Overwhelmed By Twitter? How To Manage Your Account
One of the best descriptions of Twitter that I've ever heard came from Capstrat Creative Director Scott Ballew. He said something along the lines of 'Twitter is like an ever-moving stream. Sometimes, you go visit the stream, dip your toes in, perhaps wade in and have some fun, but then you step out of the stream completely, dry off, and go back home.' Scott was right; Twitter is an ever-moving stream of information and conversations. It can be incredibly overwhelming, particularly if you try to keep up with every single Tweet in your feed. I'm here with a suggestion for how to keep up with your Twitter feed.
I'm not suggesting that you read every single tweet in your feed, though hats off to you if you are able to do that. If you're anything like me, though, and follow hundreds of accounts, it would be close to impossible to read every tweet, get your work done, and have a couple minutes of time away from the computer or mobile device in one day. For this reason, I highly suggest making use of the "Lists" feature on Twitter.
In my personal account, I have created ten lists that help me keep up with different areas of interest regularly. Among these lists are News, Advertising/Creative, Local, and a couple more, including a personal favorite, "Numero Uno." To lessen the insanity that can be Twitter feeds, these lists allow me to organize information into buckets and filter out other noise if I only want to focus on one particular thing, such as news stories.
You can make your lists private or public. My Numero Uno list, for example, is private, because I don't think it's appropriate to let people know whose tweets I care the most about. Frankly, though, this list consists mostly of close friends and my very favorite Twitter accounts. (So I guess it's not that private anymore. Oops.) If I'm about to leave work and want to find out what's happening in Durham for the evening, I pull up my Local list and can find out about the whereabouts of various food trucks, any concerts are happening that night, local news stories, and so on.
One other great thing about lists is that you can add accounts to your lists without needing to follow them directly. This is a great feature if you want to see what an account is saying, but you don't necessarily want to see their tweets in your regular feed.
So how exactly do you create a list? It's simple. Go to your Twitter profile, and in the "Lists" tab, click on the down arrow and then click on "Create a list." I suggest choosing an appropriate name for the list, so it's easy to pick out if you ever find yourself with a bundle of lists. The description is optional, and you can choose to make it private or public. After you click through to the next page, you can either add accounts by searching for users' names, or you can click the "Following" button in the last line of text and scroll through accounts you already follow and pick people to drop into the list. Simple as that! When you're ready to see that list, you can return to your profile, click the down arrow on the "Lists" tab, and select the list of choice. Voila!
I challenge you to try to organize the accounts you follow into appropriate lists, if you haven't already. Let me know if it makes the "ever-moving stream" a bit less intimidating. For those of you who already have lists, do you have any additional suggestions? Do you have any favorite list categories?
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