So how do you get people to actually follow you on Twitter?

The most important way is by engaging with other people and organizations using the service. If you’re new to the game or just want to increase the number of people following you, try a few of the following techniques:

1. Follow more people

This sounds simple, but when I first started using Twitter a few years ago, I just posted random stuff and wasn’t really following anyone. That’s not the point of the service. Making connections is a two-way street, so go forth and follow! Research shows that most people have a roughly equal number of follows and followers.

If you’re not sure who to follow, try these fashion lists:

• Twibes
• Listorious
• Mashable

You should also check out who other people are following–it takes a bit of time, but it’s a great way to find less well-known individuals who have a fun and interesting perspective.

2. Connect and respond

One of the great things about Twitter is the fact that two-way (and often three- and four-way) communication is so easy. If you see a tweet asking a question relevant to you, respond. Ask for help and give help when asked. Use Search.Twitter.com to find people talking about the subjects that interest you, and respond to them. Interaction is the most genuine, organic way to grow your following.

3. Be visible

Make sure your Twitter profile is part of your email address, your message board signature, on your business cards, linked to your Facebook, LinkedIn, and other social media accounts, and prominent on your blog’s homepage. Include your Twitter handle (ie @StyleSample) so people can immediately see what you’re called, and link it to your Twitter page so people can easily find and follow you.

Add yourself to Twitter directories so people who are interested in similar topics can find you. Try:

• WeFollow
• Twellow
• Just Tweet It
• TweetFind
• TwitDir
• GeoFollow

4. Re-tweet

Use Search.Twitter.com or an application like HootSuite to see which of your tweets are the most popular, and then re-tweet them at various times during the day. This increases the possibility that different people–and new people, see your best tweets. Those people will then either re-tweet those posts, or start to follow you.

and, last yet most important:

5. Create and post good content

Even though it’s limited to 140 characters, Twitter is still considered blogging. Do what you do to keep your long-form blog fresh–create and post interesting content. Share article links, retweet quality posts, ask insightful questions, and don’t be afraid to include a bit of humor!

However, if you’re dealing with agencies, educational institutions, or more traditional clients, they may want to see your work presented in a more traditional portfolio style–well, as traditional as it can be online. If you find yourself in need of an online portfolio, here are some of the best options:

Free

Carbonmade

Carbonmade‘s no-frills setup makes it easy to get started, though customization is limited. For busy creatives, the site features fast and easy batch uploading, video hosting, and web analytics. The free service (called “meh”) allows you to upload 5 projects and 35 images, while the paid (“whoo!”) service costs $12 per month and includes room for up to 50 projects, 500 images, 10 high quality videos, and your own custom domain name.

Behance

One of the best known online portfolio sites out there, Behance allows you to create a free portfolio that incorporates text, image, video, and audio as well as embedded media from sites like Flickr, YouTube, and more.

Deviant Art

The other well-loved and well known online portfolio creation tool, DeviantArt‘s basic service allows you to use their wizard to create and publish your work. You can host up to 100 images for free, or pay for the Premium portfolio service for more benefits.

Coroflot

Coroflot includes a personal URL, traffic reports to see how many hits your portfolio gets, and unlimited file uploads. Bonus: if you’re available for freelance work, you can sign up for job alerts.

Create a separate page on your blog

If you want to keep everything in one place and set up a portfolio on your current blog or site, it can be as simple as creating a new page and uploading images of your work. This method will likely require more design and formatting work to look professional, so it helps to know basic HTML and CSS. You may choose to organize by project, client, or skill.

Paid

Dripbook

Dripbook makes it easy to create your portfolio using their drag-and-drop organizer, saves countless hours of tedious work by automatically reformatting and resizing your images, instantly synch updates to external sites, blogs, and social networking sites. The service costs $10 per month for a standard portfolio, but you can sign up for a free 30-day trial.

Viewbook

The Viewbook platform makes it easy to you to create unlimited portfolio pages and albums to target to different audiences. You can publish galleries on blogs, social networking sites, and other websites. A standard portfolio costs $9/month and gets you up to 2500 images. You can also sell prints of your work (as a hard copy or digital file) through the site.

Design Taxi

Design Taxi is a paid service (9.99 or 19.99 per month), but it is a service. The platform allows viewers to export your portfolio to PDF (much more efficient than emailing a large file), and the company conducts portfolio reviews, publishes interviews with users, and sponsors events that showcase subscriber portfolios.

