Twittery Observations

For the last two days, I've been trying to organize my Twitter feed into lists, a project that's long past due. I have no idea how close to the end I am. However, I've taken in some things about Twitter, and about what works. (I say this as someone who doesn't use Twitter much, so take what I say with a grain of salt.)

First of all, if you don't know what I'm talking about, you can make lists (categories) to put those you're following under. Then you can click on a list and just view the tweets from that category. So, for instance, I have a "bloggers" list. If I want to get rid of the "noise" of Twitter, and just want to see my blogger peeps so I can visit them if they've tweeted a link to a blog post (for example), I can just click on the blogger list I've created and scan down the page, getting rid of all the other tweets sitting there on the feed.

You can make these lists public or private. I've made these all public, so if someone goes to my profile they can click on "lists" and look up Twitter accounts that fit one of the above categories. Want to find publications? You can find them under my lists!

I separated out lists for bloggers, writers/authors, editors/agents, publications, news/links, and promotion. This will probably be modified later, but this is a good start. I'm getting tweets thanking me for adding people to the lists. I had no idea they'd be notified when I put them in the list--I simply wanted to simplify how I approached Twitter so maybe I'd use it a bit more, while making it easier to use. So it's a good thing to be added to a list. See? I learned something!

But there are a bunch of people who won't be going into any of the lists I've created, because there's no explanation under their names as to who they are. And when I'm going through more than 2000 people, I don't have time to click on everyone to check out what they do and what they're tweeting. They get skipped.

There are people who do have something written there, but it's a clever statement, quote, or something along those lines. Several are wonderfully creative or funny. However, if I don't know who this person is, I'm not adding them into a list. I'm not unfollowing them, though, which I am doing with some accounts I'm coming across.

The ones I love are accounts that straight up say that they're a blogger, writer, editor, agent, publication, publicist, musician, comedian, actor, whatever. A bunch lay it out there, whether it's via hashtags or written out. Some particularly well done author bios, as an example, include that they're the author of such and such series, won x award, and blog at such and such blog or website. That's a lot of information, all squished into the limited area allowed for bios, but they did it. There are agents who are also authors, writers who are also book reviewers, so on and so forth.

Thanks to this little project (urg), I'll be reviewing my own bio once I'm finished organizing everything.

To create a list of your own, go to your profile page on Twitter, click on "more," select "lists," then click "create new lists" on the right side. You'll be prompted for a name for the list, an explanation of it, and then you can add names by typing them in or clicking on the spot on your profile page that says "following." This will bring up a list of everyone you follow, and you can click on the sprocket symbol then select "add or remove from lists." Then you can select which group or groups you'd like to add them to.

You can also click on the sprocket icon at the top right of your Twitter profile page, in the toolbar, to access your lists. (Here's a Twitter instruction page for it.)

Do you utilize lists on Twitter? What categories have you separated them into? Do you find it helpful, or was it a waste of time?

May you find your Muse.