The Twitter list feature is a simple often overlooked feature that can be quite a powerful part of your social marketing arsenal if used effectively.

Lists generate their own separate timeline of the Tweets of the people on the list.  Lists can be set as private or public. You can subscribe to other users’ public lists.    Members on your lists can be both accounts that your follow or not. A list has its own URL that can be referenced as a link elsewhere. You can use a Twitter list in an embedded Tweet widget on your website.

This past year, Twitter has increased the limitations on list feature.  You can have up to 1,000 lists that follow the tweets of up to 5,000 users.

Organize yourself

Creating lists can help you with curating content.  If there is a collection of accounts that tweet regularly about content that interests you, then adding them to a list can allow you to zero in on the tweets in that topic area. I’ve been building a list of Influencers – people whose content I like to Retweet or reference in my newsletter.

Following public lists can be a way to find accounts that you want to follow.   Looking at the lists of people you admire can lead you to a network of interesting accounts.

Social Marketing Benefits

Google Search indexes public lists, allowing for an additional way for your account to be found.

If there are a lot of accounts that you want to follow that are likely to not follow you back, moving them to a list can change the appearance of your Following-Followers ratio, while still allowing a quick way for you to still view their tweets.  I find this true of a lot of specialized media outlets – something that also benefits from being separately curated.

Separate out your personal interests

I love tennis.  I decided to follow the Australian Open the year before last – and my timeline was overrun with tweets about the event.  Though that’s great – it meant I couldn’t “see” the business tweets that I actually target on my Twitter timeline.   Creating a Tennis list, allows me to separate out these tweets and I can follow what’s happening when I want to – during Grand Slam events.

Remember to view your lists

Tucked away the lists can be forgotten.  It’s easier to quickly look at your main timeline.   Remember to cycle through and view your lists on a regular basis.

Do you use Twitter list?  How do you benefit from the feature?  Please add a comment to share your opinion.