Tweets in 10 – Groups for Groupies

In this thirteenth and final post of TweetsIn10, I’m going to talk about Twitter lists, a relatively new development at Twitter. (In fact, when I was first writing the TweetsIn10 ebook, Twitter lists hadn’t even been publicly unveiled yet and now here we are; I feel I should mention them).

Twitter lists are basically Twitter’s answer to the columns that you’ve already read about in the issue about Tweetdeck and the issue about Hootsuite. Quite simply, they are ways to sort the people you are following so that you can read relevant content and disregard irrelevant content.

Although Twitter is generally a great medium, its popularity comes with a drawback: You occasionally end up following crackpots, whackos, weirdos, and crazy people (and no, I’m not just talking about your family). Perhaps it was their profile in Twellow that attracted you to the follow them, or maybe you did a courtesy follow-back after they followed you. But for whatever reason, their tweets are annoying or distracting or just plain irrelevant. If you’re on Twitter long enough you’ll know what I mean: “The one secret of white teeth discovered by a mom” is one annoying tweet I see time and again, but there are lots of these kinds of Twitter users. There is an analogy from the world of radio that talks about this: If you think of irrelevant tweets as “noise” and good tweets as “signal” then you want to improve the signal-to-noise ratio so you hear more signal and less noise.

I think that Twitter saw that the signal was diminishing and the noise was increasing, and I think they saw that lots of users were using Tweetdeck and Hootsuite (and other similar tools) for their sorting functions. Twitter realized that they could address this problem in their own interface… with Twitter lists.

Here’s how they work: You can create lists – lots of lists, as many as you want and for whatever reason you want – and you can sort the people you are following into those various lists. (And yes, you can put someone on more than one list).

So, let’s say that you have a couple thousand people on your list. What do you do with them? Certainly you want to “listen” to some of them all of the time, and some of them some of the time, and some of them rarely. (And presumably you’re deleting the ones you don’t want to listen to at all). Here’s what you do:

Go to Twitter and sign in. On your home page you’ll see “lists” in the right-hand column under your followers. Or, on your profile page, you’ll see “lists” in a drop-down menu just below and to the right of your profile picture. You can create a new list or, if you already have lists, you can manage them from here.

To create a new list, just click “new list” and type in the name, a description, and whether it’s private or public. (Public lists will be viewable by others, private ones won’t. I’m sure I didn’t need to tell you that). Once you’ve created a list, click through the list of people you’re following and add them to the correct lists.

So, what kind of lists should you create? When I’m asked this question I often recommend the following:

• Create a public list of clients

• Create a private list of prospects

• Create a public list of business gurus that you admire

• Create a list of friends

• Create a list of family

• Create a list of coworkers and/or employees

• Create a private list of vendors

• Create a few lists according to the different target markets or industries that you serve

• Create a list of people whose tweets inspire, motivate, or empower you

• Create a list for your favorite sport

• Create a list of celebrities you follow

• Create a private list of potential crazy people (and clean out this list from time to time)

As you can see, there are so many reasons why you would want to create lists, and each list gives you the ability to pay attention to one select group of people.

The biggest challenge you’ll face is managing these lists and they can become unwieldy if you are not careful. If you have 2,000 followers or less, I’d recommend just doing it as a weekend project, sorting 100 of your followers into specific lists, and then taking a break to do something else, then coming back to do another 100 or so. If you have more than 2000, it’s going to start getting work intensive, but you will find it useful once you can sort the majority of people into a list. Take 10 minutes a day to get through them and you will eventually do it!

Bonus Tip:  Using List to Help Your Clients

Think of creating lists to help your clients and giving them the URL to your list. Each list you create has a URL. You could create a list as simple as all of your staff members and put on your website ‘Connect with us on Twitter’ and link to the list. This is especially helpful for large staff’s. Imagine wanting a client to be able to contact any of your Customer Service Representatives, do you want to have to list each Twitter account on your website? You can list just one list.

What if you are a software consultant? You could create lists for different types of Software. Accounting Software List, Project Management Software List and add all the companies that are on Twitter to these lists; you could easily use these list URL’s as resources!

Well, we’ve reached the end of our 13 week TweetsIn10 post series. I’ve enjoyed sharing some tips with you to help you become a more effective Twitter user. Now go out there and start tweeting! Tweet regularly about everything. Connect with your audience and selflessly add value to their lives. When you do, you’ll notice a return on that investment of time and effort as they listen to what you have to say and respond to you by promoting you and by buying from you.

Good Luck and Happy Tweeting!

Related posts:

1. Be a Twitter List Champion in Just Ten Minutes – Part 1
2. Tweets in 10 – All Hands on TweetDeck!
3. Tweets in 10 – Let’s Hear You Hoot!
4. Tweets in 10 – Spread the News, Spread the Love
5. Tweets in 10 – Twitter Plug-ins for Your Mobile