How to quickly gain “popularity” on Twitter - for a price
Anyone who starts a new Twitter account is going to find themselves facing an uphill struggle to get into the cool crowd - the folks with all the followers. It is, after all, a world where your relative worth is pretty much on display at all times.
With a dozen followers, you are just a tiny cog in the machinery. But pick up a few thousand followers and suddenly you are a person with some clout.
But who really has the time and energy to go from zero to 5,000 followers? Of course, someone came up with a shortcut. There’s a story at MSNBC that looks at services that promise to boost your ranks of followers, pretty much over night.
You’ve heard of oversized codpieces and padded bras? Welcome to the era of the inflated online posse.
Over the last few months, a handful of free or low-fee bulk followers services - many with the words “follow” or “”tweet” in their name - have popped up online, each touting the ability to increase a client’s followers count by hundreds of people a day.
New users can appear instantly popular and businesses can, as one service puts it, “transform (their) Twitter account into an unstoppable viral traffic machine.”
The story also talks about the price paid by those who take the quick path to Twitter popularity. Chief among them, you have to put with promotional messages sent out under your name. Seems like it kind of defeats the purpose, since everyone will quickly figure out you’ve taken advantage of follower-boosting offers.
Justin Germino, 31, a Web site security specialist from Casa Grande, Ariz., says he, too, signed up for one of the services, primarily as a way to gain information for his technology-based blog, Dragonblogger.com.
Like Cunningham, the bulk followers’ service began sending out promotional tweets in his name and he began receiving direct messages from his “real” followers, asking what was up.
“I was losing more followers than I was gaining and I noticed that people who were following me on these chains were low quality, like adult Web sites,” he says. “If you just want numbers you might not care, but if you want quality followers, people who will retweet or read your articles, you’re not going to find valuable followers on these chain sites.”
Tim has covered a wide range of topics, including tourism, crime, aviation and gambling, since becoming a reporter in 1990. The Oklahoma native joined the Post-Dispatch in 2007 after spending nine years in Orlando. In his spare time, he's often exploring one virtual world or another. He can be reached at tbarker@post-dispatch.com. 
I think this is a weak way of working the system. Of COURSE your going to gain a mass following, of who? Here the principle of quality vs quantity comes into play.
Get out there, make some followers, and provide great content! That’s how the game works, and in now way is it overnight…
I never understood this need for tons of followers. Look at Ashton Kutcher’s race against CNN to see who could get to a million followers first. Do I want a million followers? It might be good for my ego, but in a way intimidating. Hey if you want to hear my random thoughts and some news flashes, then follow me. Otherwise, like Phil said, you may have quantity but no quality.
Another thought:
If you are selling something the numbers may be worth it. And by “selling something” it might be as simple as an actor selling their own popularity/next film or the Post trying to sell papers/get eyeballs to stltoday.com.