Because of the metaphysical shift in the technological era, the world is witnessing machine to machine (M2M) communication. Sensors are omnipresent, owing to which wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are developing as a key enabling technology for the Internet of Things (IoT). M2M interaction poses a severe threat to the lifetime of the network. Clustering plays an essential role in elevating the energy efficiency of the WSN. Particularly, uniform distribution of cluster heads (CHs) is crucial for achieving better network lifetime and uninterrupted sensing from the area under observation. For this, we propose an efficient two-fold clustering algorithm, namely second-fold clustering (SFC). In the first phase, the selection of CH is made based on zonal residual energy and zonal degree of connectivity. In the second phase, the leftover nodes known as isolated nodes are clumped. CH is selected based on the zonal degree of connectivity to ensure that energy is disbursed (almost) uniformly by all the nodes. This uniformity makes it suitable for integration with the IoT. To find out the efficacy of SFC, carried rigorous experimental study out where it is compared to two existing clustering algorithms. The simulation results show that SFC outperforms its counterparts. The results showed that SFC improved network lifetime by approximately 9.6% and 10.2% compared to regional energy-aware clustering scheme and Residual-Low Energy Adaptive Clustering Hierarchy (R-LEACH), respectively.