For those of you who do not know, Twitter lists are a feature of Twitter that allows users to create lists (i.e. marketing, technology, sports, etc.) and add other users onto that list. Every time you are added to a “list” it adds to your “listed total” which is located next to your followers (see screenshot below of my Twitter account):
Members often use this feature to add people to a specific list that they feel best represent that category. I have an Internet Marketing list, for example, that lists about 16 members who I feel provide great Internet Marketing advice. Seems like a simplistic feature, and it is, but Twitter Lists can be of great use beyond this. Below I’ve listed 5 ways to use Twitter lists.
1. Assess Brand Perception: This applies to both your personal brand and your company. Look at all the lists you’ve been added to and assess if there is a common theme. You might be surprised which lists you fall under. This is extremely helpful in determining peoples’ perceptions towards your company and your Twitter account. If you sell health food, for example, and you see that half of the lists you’ve been added to are called “junk food”, it is important to analyze why. Are your tweets sending the wrong message? Are people just not aware that your items are actually healthy? Are there random tweets pertaining to your company that are branding you as “junk food”. It is okay to reach out to the person who started the list and ask them why they felt your brand was appropriate to add to that list. Take the opportunity to use your Twitter lists as valuable market research and make any necessary revisions to future tweets if applicable.
2. Organize Your Followers: I find Twitter Lists useful because instead of going through every single person I’m following, I can organize them by individual categories. One of the better ways to organize your Twitter lists is to separate your followers by “business” (industry experts, clients, employees, etc.) along with “personal” (friends, family, etc.). TweetDeck is great at taking Twitter Lists and organizing them even further. If there was a popular news item that occurred within your industry, for example, you can look through your industry experts lists on TweetDeck and actually search for a specific keyword within that list. It’s a way to find the information you are looking for as quickly and easily as possible.
3. Educate Yourself – You can follow other Twitter lists that you didn’t necessarily create. If you want to learn more about a certain topic or industry, there will likely be a list created for it already. Find the one(s) that has a lot of followers (not necessarily users who were added to the list, but people following that list) and observe the conversations taking place.
4. Keep Your Company Tweeters in One Place – This applies to individuals who have more than one person tweeting on behalf of a brand. If you have multiple company tweeters, organize them in a Twitter list and encourage users to follow that list. You might only be able to tweet x times / day, but combine that with your other company tweeters and it can add up to a branded tweet every few seconds all under one central location. The nightclub industry can greatly benefit from implementing this strategy. Most have a company Twitter account, but also have dozens (if not more) club promoters and employees tweeting on behalf of the club. Organizing these people onto one branded Twitter list is effective in keeping people “in the know” on all things related to that club.
5. RSS Feed Syndication – Ever find a Twitter list with a great stream of information? Why not take the list and aggregate it as an RSS feed onto your website. If you find it useful so might your website visitors. Twitter lists to do not have an RSS feed, but you can create one by visiting this site. My Internet Marketing list, for example, changes from this: http://twitter.com/dave0911/internet-marketing to http://twiterlist2rss.appspot.com/dave0911/lists/internet-marketing/statuses.rss.
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