There is a long thread of thoughts and discussion about fake users and brands on Twitter. Hard to avoid with the popularity growing. There also many suggestions to spot those ghosts. Common sense and observation is a good start. But if you don't have time and want to go threw the learning curve of spotting real users from fake users, try Topify.com (new site coming very very soon)
Topify replaces traditional email alert when you have a new follower and will bring you all the necessary information for you to judge who the user is. Most of our users in private beta are telling us that the first benefit is to spot spammers and fake users and avoid following them back.
I believe this is a good start to find out about a Ghost: say the way the bio or the last 5 twits are written or even better the ratio Following/Followers.
If you want to try it give a jump here (100 invitations). We have already a few thousands users in private beta and requests keep coming. The satisfaction rate is high (VERY high).
That won't be enough. Twitter will need to become or work with a full digital ID standard to stop that. Starting by checking email adresses (which they don t do for now). I am sure this will come soon
update: also read users comment on that matter here. speaks by itself
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