Twitter rolled-out the list feature in October of 2009 and it has been widely used in various applications. The greatest benefit of using lists is to organize different streams of information coming from different accounts that you follow. When you only follow a few dozen people, then it’s no problem keeping up with the tweets that come up. However, when you are following hundreds or thousands of accounts, the never ending stream of tweets that come in can be overwhelming. Lists allow you to segment people you follow into categories so you can easily sort through tweets.
List Basics
- You can create a new list in one of two ways. 1) Your lists are located in the profile bar on the right-hand side of your page (below the Search field) and click the” New List” link. 2) If you are on someone else Twitter profile page, you can click the Lists icon (a pop-down menu will appear) and click “New list”.
- To setup a new list you must first name it, then optionally add a description, then choose a privacy setting of either public or private list. A public list can be seen by anyone and others are able to follow the list you have created. Private lists are for your own use and cannot be seen by anyone else.
- The easiest way to add Twitter accounts to your list you simply go to the Twitter account you want to add, and click the Lists icon. A drop-down menu will appear that will display all the lists that you have created. Just click to list (or lists) that you want to add them to.
DemoGirl.com has created an easy to understand Screencast.
More About Lists
There are many ways to use lists, but some of the most popular are creating lists of friends and family, coworkers, celebrities, news, sports, deals/coupons, hashtags and other interests. You can also follow lists that other people have already created, saving you the time of finding all the interesting accounts to follow.
You can easily edit lists and create new ones. You can even see what lists you belong to; under “Listed” at the top of your profile bar, you will see the number of lists that you are on. Many people think that this Is the new way to measure how popular an account is rather than the number of followers.
