Twitter may seem pointless to some. However, once you get past the idea of limiting yourself to 140 characters and reaching out and begin interacting with people, you soon will see the power of connecting with other local business owners, customers and more. Twitter can be incredibly hard to find bringing and may even seem like an un productive time suck.

So how do you limit your use while getting the best interactions with customers? Check out this Mashable blog post.  They put together a simple 5-step guide to using Twitter. The secret sauce? Knowing how to use Twitter Lists and integrating them with Hootsuite, a social media dashboard.

Check out the article, “How to Spend Only 10 Minutes Per Day on Twitter” and get a detailed look on this 5-step approach. Steps 1 − 4 showcase what you need to setup, and step 5 is the 10-minute routine.

1. Set up your Hootsuite account.
2. Create Twitter Lists.
3. Add your Twitter Lists to Hootsuite.
4. Add #hashtag streams to Hootsuite.
5. Begin your 10-minute per day routine.

Happy tweeting!