How to Get Started with Twitter Lists
Posted November 3, 2009 in How-To, Social Media 26 Comments »
Can you benefit from the new Twitter Lists feature?
If you’ve been using Twitter to search for jobs and make professional contacts, then Twitter’s new list feature can help you to better organize the tweets of those you follow. It can also help you find interesting groups of people to keep track of.
Over the past few weeks Twitter has been testing the new Lists feature with a portion of its users and, although it is still in Beta, last week they made Lists available to everyone.
In this article we’ll take a look at how Twitter Lists can help your freelance business and how you can get started using them right now.
What Is Twitter Lists?
Twitter Lists is a new Twitter feature allows you to group the tweets of certain users into categories. There is also an option to view and subscribe to the Twitter Lists of other users.
Right now, the Create a new list option appears at the top of the Twitter screen. (I’m not sure if this is a permanent location, or just a temporary measure to highlight the feature while it is being introduced.)
There is also a New List link at the bottom of the displayed lists.
A Twitter user chooses the categories of the lists they create and decides which Twitter users they want to include on each list.
This post will show you how to create usable lists that other freelancers will want to follow.
Create a Twitter List
The following steps will guide you through the process of creating a Twitter list:
To create a new Twitter List, click the Create a New List option. The Create a new list dialog box opens.
Type the name of your new list. Choose whether you want the list to be public (available to anyone) or private (the list is only available to you).
You now have the option to add people to your list through a search. You can search for users to include.
Type your search term. The profiles of all the Twitter users who match the term that you typed display.
To add a Twitter user to your new list click the manage lists button to the right of their profile.
You now have the chance to add the selected profile to any of the lists that you have already created by placing a check next to the list name.
Now that you’ve mastered the basics of creating a Twitter List, you should consider how to make the lists feature useful for you. There are at least two areas to consider to get the maximum benefit from lists:
- List names of your lists
- Lists you choose follow
The next few sections examine each of these areas.
Your List Names Are Important
Right now, the Twitter Lists feature is fairly new. Most Twitter users are just figuring out how to make this feature work for them.
If you are creating a list with the hope that other Twitter users will subscribe to it, remember to choose a list name that makes sense to everyone.
A list name like “StuffILike” doesn’t really describe what’s in the list. Instead of using that type of name for your Twitter List, I suggest choosing names that mean something to most people.
As an example, I named my lists:
- testing
- blogging
- pr-marketing
- freelancing
- social-media
- writers
(You may find other names that suit your personal needs or the needs of your followers better.)
To Subscribe or Not to Subscribe
If a list is not marked as private, then anyone can subscribe to the list. As a freelancer, you should consider subscribing to the lists of tweeters who have shared valuable information with you.
Select the lists that you follow carefully. They will be visible on your home page to anyone who looks at your profile.
There’s also the question of whether or not to subscribe to the lists of those who have included you in their list.
This decision is a personal choice, but I would advise you to subscribe to a list only if you believe the tweets from the list will be beneficial to you. The lists that you follow will also be visible on your home page.
Do You Use Twitter Lists?
Are you already using Twitter Lists? What other uses have you found for this new tool? What great lists have you found to follow?
Share your suggestions in the comments.
About the author: Laura Spencer is a freelance writer from North Central Texas with over 19 years of professional business writing experience. If you liked this post, then you may also enjoy Laura’s blog about her freelance writing experiences, WritingThoughts
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26 Comments
Jenn
November 3rd, 2009 at 11:41 amThanks for the quick summary of lists. I came back from a trip to discover the twitter had changed (again) and had not had the time to dig through the details. This post gave me just the information I needed to get started and no more.
Laura Spencer
November 3rd, 2009 at 11:55 amThanks Jenn,
That was exactly the intent – to get someone started with lists, but not overwhelm them with details.
I’m glad that you found this post useful. :-)
Dr Wright
November 3rd, 2009 at 12:44 pmLists may get me more interested in Twitter again. Perhaps it will create more qualified leads.
Dr. Letitia Wright
The Wright Place TV Show
http://www.twitter.com/drwright1
Lexi Rodrigo
November 3rd, 2009 at 2:08 pmThanks for this, Laura! I was just tweeting that I didn’t have the time, energy or inclination to figure out Twitter lists – but your post was a quick read and now I think I get it.
I think Twitter lists is just the answer for me, because I started using Twitter without a clear idea of what I wanted to accomplish with it. So now, I interact with a mish-mash of people on Twitter, and I don’t want to manage separate accounts to better organize them.
One question: can you send specific tweets only to members of a certain list? If I could do that, it would be awesome.
Lexi
Laura Spencer
November 3rd, 2009 at 2:44 pmThanks Lexi!
Right now I don’t see a way to tweet only a certain list (anyone, feel free to correct me if I’m wrong).
Maybe that feature is coming, because it would be helpful.
