Good question…. Maybe I should address that in a separate post. Let me answer on the fly here:

1/ I found that getting to that first tipping point of 100 followers is the most difficult. After you get about 100 followers, people will start re-tweeting your tweets, and THEIR followers will pick up your twittername, and screen your tweets and follow you in turn. Once after the 100 first followers, your account will grow automatically (if you have interesting content)

2/ Start first (just like on a blog) by creating interesting Twitter content. don’t just tweet content with links to your own site

3/ Make sure you spend time to properly fill in your Twitter profile (website and what you are about).. Is one of the first things people look at when they want to follow you.

4/ I found the easiest way to build up to the 100 first followers, is to look at the followers of Twitter account from an organisation similar as ours. Or a twitter account which assembles people interested in the topics your organisation works in, and follow them (on your twitter account, the fastest to follow is with the syntax “F accountname”).
Often people will follow back. Build it up to the 100 followers, and be VERY active, so people get encouraged.
If anything, a heap of the “good and willing” are assembled around one of my Twitter accounts: @aidnews
Also check the Twitter tools in this post: http://mashable.com/2009/07/02/twitter-people/ .. in order for you to find quality people to follow.

5/ Interact with your followers. People don’t like accounts which are just fed with “Twitterfeed” posts. Comment on other people’s posts,

6/ come back to me and tell me if it worked, will you? will make an interesting post!

Peter

Thanks