There is a lot of advice out there on how to manage your social media.

Most of t hat advice, including my own, is aimed at streamlining and improving the convers ation. The conversation is of course a series of interactions between at least t wo parties, the more the merrier. But, what if there isn't one? What if you don't have a large number of followers, what if you are not a topic of discussion among people, what if you have to start from zero? First of all, and this is important, there is no shortcut. At least not if you w ant people following you who actually care and who will interact with you, what I call actual followers. If you get 1000 followers after a "follow us and RT to win an iPad"-contest, those will be passive and will eventually trickle down. Bu ying followers does not work. Don't be tempted to cheat, the number of followers is not your high score. The only real, sustainable way to go about it, is to grow organically. Don't foc us on the numbers, focus on what really matters: quality and purpose. People exp ect authenticity and added value. In the long run, that is what will make your s ocial media approach a success. If you have to set a KPI, don't take "number of followers" but go for the effect your social media approach has on customer rete ntion and brand reputation. In the corporate world, you may be faced with KPI's that have been imposed from above. You could take your Klout score. As flawed as Klout may be, it actually i s a better KPI than your number of followers, since it also looks at interaction , retweets and the influence of your followers. But in the end, it's better to w ork with principles, not mathematical KPI's. Now, before we get started, let's take care of some important details. Do you have a good profile picture on Twitter? Some profile pictures are better than others. The best profile picture is your face. That sends a signal to your followers. You are a real person they can get to know, not an anonymous automato n whose tweets have been written and approved by committee. In some cases, this is not possible. Then you may opt for a picture of the product, especially if yo u only have the one. Your company logo is of course better than the standard twi tter avatar, but it is not very personal. And Twitter is a very personal medium. A notable exception is the company that will use Twitter mainly for help desk pu rposes, like service providers. You may use your company logo here. Just make su re to have a community building approach in place. A "help desk-only" twitter-ac count is not very inspiring. Your bio is very important. That, plus your logo, is what people see first after you follow them. The decision to follow you back (or not) is made very quickly and your profile picture and bio are some of the most important factors influenc ing that decision. You should avoid marketing-babble at all costs, so never ever describe yourself as an expert or guru. This evolves over time. At the moment, people declaring they are "passionate" about a certain topic may find that worki ng as a red flag. The KISS-approach seems to work best. What do you do and who a re you? People will look at this and decided to follow you back, or not, write i t with that in mind. Contrary to what many people seem to think, your twitter-background is not as im portant. It can be a good marketing-tool and you can do some interesting things with it. But most people use Twitter through an app. Time to get started!

You have set up your twitter account, taken care of your profile picture and you r bio. Now what? You simply follow the rules of human interaction. Social media is a brand new tool, but the rules are not. The most important one is: "be inter ested, not interesting". You shouldn't just be a broadcaster of ideas and conten t, no matter how great they might be. People on Twitter are looking for interact ion, so interact. Find people and conversations revolving around your sector and participate in the conversation. The more people are in the conversation, the b etter, especially if the conversation has its own hashtag. Don't do this forcefu lly, it's all about authenticity and quality. Like any conversation, the purpose is not to "win", but to build a rapport with people. A few pointers that you probably don't need: accept and even welcome criticism, you can learn from it don't try to sell things don't spam, don't be passive, find a balance that works listen

You could check out the twitter-accounts of your competition. They are most cert ainly worth a follow. The same goes for pundits, people with a particular expert ise in your field. And follow back all real people following you. Now, just keep engaging people in conversation and don't let a day go by without using Twitter. You're part of the community now.