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I first mentioned Twitter lists soon after their launch last November (post since deleted) and thought it was time to take another look at what has become a very popular Twitter feature. Indeed the main Twitter clients – Seesmic (was the first), Tweetdeck and Hootsuite all support Lists.
In my first post I couldn’t really see the point of lists; however now I’ll admit to finding them quite useful. Here are what I see as the major benefits:
1. Lists keep things tidy. Once you follow more than a few hundred people, it’s nearly impossible to follow every tweet, especially if they’re a noisy lot! Let’s say there are some people whose tweets you don’t really want to miss. By creating a list and adding in their names, you can create a column in your Twitter client especially for them. Then you simply scan the list when it’s convenient to you, safe in the knowledge that you’ve captured every conversation.
2. Private or Public options. Social Media, and especially Twitter, is all about sharing with fellow members of online networks. So once I created a public list of marketers based in the UK, that list acquired a unique URL enabling me to share it with you, like this: http://twitter.com/LouiseBJ/uk-marketers. If, on the other hand, I prefer to keep a list ‘for my eyes only’, perhaps while researching a new, top secret product, I can choose for it to be private.
3. One-Click Follow. If you want to follow someone else’s public list, you can do so with just one click AND you don’t have to individually follow all the members of that list! (This can also be a good way of finding out privately whether what someone is tweeting about is of interest to you before following them publicly!).
It would seem my original fears about list membership becoming a ‘status’ thing are largely unfounded. The majority of social networkers I meet aren’t worried whether they’re included on a list or not. Interest has been in how lists can help them get more from their time on Twitter.
Here are a couple of interesting and informative posts about Twitter Lists, if you want to learn more:
5 Reasons to use the new Twitter List Feature from Duct Tape Marketing
Twitter Lists in Details from Twitip
Have you tried Twitter Lists yet? Do you like them? How are you using them? Please share by commenting below.
