CONFUSED BY TWITTER LISTS?

A quick guide to using Twitter’s newest feature – lists.

(Long Island, N.Y.) In essence, the Twitter social network is one giant list – an up-to-the-minute list of whatever the people you follow are doing at any given time. But the speed with which information gets added to Twitter makes it hard to keep up. We miss important tweets from friends. We miss interesting links. We miss the opportunity to “GET 1000s of followers in the next 10 minutes by clicking HERE! http://budurl.annoyingspam.com”

Okay, maybe not so much on the last one. And that’s not a real URL, so don’t bother.

Twitter’s latest update permits you to make small, targeted lists of people you follow, so you’ll never miss an important or interesting tweet again.

For people who work in multiple industries, who have many varied interests, or use Twitter for both business and pleasure, the list concept truly enhances productivity -- once you take the extra time to set up all your lists. Here’s how to do it.

How to set up a Twitter list

For the time being, you can use the link on the banner across the top of your Twitter home page to “Create a New List.” Name the list whatever you’d like. For instance, some of my lists include: /writers, /paintball, and /church.

Decide whether you want your list to be “public” or “private.” You can always change the settings later. I find it helpful to start a list as private until it grows. I don’t want to go public with a list that has only two members because it looks like I’m too lazy to build a good list (which would be the truth!)

Lists can have as many as 500 people, and users can create 20 lists per username.

Add people to your list by searching for them by name or username. You can also find people from your “following” page.

During the normal course of Twitter conversations, if you come across someone you want to add to a particular list, you can do that by going to their profile page. Once there, you’ll see the gray bar telling you that you follow them. Click on the “lists” icon on the far right of that bar and check the box or boxes next to the list (or lists) in which you want them to appear. That’s it. Yes, you can add someone to more than one list, but then you’ll be reading their tweets multiple times.

Whose lists are you on?

Want to find out who thinks you’re interesting enough to add to their lists? On the right-hand sidebar, you’ll see the word “Lists,” and, under that, a truncated list of your lists as well as lists you follow. (Whew!)

Click “view all.” Then on your main screen you can click the tab “Lists following you.”

Here’s where it gets really cool. Have friends with similar interests as you? There’s no need to take time creating a list. Just follow someone else’s!

The only drawback to following someone else’s list is that you are on that list, which means you’ll have to sift through your own tweets. This isn’t necessarily bad if you tend to have a lot of conversations through Twitter – it helps you remember what you said – but if you send out a lot of tweets and dominate a list… it may be easier to create your own list and not add yourself to it.

Obviously, you can’t modify someone else’s list at all, so if new and interesting people come into your Twitter stream, you can only add them to a list you created.

A few more things to remember about lists:

• You can add people you don’t follow to lists. (You’ll need to use the search function to find them).
• You can add people who aren’t following you onto lists.
• Everyone can see the members of a public list. Be careful not to leave anyone out who may be offended, and also be careful how you characterize people. No one wants to see their name on a list titled: /smellypeople.
• Just because a list is private, the tweets are not. Any tweets you make, as always, are still public and can be viewed by all your followers. Now, they can also be viewed by people who follow the lists you’re on, whether they follow you personally or not.
• You cannot control what lists people put you on, only the lists you create.

Having said that: lists are a productivity tool, not a popularity contest. Don’t stress if you’re not on every list someone creates titled /coolpeople. Just create your own list and don’t add them to it, either. That’ll show them who’s cool!

Dawn Allcot

November 06, 2009 4:36 PM Eastern

E-mail This Page | Follow Us | Return to My Column

You can Bookmark & Share this article by clicking here: