We Talk About Listing People On Twitter

We’re going to talk about our lists, because sometime they get us in trouble. Don't know what lists are on Twitter? Keep reading.

In the world of Twitter there are many accounts that try to pass themselves off as real people, and there are many accounts that are there just to try to sell you things. And there are ones that want to share news with you. Lists are a way to sort them out, if you decide to follow them back.

Everybody wants followers on Twitter, to a certain extent; some are there to meet people, some are there to entertain people, some are there to be entertained and some, like us, are there for every single reason imaginable (read: ‘Birds of a Feather, On Twitter, Can Flock Together ‘, a post we did March 5^th of this year).

When you follow someone on Twitter their Tweets get in your Timeline, so to be able to weed them out sometimes people make lists so they can concentrate on particular subjects/people in timelines, instead of all the people they follow at once.

Lists also serve for other functions. When people follow a list, whether they are in it or not, it puts all the tweets of everyone in that list into that lists timeline. For example, follow some NSFW (Not Safe For Work) accounts? Make a list for them and one for safer accounts for work, then you can keep “objectional” reading for the privacy of home (or when you lock your office door).

Tweeps have blocked us to prevent being listed in this particular list, and told us so. We used to have a list that kept track of the people who unfollowed us (previously “The Unfollowed(ers), just so the rest of us knew what was going on. We've changed that list – it’s now the Twitter Glitch List*, because Twitter and it’s apps are unreliable these days.
Lists are how people get found and find others who may be like them in some way. We love our listing system, and others have commented on it.

We actually set aside time during the week to pay attention to some of the lists, and no doubt you've seen us #FF our #TeamAwesome list – otherwise we are always on the general timeline where we can see ALL of our followers. We move people from list to list as needed; it’s usually considered an upgrade. The lists we create are mostly for the people who follow us, and the people who follow the lists. They are to help everyone on Twitter who follow us, or who only follow a list of ours, to find what they are looking for.

We’re not saying our listing is perfect, sometimes Tweeple fall through the cracks, sometimes Twitter even bumps people from a list. Every person we follow gets listed…until we run out of listing space. We try to rearrange/upgrade all the time so we can maximize our lists.

We've written about one of our lists, and about Twitter in general (tips and info about ins and outs of Twitter), in a ‘For Us It’s All About Twitter…and #TeamAwesome’ (though some of our stuff is out dated, we no longer have time to play many #TwitterGames *sad face*)

Here's a visual of what our lists look like, and thier descriptions, to date.

{Please note, since the time of writing some of the names/descriptions of lists have changed - this image is only for example purposes at his point}

If you want to follow some of our lists you can find them here (they probably aren't as fuzzy either): http://twitter.com/#!/JstCallMeFrank/lists

We spend a lot of time on Twitter, as anyone may know. We’re on the computer or mobile connection about 80% of our waking hours. We sometimes write in our blog about Twitter, and a lot of entries are usually written with our followers in mind as who we are talking to, because they comprise a huge amount of our readership.

We wrote a blog entry recently about how we hit our 50,000 Tweet mark, which apparently is a milestone on Twitter. It just means we’re made open Tweets and @’s at a high rate since starting Twitter not that long ago (not even a year).

So, this post is dedicated to understanding listing, because recently we’ve had some followers/friends from our ‘Binge Drinking’ (our inner circle) just find out about listing. Sometimes we want to be helpful, to help people enjoy Twitter that much more, because Twitter has potettial to serve many needs, and we find it a fascinating form of communication and entertainment.

Want to make some lists and don’t know how? Check out the Twitter help center: http://support.twitter.com/articles/76460-how-to-use-twitter-lists

We love our Tweeple

~Frank et al

New here? Want to figure us out a bit? Go here: http://just-call-me-frank.blogspot.com/p/our-recommendations-weeded-from.html - it’s some of our best from all the writing we’ve done on this blog.

*Twitter Glitch. Twitter and applications associated with Twitter tend to sometimes unfollow people at will, without the knowledge of the account holder. So, when we get a long time follower who unfollows us we put them in this list, because we have in fact had people see themselves in the list and let us know it was a mistake of some sort and then follow us back. It’s also a way for us to keep track of new followers who might be trying to get a #shoutout…which is a way to get noticed and get more followers. You’d think it’s not a big thing, but some days we get a lot of followers and we do everything manually so it takes time from our day. We could stop anytime, but we like to do it to acknowledge the REAL people (and sometimes legit businesses/organizations) that follow our account.