Recently I had coffee with Vancouver photographer Dave Scott and we were chatting about how photographers use Twitter. Dave brought up a challenge he was having. He wants to follow lots of other photographers (both to get photo information and also to see how they use Twitter), but if he starts adding too many photographers from around the globe, he’s afraid that the tweets from his local connections will get lost in the fray.
How does one keep track of a group of topical tweeters while not cluttering up their main Twitter timeline? I suggested that Dave might use the Twitter list feature.
A few things to know about Twitter lists:
- Each user can create up to 20 lists
- Each list can contain up to 500 people
- You don’t have to follow someone to add them to a list
That last point isn’t well known but it makes lists the solution to Dave’s situation. He can create a list for the photographers he wants go monitor, check in on that list as he has time, and his main Twitter stream will remain focused on what he perceives as more important tweets to watch.
Twitter lists can be viewed through the web and they’re now well-supported in third-party apps such as TweetDeck, HootSuite, Seesmic, and others.
How do you use Twitter lists?
