If you are still trying to wrap your head around how to use Twitter, here are 7 tips that can take you from Twitter newbie to tweetmaster quickly:

1.  Take a different approach to a trending topic. The most effective tweets are those that provide a unique take on something that is already trending on Twitter.  After you sign in to your Twitter feed, look at the Trends feed on the left of your Twitter home page to see what is trending in real-time. You can customize Trends for your geographical area by clicking Change in your Trends box.

2.  Optimize your Twitter profile.  Use a photo and remember that Twitter followers tend to follow a person, not a company.

3.  Sync your Twitter account with your Facebook and Gmail accountsto find the Twitter accounts of people you know.  Then follow them.  This will usually get them to follow you back and to share your content.

4.  Use lots of photos and video.  These get more attention on Twitter.

5.  Focus on quality, not quantity.  You want people who are interested in you and your legal services so you can use Twitter as another means of forging a more meaningful relationship.

6.  Engage with the people who share your contentby sending them a direct message, adding them to your follower list and retweeting some of their tweets.

7.  Keep tabs on your Twitter statsso you can see how your marketing strategies are working.  The stats will tell you how many people engaged with your tweets, how many clicked on the link, and more useful information.

In addition, keep these best practices for attorneys using Twitter in mind:

• Tweet 4x/day or less

• Use fewer than 100 characters per Tweet

• Follow the 80/20 rule — 80% conversation/20% promotion

• Add links to Tweets to get higher Retweet rates – Tweets containing links get 86% higher Retweet rates

• Make sure the links are clickable by including a space before the URL

• Tweet on the weekends – engagement rates are 17% higher then

• Tweets get more attention if they are posted in the afternoon

• Include hashtags in your Tweets, but no more than 2 per Tweet – Tweets with hashtags get twice the engagement

• Add links to images to increase engagement – Tweets with image links enjoy twice the engagement rate than those without.

• Use the word “Retweet” as a call-to-action to prompt your followers to share – Tweets that ask followers to Retweet receive 12x higher Retweet rates

With more than 302 million active monthly users, Twitter is a major social media network attorneys should not ignore. Twitter can be a highly useful law firm marketing tool for attorneys to promote their blogs and other thought leadership content.Lynda Collins is the author of this article.