No secret, I am a Twitter lover who just celebrated my fifth Twitterversary! After over 100,000 tweets, nearly a thousand followers, I've learned a few tricks along the way. I've been considering writing a Twitter series for awhile and this will be post one.
Somewhere after 50 followers, I started noticing tweets getting lost and was unable to keep up. I knew Twitter had a list feature but didn't utilize it. I started by making a list to just keep up with my close friends and then quickly added more. I mainly stick to reading my lists and rarely just straight read through my TL. Here is what my list page looks like:
I have lists for all the different groups that I follow and even then some groups are broken down by people who like to tweet each other. So I have a cycling fan list but then I have a seperate list for a certain group like my Packer loving friends "AaronsHarem" who also love cycling but love the Packers too.
You can use lists as a mute feature of sorts. One of my friends had a safe list that she knew was a group of people who didn't tweet about certain subjects like politics, fan groups and such.
You can have a list of people you don't follow. One of my lists is all people who were at the Mixtape festival created by my friend Lori. I don't follow all of the people on the list and don't have to. Yes, you can also follow someone else's list if you want. IowaKathy has a comprehensive list of pro cyclists on twitter that I follow.
To make a list, go to the cog button on the left of the new tweet button. I circled it in red:
Use the drop down menu and select lists. The create list button is below your cover image on the right side of the page. I circled the button in red in the picture below
Click the button, pick a catchy name for your list, write a description if you want and select whether it is a public list that others can see or a list only for you to see which is a private list.
The list page will create and a box will pop up. You can add people to your list by going through your followers and clicking on this button by their user name
Select the add to list button
Simply click the box next to the list name you want to put the person on and your set!
It's that easy. Then you just go back to step one and use the same step to read your lists. Most days, I read through only my lists and @ replies only. This comes in handy during races that you aren't watching live and want to avoid the outcome. You can read lists with non viewing friends. Also comes in handy when a tv show is on in another time zone and you don't want to be spoiled.
Lists are another way to make your Twitter experience even more enjoyable and help you stay connected to those you tweet most.
Feel free to ask me any questions @julesmpg if you need any help setting up your lists.
