At first I didn’t like the idea of creating a Twitter List because it seemed exclusionary. I mean think about it, what if I created a “Social Media Rockstar” list, or an “Real Estate Rockstars” list and I didn’t put YOU in it. Would you be offended?
Chances are somebody would feel left out. Thus, I avoided the idea of creating lists all-together.
The Cool Thing About Lists Tho…
It’s a very easy and effective way to filter through specific content. For example, I created a “News” list to keep up with content coming from media sites in Technology, New Media and Real Estate.
I created a “Conferences” list to stay on top of updates from some of my favorite conferences (events that I’m either speaking at, attending or interested in attending).
The Game Plan: how I’m using lists to manage my time better…
The goal is simple. Process information faster. Allowing me more time to allocate to other projects/activities (like finding new speaking opportunities). I’ll also be able to find the “good stuff” a lot faster allowing me to be more helpful and valuable to you as an information resource. I’m currently up to 11 lists (7 of which are private). I won’t share all of it with you (that’s the point, there’s some strategy behind it). The best advice I can offer you is: identify what’s important to you (find your information resources for knowledge, identify and keep an eye on your close connections) and engage with your audience. You need to minimize your time spent/wasted on processing information throughout the day so that you have more time to allocate to the revenue producing activities in your day-to-day business.
Part Experiment: @RibeezieMedia (automated content)
I created a Twitter Account for [Ribeezie Media] at: @RibeezieMedia. A lot of the content there is automated. See, the thing is, I’m subscribed to over 400 RSS feeds. I skim through a lot of content every morning and every night. The bits that I find useful, I tweet. I don’t really share my reader so I created this twitter account instead as a way of sharing the content that I find most interested. Most of it pushed through Twitterfeed and tracked through bit.ly. Other bits of it is scheduled, tweeted and tracked through su.pr. As the team and I continue to collaborate and work on new projects, we’ll share the account. And although a lot of it is automated, if you send us a tweet, we’ll definitely respond.
Tracking Results:
This part is simple. I’m really only measuring results in two ways:
- The number of “clicks” and “retweets” on each of the articles that are tweeted,
- The number of @ replies from the content that’s shared.
Follower counts are important too I suppose but what’s significantly more important is the level of engagement that you have with your audience. Some people have a low follower count but a high level of engagement with their audience.
How do YOU do it?
How do you use Twitter to process and share information? How do you measure your results (if at all)? What seems to work for you?
