7 Ways to Use Twitter Lists to Build Your Followers

One of the most important tools for building your page’s followers is lists.  Lists are powerful tools for focusing follower selection.  The best way to get new followers when you start a build is to follow others. 

Here are a few suggestions for using lists:

1. Create lists for the people who won’t follow you back.  If you want to read the tweets of someone who will never follow you back put them in a list. You call list someone without following them. You can always read the most recent deep thoughts of Justin Bieber on your list's timeline.  Plus you can make your list private so that the haters won’t know you are crushing on the Bieb. If you have to follow him just so that Justin knows that you are out there then open a personal account. then manage your different accounts in one place on HootSuite or TweetDeck. 

2. Build your own lists of people in specific fields or locations.  I pretty much always follow someone who has included me on a list.  Also, the subject matters of your lists indicate your interests to visitors.  I use my twitter lists as my morning newspaper. 

3. Ask to be on a list.  There are so many reasons to want to be added to other people's lists.  Some people now only read tweets via their lists because their timelines are so bloated.  Even more people are using lists as a primary tool in finding new accounts to follow.  These changes in habits of Twitter users have not gone unnoticed.  I receive messages from time to time that go something like this – “I love your marketing list.  We also are in the field and would like to be included.”  I am always flattered.  After a quick check of their tweet history I usually add them.  But make sure when you make a request it isn’t automated.  

4. Use a list building site like Formulists.  There are many ways you can use these services but I stick to two.  With Formulists you can create a list filtered by subject/location, follower/follow ratio and last tweet date. This list is automatically added to your page and updated every two days.  I find this automated list especially helpful with pesky location based builds.  Also, an automated "recently-unfollowed-me" list will be a revelation to many.  You may think that your organic build is slow and steady but this list will show you how quickly people unfollow when not reciprocated.  I promise you will start following back more aggressively. It also gives you a quick way to dump those who dumped you.

5. Mine the lists you are on.  The explosion in list use has really happened over the last six months.  All of my pages have had an exponential growth in places listed in just the last few months.  While many of these lists are unfocused and automated, some are gold mines.  Say I have a business with a local store front and an online store, I will soon find I am listed both in location lists (Things to do in Birmingham) and interest lists (Art Lovers).  This is a quick way to find people to follow who are in the fields that you want to focus on.  I mine a full list I like then I follow it.  Since the lists I have followed are marked I know which ones I have already mined.  I still go back to the best lists regularly to see what new names they have added (which are always at the top.)   

6.  Search lists of other focused pages.  Don’t just search your competitors' pages for who follows them, check out who they have listed and who has listed them.  If a list seems to have all of your competitors but not you, try to get on the list.

7. Be sure to clean out new follows in Tweepi (or the like.) If I don't vet each potential follow when mining a list I always seem to have just added a bunch of people who are either inactive or who just don't follow back.  So it's time to flush. You can speed the process up by going to a site like Tweepi and use the "flush the unfollowers" tool.  I usually do sweeps sorted by follower/following ratio and last tweet date.  At the end of the day I want to be followed back and I want active tweeters. I usually cut off accounts with no tweets in the last month or with a ratio above 200%.  Note that your most recent additions are always at the beginning of the list in Tweepi and you can lock non-followers that you want to retain.

Lists are only part of a good build strategy. But it is a growing part. While lists can help you quickly build a focused following you still miss many important potential followers.  Selective twitterers and those that read but don’t tweet are often outside the list world.  Always remember that a fast build is not always the best build. 

I would love any other ideas you may have on using lists.  This blog’s twitter page is VastineS.

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