Wednesday, 4 September 2013

L is for Lists! Twitter lists......




Yes, I’m blogging about lists again, but this time on Twitter! It’s no secret I love lists but creating lists on Twitter is an absolute godsend and I’m always amazed when people say they don’t use them, especially when they’ve reached their follower limit.

So, why I do I love Twitter lists? Well, here are my top 3 reasons:
  1. They let me organise people into groups – like my SAS Top Tweeps list which I use for people I regularly interact with or my Sussex/SE Business list for example, where I put everyone who’s in my area so I can see what’s going on
  2. They let me put people like celebs, news companies or those accounts that are really unlikely to follow me back into nice neat groups so I can still see their tweets easily, but don’t have to follow
  3. I can lock my lists or leave them public for everyone to see – I have a mixture depending on what the list is for
Twitter isn’t all about the numbers, but as you grow your account it can be hard to filter out the tweets of the people you really want to see when you look at your home feed – so that’s where lists are the solution!

And, if you’ve reached your follower limit really look at the accounts your following and ask the following questions:
  1. Are they regularly tweeting and engaging or are they just all talk? 
  2. Are they likely to follow you back; do have they have a low following/follower ratio?
If you find yourself pondering these questions why not just put them in a list, then you don’t have to follow them but you can still keep an eye on what they’re tweeting – a win win solution! If you’re following 300 celebrities, news companies or dormant accounts they will use up your valuable follows when they don’t need too. You can always go and follow those people at a later date one you’ve passed your follow limit. 

Some handy Twitter List limits info:
1000 lists permitted per user
5000 users permitted per list
List names cannot exceed 25 characters
List names cannot begin with a numerical character

So the moral of blog? It's never to late to start lists on Twitter but the sooner you start the easier it will be!