A classic ISTJ, I’m a sucker for making lists. To-do lists, chore lists, action items – writing things down helps me organize a plan of attack. Which is why it may surprise you that I’ve done very little with Twitter lists in the few months since the feature was launched. However, I’ve found lists helpful in a few ways and am hoping to experiment with them more in the coming weeks. Here’s where I am:
Geographic Sorting
Twitter use among individuals and small businesses in my area has exploded in the last year. Initially, I followed nearly everyone locally I could find. That included every small restuarant, dry cleaner, college kid, gamer or media outlet. Creating an “Albany” Twitter list has allowed me to corral all of those people in one place without actually having to follow them. I now can focus on only following the local Twitter accounts that really provide me value. They show up in my stream, while I can casually keep tabs on the rest (who I don’t follow directly but follow via my Albany list) by just checking the list every now and then. It’s easy and risk-free for me to add someone to my Albany list; I don’t have to contemplate whether or not I think that person/business adds enough value to follow them.
Reporter and Blogger Pitching
I’ve created a “Pitching” Twitter list that’s comprised of the reporters and bloggers I’m currently pitching on behalf of my clients. The list is private, so only I can see it. It allows me to keep tabs on what’s on the mind of these writers, which can be helpful in generating story angles or even just finding and “in” or a commonality to get a conversation going with them. I also look to see what lists those reporters/bloggers have either created and been added to, and it’s led me to several new outlets that I might have otherwise not known about or considered pitching.
Gauging “Value” of Twitter Accounts
I’m squarely in the camp that number of Twitter followers is in no way correlated with how interesting, useful or worth my time a particular person is. But like most people, I’m still conditioned to look at a big follower count and wonder if someone is a “big deal” or not. With spammy following schemes, it can sometimes be difficult to tell right off the bat if a Twitter user has organically and legitimately grown their following or not. But lists have made that a bit easier (and some believe, even made follower counts irrelevant). If someone has 8,000 followers and is only on 12 lists, then to me that’s an indication that not many people value what that person has to say (auto-follow bots aren’t generally in the habit of putting people on lists, yet). I’m not saying that “value” can be reduced to a simple ratio of followers to lists, but as a “first glance” metric, I’ve found it useful in helping me red flag accounts that I may want to pass on following for the time being.
Twitter lists will continue to evolve and develop, especially since they have already been integrated into third party apps like TweetDeck and Seesmic. I can see lists being extremely useful for events and conferences, for example. Personally, I’m planning to experiment more with private lists to help me sort and keep track of my own Twitter ecosystem, and then also eventually start to follow other people’s lists (why reinvent the wheel?) of useful people in my field. (One of the issues I see with lists right now is that they’re highly personal and not definitive – how many lists of “PR professionals” or “Dawgs fans” are out there right now? Few are likely to be comprehensive and as of right now it’s not possible to merge multiple lists from different Twitter users. But I digress.)
What innovative ways have you been using Twitter lists? Share away in the comments.
Photo via Flickr user numstead
Nice post, Amy!
I’ve been using Twitter Lists similarly, especially with your third point! I’ve also made a separate list for news feeds only, so when the news breaks, I can see it no matter who tweets it first. I also have a private list of personal friends (who don’t use Twitter nearly as much as I do) so I can keep up with what they’re doing, too.
At first, I wasn’t really into Lists, but over time, I’ve gotten some great use out of them!
Thanks,
Tom (@TomOKeefe1)
I like the idea of news feeds all in one list, Tom! I may have to try that. And the idea of making a list of “seldom users” of Twitterers is one I will likely copy. I have a bunch of friends who are new to Twitter but don’t tweet that often. They definitely get lost in the shuffle, so grouping them together in a list is a great way to stay up to date with them.
Thanks for stopping by the blog, and Happy New Year!
Hey Amy -
Great post. I hadn’t really considered the use of private lists, but yours is a great example of an ideal biz use.
It’ll be interesting to see how lists change and how application of them change over time.
Happy New Year!
I have a feeling as I experiment more with lists, I’ll likely use the private list feature more than the public one. Especially when I’m on the go – I can see eventually having a “mobile” list that consists of only the handful of people I want to check on while I’m out and about on my phone. Rather than trying to scroll through my entire update stream on my Blackberry, having a private mobile list will let me quickly check up on certain people’s updates. If lists become further integrated with mobile apps like UberTwitter or Tweetie, I can see myself using them even more.
Hi Amy:
Great initial thoughts on uses for lists. I personally also have not explored Twitter lists yet. Mainly because they are going to require some thought and time commitment to set up. I do have a plan for not only lists, but to go through followers and those I’m following and rethink whether or not is simply makes sense for where I am today (working for a company) vs. when I initially started unemployed with consulting projects.
2010 is definitely going to be a year of reality and focus for me. Hope it is for you as well!
Thanks, Anna! I also think I need to do a big purge and rethink who I’m following and why. I really like that the list feature lets you put someone on a list without following them. I think this will be a good way for me to still keep tabs on people but not necessarily have to follow them and have their updates in my stream.
I agree though – it is time-consuming to get lists set up and that’s one of the main reasons I haven’t played around with them as much as I’d like to yet.
Amy,
I was a huge fan of Twitter lists and still like them but if you follow two people who are on two different lists you do not get to see their conversation. For example, if you have Twitter lists on TweetDeck you do not see the conversation as you did when you had folks in groups. Same thing on the Twitter web site.
They are a great tool and if they fix this then lists will indeed be the best thing since sliced bread.
Happy New Year
Hi Paul – yes, your concern is something that’s bothered me as well. It’s frustrating to put someone on a list and only be able to see their @replies to people who are also on that same list. Hopefully that’s something they will remedy soon. It would be nice if they made it an option, actually, as I can see where in some cases I’d like to see the whole conversation and in others I may only have someone on a list to see their updates and not be as interested in their replies to others.
Happy New Year to you, as well!
Hey Amy!
I love your thoughts for list uses. Personally, I love using Listorous (http://www.listorous.com) to find lists and users by topic. This is especially helpful when starting a new Twitter account, or looking for a specific blogger or journalist to pitch within a certain topic.
Would love to know what you think about Listorous.
Great post, I’ll definitely be stopping by again!
Hi Danny, thanks for visiting the blog! I checked out Listorious this fall right when it launched but it wasn’t too populated yet as lists were pretty new. I’ll have to revisit and see what’s there. I can definitely see where it would be really helpful for someone new to Twitter who’s trying to find people to follow in a certain area or industry.
Hi Amy,
Great insight into how we can make Lists work, especially private lists, which I haven’t thought about using until now. I also made a news feed list like Tom did and I also made one that is industry specific so I can follow the big PR and advertising publications updates when I feel the need to check.
Thanks for sharing this information!
Best,
Meg
Thanks Meg! Check in every now and then and let me know how your use of lists continues to evolve.