This is a guest post by Anita Nelson. Check out our guest posting guidelines

People ask all the time, “How do I get more followers?” and the answer is right in front of them. It is very simple, but not necessarily easy to do. Twitter is like a Sadie Hawkins dance! According to Wikipedia, Sadie Hawkins is an American folk event. Sadie Hawkins Day is a pseudo-holiday that originated in Al Capp‘s classic hillbilly comic strip, Li’l Abner (1934 to 1977). The event is still observed in the form of dances at which girls approach (or chase after) boys.

Follow first. – Since a Sadie Hawkins Dance is where the girl asks the boy to the dance instead of the traditional “boy asks girl” arrangement, it represents a sort of backward way of doing things. Anything goes! No hard and fast rules! Twitter works much in the same way. If you are newer to Twitter and have grown tired of “waitin’ for the boys to come acallin’, it just makes sense to follow someone who can show you the way. Whenever you are about to ask someone you are NOT following, “Why won’t you follow me?!” stop and realize that someone has to make the first move and it may as well be you, tweep! Especially with large accounts that follow back in bulk; there is really no reason to ask! Just follow them and if you are not spamming or exhibiting obnoxious behavior, you will very likely get followed back. It is not a good idea to press these accounts since they are held to follow limits by Twitter just like anyone else, but it is an excellent place to start. Also, being followed by accounts with large followings does wonders for your “klout”! Don’t be upset if you are the one who follows first. In a reciprocal Twitter relationship, no one is keeping track of these things. If you are connected, you are connected. Just don’t go crazy following more than follow you back. It can make you look desperate, tweep. And don’t unfollow the person after they have followed you back. It is nonsensical. They will unfollow you in return, rest assured. Why did you want to follow at all?

Space Your Tweets – This is one that I struggle with personally, but tweets work best when they are in balance like the give and take of two dancers stepping excitedly through a jig. The best Twitter accounts tweet steadily and with give and take. They have an almost equal amount of @replies, #Quotes, links, news and conversation. They do not flood and rarely land in Twitter jail for breaking the #TPH (“tweets per hour” tag inspired by @OliviaWilder). If you tweet more or faster than the 100 tweets per hour or 1000 tweets per day rate, Twitter puts up a sign that says “Whoa! That’s a lot of twittering! Why don’t you take a break for a while and come back later.” You may wonder who on earth could tweet that much, but you may also be a person who likes their tweets to be answered. It is quite the challenge for some accounts, mine included. Scheduling some tweets is the answer for many people. See Gautams’s post.

Work on your Technique – We are all works in progress and if you are active on Twitter, you probably love to learn! Just like dancing, there are techniques you can learn, implement and perfect on Twitter. Be sure to always follow the correct format for RTing, use the “reply” button when answering someone, check links before you send them out, fill out your bio, add an avatar, give a bio link to more of you, make lists and add them to Listorious.com, tweet relevant content, and read lots of articles about Twitter to find even more techniques to make you a better tweeter.

Take the Lead! – Don’t be afraid to jump into a conversation or make a comment to “anyone”. Hopefully, your comment will be meaningful and kind-spirited, but no one is above a tweet! No matter how many followers the person has, whether they are a star in Hollywood or online, or if their avatar leaves your knees weak, take the initiative to strike up a conversation. Make it more interesting than “Hi, how are you?” Can you imagine the tweet stream of a giant account that answers each time someone asks, “How are you”? Act as if there is no day and night with these accounts, like the dance began last year and will last forever. Others will see your style of tweeting and join in. They will be magnetically drawn to you and they will follow you. If they don’t, it’s simple: just follow first!

Change Partners! – Don’t be afraid to mix it up a bit! Be adventurous and reach out to others. You can even speak to people in different languages by using translators such as freetranslation.com or Google Translate. If you always talk to the same 10 people, you may as well follow 10 people and have 10 people follow you. Meet someone new, take a chance on love, and mix it up a bit! You will be surprised at the quality of people in the Twitterverse you have not even met yet!

Implement these very simple “steps” and I promise your Twitter account will bring you questions that will make your business grow by leaps and bounds! You will begin to get questions about your business that will keep you very busy answering! Everyone in sales and marketing knows that questions = interest = sales. The more questions, the more conversion is likely. Answer these questions in your Twitter stream and you will get even more questions from new people! You will never be at a loss for words to tweet. And it will scarcely show that you are marketing. You will never run around yelling, “Follow me! Follow me! Buy my stuff!” because you will have already followed and listed who you want to follow you, first. Your impression will be made correctly from the very first step of the dance.

by Anita Nelson @ModelSupplies