If you are ready to get serious about your Twitter presence, you absolutely must create and use Twitter lists. Twitter lists allow you to segment those you follow into smaller, more manageable groups. Once you are following even just a couple hundred people, the typical user begins to feel like they aren’t seeing the tweets from their favorite accounts, or that there is too much irrelevant stuff to weed through in order to get to the content they want to see most. This is also why it’s more important to be listed than followed.

Twitter lists can be public or private. You can also review and follow other users’ (public) Twitter lists.

Twitter lists allow you to keep track of the tweets posted by another Twitter account without needing to follow the account. Plus you can unfollow an account and still keep that Twitter user in your list.

So now that we’ve reviewed some of the benefits of using Twitter lists, let’s shift over to the strategy involved.

5 Ways to Use Twitter Lists

• To organize all the Twitter accounts you follow This might seem redundant, but it’s not. The most significant part of strategically using Twitter lists is not that you are using them, but rather, how you choose to use them. In what ways are you going to segment those you follow? What groups of users make the most sense for your business strategy? Does geography play into your Twitter list strategy? What are you hoping to accomplish with your Twitter list strategy?
• To engage your customers If you know someone has purchased from you, you should probably pay them extra attention. The same goes for potential customers you are courting.
• To watch your competition This approach to Twitter lists is where listing an account without following it comes in to play. Keep a close eye on tweets coming out of competitive accounts by developing a private competitors Twitter list.
• To find new, relevant accounts to follow Do you have an upcoming campaign and want to locate influential users in a certain industry? By locating even just 1 public Twitter list of relevant accounts takes your research from taking days to a matter of minutes.
• To curate content for your social media profiles News breaks on Twitter first. Add a bunch of top notch news sources to a Twitter list so you only need to look in 1 spot for content to share to your social media profiles.

So, begin to strategize how you can best utilize Twitter lists to achieve your social media marketing goals. You’ll be a lot more effective on the platform as a result. And if you need some help developing your strategy, just let us know.