Using Twitter’s New Lists Feature

Twitter has launched a new feature called “Twitter Lists.”  Lists are not just lists of Twitter users, but allow you to create groupings of the Twitter streams of people you’re following.  Using Lists, you can organize the people you follow into groups of similar Tweeters.  You could create a List of your colleagues, or a List of social media marketers, or a List of runners who Tweet, or a List of recommended Tweeters.  Lists are helpful if you follow hundreds of other people and you want to organize them into manageable clusters.

How to create a List:

To create a List, select the “New list” option from the right hand navigation on your Twitter Home or Profile page.

Give the List a name and access level – either Public or Private.  Private lists will have a locked icon next to them in your list of Lists.

Then add Twitter users to the List.  You can search for users and add them to your list from their Profile page.

Or you can add users directly from your list of followers.

You can add a user to multiple lists, but right now each list is limited to 500 people and you can create up to 20 lists.  You can also add yourself to a List from your own Profile or Home page.

How to manage a List:

When you click on a List from your Profile or Home page, you will see the Twitter stream from the users in the List.

From there you can view the public “List Page.”

From either page you can Edit or Delete the List.  Editing just allows you to rename it and change the access level.

You can remove users from a List the same way you added them – just uncheck the List you want to remove them from.

Following Other People’s Lists

You can follow Lists created by other people.  When you follow a List, it shows up in the Lists section on the right hand side of your Profile and Home pages.  Viewing the List page will show you the Twitter streams of all the members of the List, but the individual users will not be added to you main Twitter stream.   See the Resources section below for suggestions for finding Lists that may be interesting for you,

You can follow and unfollow a List just as you would follow and unfollow a person.

Are you Listed?
You can see the Lists your on by following the link under the new “listed” number next to your following and followers links on the right hand side of your Home and Profile pages.

Resources:

Articles

• Twitter Blog – There’s a List for That
• Mashable – HOW TO: Use Twitter Lists
• CNN – Twitter lists and real-time journalism
• Scobleizer’s posterous – Twitter Lists; Limitations, bugs, impact, and brilliance
• TechCrunch – Twitter Expands Lists Beta Testing. A Great New Feature.
• The Next web -The Brilliance of Twitter Lists and Suggestions for Improvement
• Social Media Today -Twitter Lists will organize the social graph

Lists of Lists

• Listorious
• TweetMeme Lists
• Mashable – Mashable’s Lists
• Mashable – 15 Social Media Twitter Lists to Follow and Expand
• Econsultancy – 30+ Twitter Lists and 5000+ Twitter accounts worth following