A few additional tips:

• Your portfolio should be a representation of your best work, so choose carefully. It’s not necessary to include everything you’ve ever done, as long as the overall body of work presented is a clear depiction of your style and skill.

• When including photography, illustration, or other visual work, use high-quality images and scans. You want your creative to look as crisp and clear as possible on screen.

• Make sure your portfolio is accessible (all-Flash sites are more difficult to index) and easy to navigate.

• Include a way for people to contact you. Either a contact form or an email address will work– both is best. The easier you make it for potential clients to get in touch, the more likely they will.

Gary Pepper Vintage

Nicole of Gary Pepper Vintage is a hard-working entrepreneur who just happens to be gorgeous. Fair? No. Worth the read? Absolutely.

What I Saw Today

Designerman – aka Richard Haines – creates deceptively simple-looking pencil sketches of New York street style on his blog  What I Saw Today. You start to think “Hey, I could do that” until you realize it takes massive talent. Which we don’t have.

Couturious

Who doesn’t like styling models with designer clothing? Couturious is like old school paper dolls crossed with Cher’s computer wardrobe stylist in Clueless–completely addictive.

What are you lovin’ right now?

• “Has our quest for convenience forever altered fashion?” Dumbing down American design (Part 1)

• Singapore’s Next Fashion Superblogger Contest: Cute bloggers, great style. And it’s sponsored by a mall! When will America catch on to this?

• Suddenly Print is taking the blog challenge seriously: Interesting perspective from a fashion journalist about the so-called showdown between print and online.

• We’re always interested in seeing what bloggers ’round the world are doing: Hong Kong’s hottest fashion blogger Cindiddy

• Gilt Groupe brings flash sales to the iPad: Online flash sale giant Gilt Groupe is keeping up with technology by introducing an iPad app. Tech-geek fashionistas rejoice!

• Speaking of technology, Go Try It On Will Be Your Wardrobe Consultant And Personal Stylist In One

• Interview with 15-year-old Danish fashion blogger, teen insider Nicklas Skovgaard. Way to make us feel old.

• Sure, you love fashion, but will you invest in it? New website allows anyone to invest $50 in young labels.

What were your favorite fashion stories this week?

How to install WordPress from scratch (Part 1)

How to install WordPress from scratch (Part 2)

This video is a few years old, so make sure you download the most current version of WordPress. As of today, it’s version 2.9.1.

This guy uses Host Gator, but there are multiple site hosting companies to choose from. Some of the most popular are:
BlueHost
GoDaddy
Host Gator
1&1
DreamHost

Let me know if you have questions or need help!

~Tamia

Bookmark it!

Online bookmarking tools are a great way to store and save information and ideas for later reference, and are extremely helpful for those of us with short memories and even shorter attention spans. Here are three of the best:

Evernote

By far one of the most popular bookmarking and storage applications out there, Evernote allows you to “clip” links, webpages, online text, photos, documents, voice memos, and pretty much anything else you can think of, to your own personal account.

All tags and text are searchable–even images of printed and handwritten text! You can send notes to Evernote using Twitter, and there are also Evernote apps for your iPhone, Blackberry, Palm, and Android phone for clipping on the go.

Best for: Organizing your entire friggin’ life.

Instapaper

If you like simplicity, Instapaper is your best bet. Sign-up requires nothing more than your email address, and bookmarking is made easy by dragging the “Read Later” button to your toolbar. When you come across a page you’d like to bookmark, simply click the button and voila! Your link is instantly saved.

If you’d like to take it further, you can add folders to organize your saved articles, create an RSS feed of your bookmarked items (which you could add to your blog’s sidebar to share what you’re reading), and download the app for your Kindle or iPhone.

Best for: Simple, no fuss saving.

Bonus tip: If you use Google Reader, you can add your own Send To buttons for Instapaper and Evernote to share articles right from your RSS reader!

Read It Later

Read It Later allows you to save pages from your computer or phone using their easy bookmarking tool. With Read It Later, you can download your pages before disconnecting, so even when you don’t have internet access, you’ll still be able to read your saved pages!

You can add tags to categorize your entries, and it automatically integrates with Google Reader so you can save directly to your reading list. Read It Later is available as a Firefox extension or as an app for your iPhone, Android, Blackberry, or Pre.

Best for: Reading when you’re not connected