According to Twitter, as per June 2022, the monthly average number of users is 450 million. Twitter is hands-down “THE” platform to leverage online presence, for both B2B & B2C brands. Not only is it one of the best social media channels for audience growth, but it’s also a great way to connect with your prospects, thought leaders and just casually pen down your thoughts in front of the whole world.

Below is a snapshot of a Twitter Users Report by Backlinko, which clearly shows the increase in Twitter users each year. It also states that -- Twitter is still one of the leading Social Media networks worldwide.

Twitter marketing has proven immense growth for a lot of businesses in different niches and has become a must-try marketing stint for every brand to check if it works for them. 

If your audience hangs out mostly on Twitter, you must’ve come across situations where you have to jump onto social selling conversation that can lead to a customer, or manage a negative review and a frustrated customer on Twitter. 

Do you know what’s the one thing common in such situations leading to positive results? Timing and being on point with the reply. HubSpot’s Guide on Twitter Marketing in 2021 walks us through some of the best ways to leverage your Twitter Marketing for businesses and one among them is - utilizing Twitter Lists to the fullest. 

Whether you are active on Twitter for promoting your brand or own freelance business, monitoring your competitors or just hanging out there to gain knowledge from other industry experts, this post is for you to learn how twitter lists can ease out your work.

So, let’s get started with the basics of what exactly a Twitter List and how do you get started to create one.

What is a Twitter List and Why Should You Create One?

Twitter List is a feature that allows users to add a group of other Twitter accounts into a single list and do more with these lists. If you have a relatively smaller audience and you follow only handpicked users, you probably are up to date with the content they post and their activity on Twitter. 

But what if, you have a huge audience, big competitors and a big bunch of users whom you follow? I’m sure it’ll get tricky to manage, read and consume all the relevant content coming in your feed. And you probably, you wouldn’t even know if you miss out on viewing some of the important ones! 

Twitter Lists help you to organize your audience and closely monitor their activity. These lists can be either private or public depending on the purpose of the list. Each user can create  1000 Twitter Lists and add up to 5000 in each of them.

How to Create a Twitter List?

To get started with creating a Twitter list, click on ‘Lists’ from your Twitter homepage.

You can now view all the lists you’ve created, you’ve subscribed to and members of your list. Next, click on ‘Create a List’ icon on the top right to create a list.

Give you list a ‘Name’ and ‘Description’. Once you’ve done this, you can check the box if you wish to make your list a private one.

Click on ‘Next’ and from here, you can add members to your list by using the search option.

Click on ‘Done’. That’s it! You’re ready with your list now :)

Twitter List Ideas You Can Implement Right Away

Now that you know how to create a Twitter List, I’ll walk you through some of the must-have lists alongside other ideas which you can pick from according to what suits your business the most. 

1. Digital Influencers: Whatever your domain could be, for sure there would be some users who really influence your audience. They are highly knowledgeable to follow and their content will be insightful to you and your audience. These Influencer Lists can be a resource that your audience can subscribe to. Having them under one list and following the content they share, lets you keep up with emerging trends, gain insights for your business and ideas for your own Twitter feed. Not just that, if your business has an ongoing influencer marketing plan, it’s a must to have a Twitter List for these influencers. It helps you like, retweet & keep them engaged. You never know, it could help you land up a fruitful collaboration with your brand.‍

2. Customers: You can easily keep all your customers under one private list to monitor their accounts and send them specific holiday coupons. You can ensure you personalize your content and make your customers feel important.

3. Editors & Journalists: Monitoring your favorite and domain-related publications, journalists and editors working in there, is a great way to pitch stories at the right time. You never know, keeping track of and engaging with them, can help your brand story get published in one of them!

