Dustin Curtis may have a lot to answer for.

http://dustincurtis.com/you_should_follow_me_on_twitter.html

Yes, everyone uses this formula now. It's annoying.

"People should stop asking me to follow them now."

Cargo cult twittering?

I wonder if the results were more due to the face that the sentence itself is longer, rather than the specific words used (a longer sentence being a larger target for the user's eyes to land on).

He addresses that in the post. Phrasing it as other long sentences fared comparatively poorly.

I don't like being told to follow, but I'm more than happy to be given a link to their account.

Yes. You should stop using "You should follow me on twitter".

Yes, I have too. It's already been changed in my local build, just holding off on pushing a raft of updates until something else has gone live.

Pretty interesting how this has been picked up by so many, and now, at least to some is getting annoying.

I presume Dustin's audience is very "niche". They were responsible, if you will for the conversion results in his article, and after the article are annoyed by it.

On my blog I use "Have a comment? Contact me on Twitter or email me." with links for "Twitter" and "email me".