Why You Should Care About Twitter Lists

We briefly touched on Twitter lists in a recent Tech Week in Review post. At the time, I had just gained access and realized that not having access to Twitter lists from my favorite Twitter client made them pretty much useless to me. A large percentage of Twitter users do, in fact, access Twitter from the official site, but I’m not one of them. Since then, at least 2 clients have implemented lists: Seesmic Web / Desktop and Brizzly.

Making Twitter More Manageable

Many clients have implemented lists and groups for the longest. I have even commented on a few occasions that a client without such a feature just can’t be serious. Being able to group the people you follow makes it easier to keep up with and engage with them. It also allows you to follow more people because you aren’t tied to one timeline with a couple thousand tweeters in it. Bottom line is, if you follow even a few hundred people, being able to divide their tweets into groups makes your experience more manageable.

Freedom to Switch Clients

By having lists integrated directly into Twitter’s API, you no longer have to choose a specific client just because you want groups. Most clients will implement Twitter lists in one way or another within the next month or so (it makes no sense for them not to). Another great benefit for us as users is that we will be able to switch Twitter clients (hrm…ok, maybe there is one reason) without fear of having to re-create all of your groups/lists somewhere else. I have created groups in Tweetvisor, Brizzly, PeopleBrowser, and Hootsuite. Each time I moved to a new client, I had to start from scratch and I absolutely hate trying to sort people.

See How Others Classify You

Lists can be public or private. Taking a look at the public lists others have added you to lets you get an idea of how they see you. Even for the average person, this is important to know because you might care about what people think. For a brand or company, this will help you figure out if the image you think you are putting forward is the one people are seeing. Obviously, this isn’t a fool-proof method of measuring the success of your brand on Twitter, but it’s definitely worth including in your toolbox.

Connect with Those Who Share Your Interests

Finding people that share your interests on Twitter is not easy. This is why services like Mr. Tweet, WeFollow and the like even exist. I don’t think anybody truly enjoys analyzing individual tweet streams and profiles, trying to draw a conclusion as to what a person is all about. With Twitter lists, you can easily discover those who are similar to you by looking at who is on the same lists as you. If I’ve been added to a list of musicians, for example, I can look at the members of that list to connect with other musicians.

What Do You Think?

I can’t stand putting people into groups, but it seems other people are quite good at it. Being able to follow someone else’s lists on Twitter is a huge benefit for me. It’s like a direct word-of-mouth suggestion as to who you might want to follow, and gives you an idea of how you are viewed. Now that I can monitor them from a 3rd party client, I’ll be using them a lot more. Check out this quick screencast I did about one of the ways I use lists.

What do you think?