Other than technorati and alltop what are the best RSS directories to use and submit feeds to?

OK, before anyone says anything, I know this isn't the right way to do things properly and that if I want to build a genuine and interested following base, I need to create some great content, tweet great things of interest and build a genuine and engaged follower base.... BUT ....Has anyone got any actual experience of using paid for twitter followers and if so would you recommend it or recommend any particular company who does it in the UK? I know there's companies who do it by getting reciprocal followers and others who just use bots to give you lots of 'useless' followers. I essentially want to know if it can work at all on any level and get you some degree of useful followers (i.e. people who may actually read your tweets as opposed to fake accounts).

What does the forum think the best way to get Twitter Followers is? I'm talking from the perspective from a fairly unknown brand where there's no obvious reason for someone to follow.

What does the forum think the best strategy for social bookmarking is? Obviously white hat, user generated would be preferable but looking slightly darker; you can obviously get services that create social bookmarks over a period of several weeks, but are they worth the investment?