How to Get More Twitter Followers :: Tips from a Former creativeLIVE Social Media Assistant

For the past 3 months, I was working as a "Social Media Assistant" at creativeLIVE. Sure, I got to meet some totally rad people, eat delicious catered food every day, and experience a taste of life in the "big" city (coming from St. Andrews, Seattle is HUGE lol) but I know what you're really interested in hearing about...how to get more followers in Twitter, right? I mean, seriously... 90 FULL days on Twitter & Facebook has driven me slightly crazy BUT I went from 130 followers to 1,300 followers in 1 month by picking up & applying these strategies....

{Apparently having a black & white profile pic helps cuz it makes you stand out from the masses.
*Special shout out to my buddy Monte, aka the cutie smiling back at you right now ;)
I think Monte needs more followers. Go get him at @jmonteLIVE 

Follow 80-100 People Everyday 
Don't just follow all of Justin Beiber's fans. 
Follow people that you actually have something in common with — then you'll want to share each others' tweets. To find people worth following, search for hashtags & look at people's followers.
I follow creativeLIVE fans, Sue Bryce fans and people who like yoga, John Mayer & fashion illustration.

Unfollow 100-200 People Everyday 
Only unfollow the ones that aren't following you back or providing you with useful info — they're deadweight. Unfollowing is easy if you use a cool website called: manageflitter.com

Don't Worry about Your Ratio
It's OK to have less followers than the # of people you follow.
Following new people & raising awareness about yourself is more important than "looking" popular. Besides, this high ratio "problem" sorts itself out naturally when you unfollow people regularly. 

Join the Conversation
Rotate your tweets to spice things up. 
Use the rule of 3rds: Retweet (include your own comment), Reply (get little convos going) & Share (your own content: quotes, photos, links, blogs etc...) 
Repeat this cycle over and over all day long: Retweet, Reply, Share — Retweet, Reply, Share — etc.....

Don't Go Crazy
FIY — you can be put on Twitter's naughty list if you spam — so don't follow/unfollow massive amounts of people everyday. It looks bad.
Also, don't tweet more than 1 time / hour — MAX. Much better to send 1 tweet every 4-5hrs or so.
I automatically unfollow people that tweet more than 5x/day.

Use #Hashtags!
YOU might not search for #hashtags but #thousands of #people out there are doing it all day long.
Start including #keywords in your #tweets and #people will find you, #retweet you, & #follow you!
1-2 hashtags per tweet — MAX — or else it looks like spam.
Hashtags I use regularly include: #photography #glamour #WfWI #fashion #beauty #portrait #quote #creativeLIVE #Seattle

Right, enough for now. Happy tweeting!
Thank you creativeLIVE for helping my social (media) life!