COMMENTS
I've learned that the lists feature will not replace (but more likely complement) third party applications such as Tweetdeck, Seeismic, or Hootsuite.
It will be interesting to see how they integrate this functionality of Twitter.
Great article! I think lists will help marketers find their prospects and customers and help them listen more to their conversations. The most important thing is to find and listen. Then do content creation, engaging, etc. Twitter should definitely have a list search function.
It's terrific that you were able to get your head around Twitter Lists and find the tools to make them usable for the mere mortal. Thanks Rick, for another terrific post.
How do you suggest to use the list to become the thought leader?
Say, for example, that my industry is cigar retailing :o) how can my making a list tied to my profile allow people to find me instead of the competition?
Also, is there any SEO impact from lists? Not for our sites, specifically, but if someone googles "cigars", will the lists come up as a result?
Let's see another HubSpot webinar on Twitter marketing now that we have lists and all these new developments with search engines integrating!
Also, what are y'alls thoughts on excluding primary competitors if I make a list?
For example, if I'm making a Twitter list for cigars, should I exclude the competitors I don't want to drive traffic to from my list, or is that counter-productive?
Also, is there a way to grab or embed these lists for the community areas on our websites? For example, can I embed my list on
website of people we think tweet good information on cigars?
Sam, these are two different questions that i never thought of..anyone out there can help us on these two questions?
Just clarifying....the webinar is Wednesday the 4th of November correct? Details say the 3rd but that's Tuesday, not Wednesday.....
@Valerie Thanks for pointing that out. Your are correct. The webinar is the 4th -- and I fixed the error.
Rick
Hopefully this feature will be well adapted by marketers and a more thoughtful approach will be taken when it comes to their advertising methodologies. The old post and send method is adding to already vast sea of "Click Here" guys. Good article and thanks for adding value to the Webbosphere.
An easier way to add people to lists is to click on your follower or following count links. This brings up the list of people who follow you for example and on the right hand side you can add them to a list.
Great article and so quick off the mark!
I only found out about them yesterday and have already set up a couple of lists. The one functionality that seems to be missing so far is the ability to send tweets only to your list. I guess @listname should work but everyone else will also get the message and they might consider it to be spam...
Pat
Inner Beauty Photography
I have a pet store online so in Twitter I've been following people that are interested in dogs or cats and I auto follow so I have a bunch of marketers in there too I'm sure. I was thinking I could create a list based on pets, but then again marketers are people too. Maybe they own pets as well so they would still be interested in my site. Do you think I should create a group to segment marketers vs pet people?
@Angela, yeah, you probably have quite a few marketers following you, but many (like me) would be very interested in pet supplies if we, for example, had an adorable kitten named Chloe :P but also happened to be internet marketers.
I think a better idea is to try hard to engage with your followers (both old and new) and create a list of "pet lovers". This will help you better organize which followers you want to directly market to, and which ones are following for other reasons.
Just my $0.02 :)
Also, I'm really like @Pat's idea. Wouldn't it be neat if you could segment your followers and send out a blast to (for example) followers who you know own dogs? Is there a software that does that already?
It would have a great viral effect too, since you could better organize your top retweeters and engage them more (even mention them in tweets you want retweeted!).
Thoughts?
@Sam, there is a tool pretty close to what you're talking about. I actually highlight it in
my blog I love it so much. It's http://www.buzzom.com. It allows me to see who has "dog" or "pet" and a couple other key words in their profile. Unless there is a better tool out there I would assume those are pet owners or at least love pets. I guess I would get marketers in there too. I just figured marketers might not enter their like for dogs because they are focused on marketing when they're on twitter. I could also enter into the equation that if they are interested enough to enter "dog" into their profile the are probably interested enough to receive my store tweets. If they don't enter it they more likely wouldn't be interested.
Sound like a logical line of thought?
All very true. But the ones you don't want to lose are (like you said) the ones like me, who don't waste bio real estate on our pets, but have adorable pets that we love!
Maybe an auto-DM to new followers saying "What's your favorite pet memory?" or something would help you better qualify your followers as potential customers or general contacts.
I'll definitely say that those that put pet info in their profile are "hotter" leads if you will, but in industries like yours and mine (cigars) people may love something and not have it in their bio, so we still gotta ask ;)
I agree that marketers are less likely to enter a dog interest in their bio. I suspect they are even less likely to answer to a DM. 99% of my DMs I don't even read. So then I come back to thinking I might as well not group. OR I could try grouping those "hotter" leads and see what happens. Experiment if you will.
You know, this conversation is probably long enough that we should have done it via twitter and used a hashtag for those that care to follow lol ;)
Personally, I only glance at DMs (unless I know their sender) and reply to new ones only if they're questions. I don't like getting random links or statements. Has anyone tried an open-ended question, and experienced a higher response rate?
Great advice. I am only just getting onto the twitter bandwagon and this going to help massively.
I do like the Twitter lists. It's a simple thing to separate those that you follow by category. Just made my life more organized.
Hi,
I've made a list of brick and mortar twitter users from Sacramento.
http://twitter.com/juliemarg/sacramento-business
I'm hoping I'll be able to use it to show other Sacramento businesses that you don't have to be Chatty Cathy to make twitter work for you.
The problem I find with Twitter is keeping it updated with new tweets. Like most social media it is demanding on time.
I am a diet coach and new on Twitter. The list idea sounds very interesting. Being into diet and fitness what list should I be looking for and how do I find one, by keywords? I may want to form one also later.
very helpful. Were a martial arts school in austin texas and I recently set up a twitter account. I'd like to make use more transparent. I will give this a try.
What I find very interesting about Twitter lists is that they reveal how other Tweeters view you on Twitter. For example, I appeared in two lists that SHOCKED ME; one called "SEO" with the description "People who seem to know what they are talking about in the business of the internet." WHAT A COMPLIMENT! and another called "Study Abroad"
By seeing how other Twitter users charactize me lets me know how I'm doing on Twitter and what I might should tweet more about since that's what my followers are interested in.
Hope that all made sense.