I used to be totally embarrassed about my Twitter account. I had some followers and would occasionally tweet links to published stories. But beyond that, my account was pretty lame and nowhere near what was expected of someone writing about B2B content marketing and data driven marketing. (OK, it was really lame, given how low my Klout score was at the time.) Whenever I applied for a job, I hoped potential clients wouldn’t hold my mediocre social media presence against me, but I’m sure it took me out of the running for many gigs that I never even knew about.

It wasn’t that I didn’t realize the importance of social media. I knew know how to use it. Ironically, I have written many articles on social media strategy. And every January, one of my business goals was to increase my social media presence. The problem was that I didn’t know how to use social media in a way that felt authentic to my personality and beneficial to my business.

When I hit a slow spell business-wise this January, I decided to spend some time playing with social media. And without too much effort, I am no longer lame on Twitter. And more importantly, I have already seen benefits to my business. I have gotten over 1,000 new followers so far this year. More importantly, they are the right followers–people who are likely to hire me at some point. But instead of it being something I think of as a chore, I am having fun on Twitter, which honestly is what I think has made the biggest difference.

I am in no way claiming to be an expert in social media. Or that 2,500 followers is a phenomenal amount. So this post is geared towards those who want to kickstart their social media efforts, but haven’t found a groove:

Here the five things that I did to make a difference and be less lame on Twitter:

1. I found something I enjoyed talking about. I am typically not someone who is at a loss for words, but I just couldn’t figure out what to talk about on Twitter. I think that was the biggest reason my account was lame. I didn’t know if I should I talk about writing or talk about my niches, and if so, which ones? I have like five things I write about regularly. I finally decided to talk about what I really care about: content marketing. It worked, because I can always find something interesting to share or say about content marketing since I love the subject and am always thinking about it. It also made sense from a business perspective, because no matter what niche a potential client is in, they are most likely tasked with creating content marketing.
2. I began following people who were my target audience. The key for me was finding out who my audience was. I did advanced searches for content marketing agencies and people who had “content marketing manager” as their title, because these are people who would potentially use writers like myself. Another trick that I did to find my target audience was to follow people who were following influencers in the field, and when I went to a conference I followed people who were using the hashtag from the conference. Not only would they would be my target audience, but they would also be interested in the content that I wanted to talk about.
3. I got into a tweeting routine and scheduled my posts. Every morning, while drinking my coffee, I go into Twitter and find three blog posts, infographics, or videos that I think are interesting and that my followers would enjoy. I will usually add one of my own posts that I think will be interesting as well. I then schedule the posts throughout the day using Hootsuite Auto Scheduler. And the best part about Hootsuite is that I can even shorten the links without opening another website. Creating a routine really made the difference for me.
4. I added my own insight to tweets and retweets. Instead of simply retweeting what other people tweeted, I began adding my own thoughts to all the retweets. Sometimes I added how I had seen this point in my own work; other times, I highlighted my favorite point. This was key. It helped my followers get to know me and see the value that I was bringing to the content marketing conversation.
5. I interacted with others. Twitter isn’t a crockpot. You can’t just dump in content, schedule the tweets, and forget about it. A few times a day, when I needed a mental break from writing, I headed into Twitter. I would respond to people who had commented on my tweets or start a conversation based on someone else’s tweet. Previously, I was only using a tweet as a one-way broadcasting tool and just talked about myself, which just like in real life is super boring. It was when I started actually having conversations that I started to see business results from Twitter.

So how did being less lame on Twitter help me? Within a month, the following things happened to me:

• An editor to whom I sent an LOI commented that they checked out my Twitter account and confirmed that I actually was a content marketing nerd (like I claimed to be).

• A content marketing agency that I followed sent me a direct message and asked me my rate. I found out that the agency saw my Twitter profile and checked out my website before contacting me for the gig.

• Someone who I followed on Twitter sent me a direct message the day before a conference that we were both planning to attend. He asked if I wanted to talk with him at the conference, because he had a great client project that was right up my alley.

Yes, I still have a long way to go. And I want to start engaging more with potential editors. But for the first time, I actually feel like I know what to do on Twitter, and I understand the possibilities. It’s no longer something I dread, but a part of running my business that I actually look forward to.

What tips do you have for using Twitter? How has Twitter helped your business?