In September 2015, I had 180 followers on Twitter.

Fast forward to December, and my follower base has grown to 278.

That number pales in comparison to some Twitter users with thousands or even millions of followers. But for a college student from a small town in New Jersey, I’ll take it.

Having a great Twitter profile and strong influence on social media takes time to build. I believe that your social media presence is the same as who you are in real life, just with a screen in front. So if it takes time in the real world to gain notoriety, respect, influence and prestige amongst the public, then social media is no different.

It felt overwhelming at times trying to fight the uphill battle that is getting a higher follower to follow ratio. But it’s not impossible. Here are the 3 P’s to increasing your social influence and network:

Patience

Rome was not built in a day. And your amazing, viral and highly anticipated social media page won’t be built in one day either.

On September 14, I had a Klout score of 16.1. On October 14, it was 45.26 and 49.63 on November 14.

As of today, I’ve dipped back down to a solid 48, but it took time to even break ground where I’m at now (over a month to be exact).

Persistence

Keep tweeting.

Then tweet again.

Then tweet some more.

Then tweet a little bit after that, too.

You see where I’m going with this right? If at first you don’t succeed, dust yourself off and try again!

Prolific

We’ve all heard about people that become social media stars. But how does one do that?

Capitalize on the moments that you have something great going on with your life, or in relation to another big event in the world.

For instance, when I moderated a panel called “(In)Justice For All” on the campus of Syracuse University with the mothers of Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown, Benjamin Crump, Sunny Hostin and Fredricka Whitfield, I tweeted often using the official event hashtag, #IFACuseNPHC.

Once the event began, people began to mention me on Twitter as they live tweeted from the audience.

That event was held on October 28, where I started the day with 218 followers. By Thursday, I was up to 239.

Not everyone may be hosting a large scale event, but capitalize on the moments you have to get your name out there in the Twitter-sphere!