with all online community-building exercises these days, the trick is to adhere to the golden rule: give and you will receive. For example, you could write a series of posts, each highlighting a fellow blogger in your niche with a decent-sized following. After you post each one on your website or blog, tweet the post to your followers and make sure to tag the blog owner in your tweets so the person knows you’ve mentioned him or her. More often than not, that blogger will reciprocate by retweeting you post to his or her own followers, many of whom will follow you. This, of course, hinges on your posts being of only the highest caliber.

Use this strategy when you guest post, too. Make sure one of the links in each of your posts points directly to your Twitter profile. You’ll be surprised – after each guest post you write is published, you should expect to see a surge in your follower count as a result – especially if your post is well-liked and shared.

Step Three: Tweet Carefully

There’s no surer way to lose followers than by annoying them with incessant tweets about nothing. Don’t tweet all day long, and only tweet when you have something to share that your followers will consider incredibly valuable.

If you can afford it, try running a contest to get an overnight surge in followers. Offer a great prize related to your niche, and tweet something like, “Enter to win [Insert Super Awesome Special Prize]. Follow @YourName and retweet this special link.” Easy, peasy, right? It’s a great way to get a bump in your follower list, but only use this tactic sparingly when your budget allows – and make sure you follow through with the contest and report the winner on Twitter when it ends.

In addition, don’t just tweet promoting yourself. Share great content related to your niche that you’ve unearthed around the Web as well as posts and articles from fellow webmasters in your industry (appropriately tagged, of course). This will ensure your followers will trust you come from a genuine place, and you’ll stay in their good graces (and on their list) in the process.