So you have your Twitter account and you have a few thousand Twitter followers, great stuff! After a small amount of time, you notice a feature on your twitter account to the top left called lists. “What the heck is this for, Twitter lists!?” you think, why on earth would anyone need a list feature? Well in this post I hope to help decipher exactly why Twitter lists are useful and how to use them effectively to improve your social media experience.
What is a Twitter List?
As your twitter followers increase and you start following lots of relevant Twitter users, being able to keep up to date with all your favourite Tweeps and finding useful tweets can become difficult, if not impossible. One feature of lists is to help you cut through the noise to find the diamonds amongst the coal!
Twitter Lists help you organise tweets you are interested in
A list helps you organise your favourite Twitter users into a type of “Twitter Groups”. So for instance, if you look at my Twitter Lists on my personal account you will notice at the time of writing this blog post I have around ten lists, three of which can be seen below.
Being able to add your favourite Twitter users to groups makes it easy for you to organise the most influential Twitter users you follow into categories like “Web Design“, “Graphic Design” Typography” etc and is useful for when you are having a day where a specific interest is grabbing you. I guess you could compare twitter lists to a telephone directory, it makes it much easier to find people and information you are looking for.
So why should you bother creating Twitter Lists?
There are several reasons you may want to create Twitter lists, one I have already discussed to keep track of your favourite Tweeters but there are more.
Another reason is to build relationships with those who really matter to you in your personal and professional life.
Build Relationships using Twitter Lists
By adding someone to one of your lists that Twitter user is notified and it is almost like giving that person a little high five to say “Yo! My hommie, your tweets rock my world!” and helps to build a mutual respect between the two of you, after all, you think that Twitter owner can add a lot of value to your digital life.
Recommend other Twitter Followers
When you create a new Twitter list you have an option to make it private or public. If you think that some of the people you have in your lists should remain private ( i.e. family members, celebrities you like or a bit of a detective keeping track of your competitors tweets) then do consider making a list private otherwise keep it public.
This helps the Twitter account user benefit from a little bit of publicity should your followers check out the twitter list they are on.
Make a Twitter Search for Twitter users easier by sharing lists
You don’t have to keep your lists stored away in the Twitter closet…get it out!
Simply navigate to the list you would like to share, copy the url and post it into your Twitter Feed. Hey presto! Twitter list shared!
Do you have to be following the user you include in a Twitter List?
This is a question I asked myself when I started creating lists and the good news is, you don’t have to be following them!
This is particularly good news if you are reaching your “2000” limit and unable to follow any more users ( until you have a 10% followers to following ratio ) but don’t want to loose some really influential and educational tweets.
To gain the most benefit from this part of the twitter list feature then you need to use twitter tools like justunfollow.com.
One of the features that Justunfollow has is that it allows you to find who is following, not following and unfollowing your Twitter account cutting out the mystery of who to follow and unfollow.
There are more features to this Twitter tool but I recommend visiting the site for more information.
Ok, so I kind of understand Twitter lists now but how do I create one?
Rather than rewrite the wheel, so to speak, I have provided a link to Twitter’s very own guide in how to do this here.
Should you have any questions about twitter lists or have some more information you would like to share navigate to the bottom of the page and please leave a comment.
P.S. Please add me to some lists too and I may just return the favour! Cheers my dears! 😀
