With 302 million active users every month, Twitter can be a highly useful law firm marketing tool for attorneys to promote their blogs and other thought leadership content. Since Twitter is essentially a micro-blogging site, the same rules apply: create unique, original content that adds value and your audience will respond.

To create attention-getting tweets, remember these tips:

Real-time rules – Twitter lives in real-time, so you not only need to keep it fresh, you also need to add your own spin on whatever topic you’re tweeting about. Simply retweeting links gets stale quickly.

Tease – hook your readership by teasing your topic and then linking to a more lengthy post on a topical news item on your blog or website.

Keep it positive – negative comments are generally disliked.

Avoid symbol clutter – Using too many hashtags (#), mentions (@) or abbreviations makes your tweets hard to follow.

Add to your retweets – when you retweet something, add your own spin so you are contributing to the conversation.

Use images — research shows that tweets with images result in significant increases in user engagement, including 150% more retweets and 18% more click-throughs.

The Twitter-verse is mobile — 80% of active Twitter users access their Twitter feed on a mobile device, so if you are directing traffic to your website or a landing page, be sure it is optimized for mobile.

Many attorneys struggle with what to tweet about so here are 15 simple ideas that will help you come up with an steady stream of tweets.  You can also use these to inspire updates on Facebook and LinkedIn:

1. Share and link to your blog posts.  You can tweet about these more than once.

2. Share and link to your informational videos.  If you’re not creating videos yet, it’s time to start!

3. Share news stories that are relevant to your practice area.

4. Link to another blog post that provides valuable content your readers will find helpful.

5. Retweet another person’s tweet with your own spin.

6. Share a recent press release.

7. Share an upcoming event that your readers may be interested in.

8. Share details about an event you will be speaking at or attending.

9. Share a link to interviews, podcasts or online radio shows you have participated in.

10. Promote client testimonials on your website (where permitted).

11. Let people know that your latest e-newsletter has been published and provide a link to sign up if they are not yet a subscriber.

12. Share a link to a book that your readers will be interested in.

13. Ask questions that you can blog about  — then tweet the blog post with the answer.

14. Share a joke about your practice area.

15. Let people know about a new product you recently discovered that provides a work or life benefit.

The most successful marketers on Twitter never forget that Twitter is timely and topical, so be sure to craft your tweets with this in mind.