How to Create Twitter Lists to Maximize Your Twi-ficiency - Tip for Writers on Twitter

Posted by Donna on December 28, 2009 under Twitter for Writers |

Last week I wrote a year-end blog post for my company’s parent company’s blog, Top 5 ways Social Media Impacted my Blogging in 2009. I realized how much being active in the realm of social media has improved my blogging. I thought I would share some of that here as well because I feel it especially pertains to writers using Twitter.

My blog post on social media and blogging covered five main points:

1. Twitter Lists Have Organized My Life - this tool has maximized my Twitter usage.

2. Paying Attention is Key to Fresh Content - just as writers should always be reading books, bloggers should be keeping up with other blogs for both technique and trends.

3. Trend-Spotting is Not Done at the Mall - use social media to find out what people are talking about or are searching for.

4. Sharing is Caring - Tweet, Retweet, post, repost, or summarize and share in a new blog post. Learn from being shared with; teach from sharing what you’ve learned.

5. My iPhone is My Savior - inspiration is everywhere. Having a smart phone with a camera allows me to share something immediately, or at the least, take a quick picture and jot down notes for later.

For this post, I will focus on how creating Twitter lists can help maximize your time on Twitter. I will show you how writers can use Twitter lists, how to create a Twitter list, and how to add people to your list.

What are Twitter lists?

I liken Twitter lists to cable television: specialized viewing channels when you are in the mood for a certain type of content. You could also think of them as iPod playlists where you can hone in on a specific area rather than the global shuffle. Simply put, Twitter lists are a genius tool to organize your social media life. Once your lists are created, you can view the lists one at a time, allowing you to focus on the people and/or topics you care about. Creating and using Twitter lists can

• Consolidate your Twitter stream
• Organize your contacts (people you follow or your followers)
• Expand your base of followers
• Help you find new people to follow
• Help you to better network

How can writers use Twitter lists?

For all the above reasons, and then some! If you are a writer using Twitter, chances are that you are using Twitter for several purposes (and, if you still need help finding uses for Twitter, by searching the Twitter category here, you may find some new ideas). You may follow writers in your genre for help with craft. You may keep up with agents on Twitter to find out what is happening in the industry or for sound advice. You may follow editors and publishers on Twitter to see what books are forthcoming. You may keep up with writing resources or literary magazines on Twitter that may be announcing contests or submission deadlines. And, if you are like most people and have a day job, you may also be following people in your industry and personal friends and family. Wow. With all that, how can you keep things straight?

Enter Twitter lists. Twitter’s list feature allows you to add users to lists, even multiple lists, to keep things organized. Then, by selecting a list, you can view only tweets from people on that list. Creating lists on Twitter will allow you to more efficiently manage Twitter, especially when you begin to follow hundreds of people.

As a writer using Twitter, you may want to create lists for specific areas. maybe your genre or based on profession. Every writer is different, so to give you an idea, here are the lists that I created for the Twitter account I use most often for writing:

• Memoir Writers
• Blogs About Writing
• Writing Resources
• Magazines
• Bookstores
• Wilkes Writers (writers in my MFA program)
• Editors
• Agents
• Publishers
• Authors (these are the “famous” writers I follow for fun.)

My lists are pretty straightforward. I could probably add a general writers category and add more genres, but I wanted to keep it simple. Your lists may be more numerous than mine, or more simple. In the orange graphic above, you can see how the lists are shown on my Twitter account. I just need to click on one of those lists to see the tweets from people on each list.

How do I set up a Twitter list?

Setting up a Twitter list is pretty easy. In the right hand menu column on your main Twitter page, you will see a section for lists. Simply click on “new list.” Then, a window that looks like this will pop-in:

1. Give your list a name and, if you wish, a brief description.

2. Then, select if you wish your list to be public or private. (A public list means that people can see where they are listed and also that your followers can look at all of your lists. A private list means that it’s only viewable by you. The nature of Twitter would lend very well to making your list public because by sharing lists, you can help others form their own lists and become more connected.)

3. Repeat if you’d like more lists.

4. Add people to your list, which I will discuss next.

Adding People to Your Twitter List

Once you’ve created a list or two, you’ll need to populate those lists. This is easy to do.

1. Go to your Followers or People You Follow page. You will see three icons to the right, under the Actions column. Click on the middle one, the one that looks like a list.

2. A pop-up will appear with checkboxes for each of your lists. It will look like this:

3. Just mark each list for which you want that person to be added. You can add the same person to multiple lists. For example, a few of my classmates write memoir, so they go on my Memoir Writers list and my Wilkes Writers list. Some agents I follow, such as Nathan Bransford, also have a blog about publishing, so he goes in both.

4. You may also create a new Twitter list right from this window.

Other thoughts and considerations on Twitter Lists

• Be mindful when creating your list names. Agents Who Rejected Me or Writers Who Can’t Write probably aren’t good names for lists. Also, for my day job, I almost made a category for clients. I realized that certain people may not wish for their competitors or customers to know who does their marketing and creative work, so I found other ways to categorize them.
• Explore Twitter lists of those you follow. You can actually follow a whole list that someone else created, which is pretty neat. Or, you may just wish to check out individual members of someone’s list to find new people to follow.
• Creating Twitter lists and adding people to them can be time-consuming if you’ve already rounded up hundreds of followers. But, as you add new contacts, you can add them to a list right away. That said, it can become second nature. Once the lists are set up initially, it’s a piece of cake to keep tabs on them.

Have fun creating your lists and, if you are considering a writer’s resources category, please think about adding us, @smforwriters. Enjoy!

Finally - how are YOU using Twitter lists. Please share your ideas here.