I’m glad that you enjoyed the article.
Deb Ng
November 3rd, 2009 at 6:31 pmHi Laura,
I did experiment with one list (folks who are worth a retweet) but am otherwise I’m still exploring Twitter lists. What I like is how it isolates a specific group of people for me to get to know – who might have otherwise gotten lost in the crowd.
Nice primer!
Brandon Cox
November 3rd, 2009 at 6:43 pmI’m using lists extensively already. I go to Twitter.com, find a good tweet or two and add them to the appropriate list. My favorite of my own lists is http://twitter.com/brandonacox/creatives and my favorite that I’m following would be http://twitter.com/carsonified/recommended
Laura Spencer
November 3rd, 2009 at 6:48 pmThanks Deb!
I’m glad that you found the post helpful. :-)
Ellen
November 3rd, 2009 at 7:10 pmThank you Laura for this great info!
I was just about to figure out the list new feature when your post came along. A very useful information, I will definitely start using the Twitter lists myself now :-)
Laura Spencer
November 3rd, 2009 at 7:25 pmThanks Ellen!
I’m glad that we could be of help. :-)
Jessica Holbrook
November 3rd, 2009 at 8:32 pmThank you for this great post. Just what I needed to know as I was trying to work my way through the new changes!!
Thanks,
Jessica Holbrook
Executive Resume Writer
Great Resumes Fast
http://www.greatresumesfast.com
Stephen Webb
November 4th, 2009 at 4:59 amThis seems like a welcome addition to the Twitter network, anything that can save you time and hassle is surely worth checking out. With the ever increasing number of Twitter feeds, and importance of being part of such social networks, an implementation that can just bring key feeds to your account could be very beneficial.
With Facebook now chasing Twitters design features in an attempt to match it’s service, and therefore customer base, I wonder if we’ll see similar application roled out on there and other social networking sites. You can already create a list in Facebook to follow certain profile updates, maybe we’ll see a status only version of this too. Facebook have just recently rolled out separate “Live” and “News’ feeds (the difference of which is still baffling), maybe this is the next step n the evolution of social networking.
kiyas
November 4th, 2009 at 5:25 amThx Laura for great info,
I also waiting like this information to fine out business
Keep going, also I got a question for you,
do you thing twitter will harm profile ?
Thanks
kiyas
Luke Jones
November 4th, 2009 at 5:27 amI’ve started to use Twitter Lists and I really like the new feature. Not only does it allow me to keep up to date with people Tweeting about a certain topic, it also allows me to easily find people to follow on Twitter.
Neil
November 5th, 2009 at 10:50 amThanks for this, I’m new to Twitter and I didn’t realize it can help with looking for freelance work.
HART (1-800-HART)
November 6th, 2009 at 7:19 pmI’ve been on the fence with these twitter list .. I have created a couple of PRIVATE lists, and of the 2 i deleted one because it seemed stupid. But, while it is interesting to see how other people list you .. I don’t see any benefit in classifying people the way some have been.
I mean .. to create a list called .. “bloggers” ?? doesn’t everybody blog?
Or .. “marketers” or “social media” ?? Isn’t that practically everybody with a blog or, on twitter?
Some lists might mean something to the person making the list .. but just end up too vague for other people. I mean, “super-bloggers” or “favorite-bloggers” or “people-I-talk-to” may seem good for yourself, but I hope these are private lists.
Me? yeah – I have no idea what to do with lists and shouldn’t complain or be a hypocrit :) However, I have been toying the use of lists to the needs that I use my twitter for .. and if your name is on there .. please be sure to say hi :D
Laura Spencer
November 6th, 2009 at 7:34 pmThanks Hart!
Well, of course you can come up with list names that make sense to you. That’s really what it’s all about.
My names focus on what a person does and typically tweets about. Blogging, for example, is not everyone who has a blog. Rather, it is folks who tweet and post about professional blogging.
PR-Marketing is not a list of anyone who has a business and therefore does PR or marketing. Rather, it’s a list of tweeters (mostly marketing and PR professionals) who share links about marketing.
You can probably see where I’m going with this.
Of course, depending on how you follow people on Twitter and your interests, your categories would probably be different.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts about lists. Probably, there are many people on Twitter who won’t really use the feature — and that’s okay too.
Global Patriot
November 6th, 2009 at 9:17 pmThough Twitter has evolved bit-by-bit since its introduction, the new Lists feature is truly a game changer with regards to organizing and sharing and recommendign. It will be interesting to see how this capability is utilized over the next few months?
From my perspective, it has given me countless suggestions of who to follow based on my friends lists. Categorized by topic, they serve as virtual recommendations because they’re hand-crafted, and that allows me to follow new people who are respected by a friend.
picart
November 10th, 2009 at 12:52 pmHello from Russia!!! Thank you for your information!!! I am just start to use it!!!
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