4. Loyal Twitter Followers: Do you have loyal and engaged followers who regularly retweet, reply and share your content? Keeping all of them under your must-have list will help you get the initial traction to every new content you create.
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5. Dream Clients: Having a list of dream clients is a must-have for freelancers of any expertise. You get to see if they’re looking out for professionals like you and you can quickly tap on some awesome opportunities you’ve always been waiting for. Priscilla Tan, who helps SaaS + Tech companies with long-form content, says - “ One of my Twitter Lists is for “Dream Clients”, the second is my “Publications list” and the third, I call it "Brainy Folks", which is a list of people I admire. Like content marketers, customer research & SEO experts and likewise. I use this list when I'm promoting my blog posts.” So, if you want to keep a close eye on your dream clients, make a private Twitter list and engage with them to get yourself noticed.‍

6. Brand Advocates & Evangelists: Rewarding users who say good about your business and promote it on social networks, is an act of being thankful! It could be a simple thank you note to offering gift cards to keep them further engaged and motivated to promote your business. These users can be added to a private list and they can be the first ones to know if you’re launching new features. Doing so, you’ll have an audience ready to promote yourself.

7. Spy on Competitors: Do you want to be a step ahead of what your competitors are doing and how they’re utilizing Twitter? It’s a no brainer to go and spy on their Twitter handles by adding them to your private list. This way, you can have a dedicated feed to look out for what content your competitors are tweeting, who’re the ones who promote them and if there are any conversations where your businesses are being compared. You can quickly jump onto such relevant conversations, get a little witty and put yourself ahead of your competition.

8. Keep in Touch with Attendees of an Event: It’s always good to keep in touch and engage with the network you’ve built at events. Networking well and drawing value from events will be a hit for you if you don’t forget to engage with them later on. Events promote their hashtags and encourage attendees to tweet with similar hashtags. This way, you can identify the ones who’ve attended a particular event, add them to your list and make sure to engage with them post the event. Ashley Luk, Marketing at Unbounce, says - “I currently use Twitter lists for different purposes one being for our Events. For instance, we create lists after an event (webinar, conference, etc.) so we can reach out to attendees afterward for promotions on future events they also might be interested in.” Events need not be only offline, but you can also apply a similar approach for online events like Twitter Chats. They’re are a great way to engage, provide value to the community and build your followers. If you host a Twitter Chat, tapping on your frequent attendees and adding them to a list, is a smart way to invite them to further chats too.

9. Potential Leads: If there’s any particular persona type you’re looking to target on Twitter, a simple search with relevant keywords will help you. For example: If you’re an email marketing service provider, your most relevant audience would be ‘email marketing specialists’ or just ‘marketers’. Do a quick Twitter search with these keywords, and you’ll see a list of users with these keywords in their bio or frequently used hashtags. Give a quick glance to who’s relevant and add them to a Twitter List. This list will help you market your product better, so it makes sense to keep it as a private list.

How to find the best Twitter lists in your niche?

Not just creating Twitter Lists for yourself, subscribing to other Twitter Lists can help you get personalized content on your feed and know what’s going on in your interest space.

But how do you find the best Twitter lists to join?

It could be either Twitter’s powerful search box or looking at the public lists of popular names in your niche! 

Twitter Search is easy to use to gather information on these lists and then you can skim through the data. While this may or may not end up giving you the best of the lists in terms of relevancy, looking at influencer’s lists can give you an idea.

Influencers in your niche would’ve curated lists under various categories and these could be potential lists for you to subscribe too.

Another easy way is to look at what lists they’ve been a member of! This can also give you an idea of what lists you are looking for.

Pro-Tip: Automatically Add Users to a Twitter List

Now that you have got a bunch of ideas to leverage your Twitter marketing with lists, let’s go a step further and learn how to do it easily & automate the process for you.

Wouldn’t it be awesome if someone was added to a list, as and when they mention your brand or write a Twitter review or just follow you!

Well, Automate.io - an easy tool to help you automate your marketing, sales and other business processes, lets you do that in minutes.

How do we do that?

1. Get an Automate.io account. 

2. Connect your Twitter account.

3. Set up a simple workflow wherein you can choose triggers like new mention, new follower, search tweets, new tweet in a list and then select the action to be: ‘add to a list’. Note: You can also add intermediate steps like search a user, search bios, etc. and then ‘add to a list’. Learn more about the actions and triggers for the Twitter Integration.

4. Save the bot and your workflow is ready. Users will be added to your list automatically based on the rules you’ve added.

Once you get your hands dirty on Twitter Lists and utilize them to the fullest, play your smart game and see how Twitter Marketing works wonders for you!

This article is written by Wizly Content Marketing Expert, Archita Sharma. Originally published on G2.