Effective use of Twitter lists will streamline and improve your Twitter experience.

Many people avoid Twitter because they are overwhelmed with the sheer volume of their Twitter feed. However, a simple way to strategically approach Twitter is to create and use lists to divide that torrent into smaller streams.

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This post, the third in a three-part series on creating and optimizing lists on social media, covers Twitter. The first post focused on Facebook and the second on LinkedIn.

 

What are Twitter Lists and How Do You Use Them?

According to Twitter: “A list is a curated group of Twitter accounts. You can create your own lists or subscribe to lists created by others. Viewing a list timeline will show you a stream of Tweets from only the accounts on that list.”

When you create a list, you can opt to make it public (meaning anyone finding you on Twitter can see who is on that list) or private (meaning only you know the list exists and who is it.)

The article “How to Use Twitter Lists for Business” in the February 19, 2015, issue of Social Media Examiner does an excellent job of outlining the reasons to create and use these lists. Here are a few of them.

    • Monitor competitors. This kind of list should be made private, as you don’t want others to see which competitors you are monitoring. Use this list to track the kinds of activity your competitors have on Twitter. Watch their results, and adopt what works well for them.
    • Track industry leaders. By putting your industry’s thought leaders into a single list, you can quickly share their tweets with your followers. Doing this has two benefits. It helps to foster your professional reputation and allows you to engage with these leaders more easily.
    • Maintain customer relationships. Like the list of competitors, this one should also be private. Putting your customers into a list helps you nurture your relationships with them. You can engage with them by replying to their tweets and, when appropriate, retweeting their tweets to your followers.

Here is a link to the entire article: http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/use-twitter-lists-business/

How to Create and Find a Twitter List

  • Click on your Twitter account profile photo at the top of the page and then click on Lists.
  • Click on Create a New List.
  • Name the list
  • Determine if it will be public or private
    • Write a short description if it’s going to be public.
  • Save.
  • Add a Twitter account to a list by going to that account, clicking on the Settings icon (looks like a rotary wheel), and then on “Add or remove from lists.”
  • Check the box of the Twitter list (or lists) you want to add them to.
  • To see the tweets from people on a particular list, click on your Profile and then click on that list.

 

How About You?

Are you using lists on Twitter? What kinds of lists have you created, and how do you use them? Do you tend to make your lists public or are they mostly private?

 

About Joyce

Joyce Feustel helps people, especially those age 50 and up, become more effective using social media, especially Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Twitter. She provides social media tutoring and training to business owners, business development professionals, authors, speakers, coaches, business consultants, job seekers, and many others. Find her at www.boomerssocialmediatutor.com.