Why do I get 'random' follow requests on Twitter?

there are services that let you automagically follow/request to follow people that follow others who follow you/that you follow.

a lot of the ones i’ve gotten are promotional for things i’d never be interested in (urban wear, etc). i just block them.

A lot are spam. And some are people who search for a topic that you might have talked about. And they then find you interesting.

one of my tweets said the word “black” in it, after that..i had a bunch of big black men following me. no lie. i think it goes by what you type in tweets.
poopassistant found me, because i mention poop a lot.

@casheroo—I used to get a lot of stuff like that, too, until I set my updates to private. Now I think the only random people I get are ones MrTweet recommends me to.

Basically there is spam, auto-connecting services, and automated socail actions based on what you said.

Interesting, Thank you.

I totally agree – lots are spams – some are searches for weird words – some are just people who want to follow as many people as possible in hopes that they will follow them in return.

A lot of people use Twitter to promote their business. A lot of people follow me who seem to be mostly using Twitter for that, and maybe they are hoping that when they follow me (my profile is public), that I’ll follow them in return, and I’ll be exposed to their message.

But I don’t play like that. I don’t follow people out of a sense of etiquette. Who makes up Twitter etiquette, anyway? When someone unfamiliar follows me out of the blue, I always take a quick peek at their profile to see their bio and get a sense of their current tweets. I’m only interested in them rarely.

And I don’t mind strangers following me. I don’t know quite why they’d be interested in my random thoughts, links and eurekas, but what the hell. If I inspire them, all the better.

Ever heard of MrTweet? Essentailly it is a site that tells you who is and who isn’t likely to follow you back if you follow them. So basically it is a way for marketers and Twitter-Whores to make more cyber friends and massage their cyber egos. I know this because I am one of those cyber-jerks.

follow me twitter.com/willbrawn

I like the guy who just started following me. He has updated 10 (yes TEN) times and 3 out of that 10 are to say things like: “look… now 40 people are following me” “Look… 70 people”. WOW!

follow me twitter.com/alexarzadon