If you’re reading this, you probably know I’m a nerd. If not, let me inform you – I am a nerd. I love learning, books, presentations, data, pens, and all manner of other dorky things.
My passion for information gathering and sharing initially attracted me to Twitter. Now I’m addicted. I love following new people just to see what I can learn.
The problem with following a lot of people is how to manage the flow of the relationships. After all, it is futile to have a list of qualified sources if you don’t engage with them.
Writer Brooke Linville from Life After the Fire recognized this issue in regard to how to manage Twitter lists. She said she would like to know how I do it, so here are my thoughts on How to Manage Twitter Lists:
- Follow Anyone You Want. Some people try to limit the number of people they follow. This defeats the purpose of exposing yourself to new ideas and people. I allow myself to follow anyone I want, then I determine the value of our relationship over time through the next steps.
- Wait for the Follow (Back). Most people you follow will follow you back. This is when you are really able to engage.
- Get Follow Messages. Program your Twitter settings to send you an email each time you receive a new follower. Use an email filter to direct all of your messages from Twitter to a single folder. Otherwise, you’ll receive a stream of emails each day mixed in with your regular messages.
- Engage Your Followers. Review your Twitter follower email folder each day. Spend a few minutes deleting spam and people you aren’t interested in following. Send personalized private messages to each person you follow. Do not use an auto direct message. Most Tweeters hate these. I typically start each personalized message with “Thanks for the follow,” and then address the person by name. The next sentence usually references something from the person’s profile, something they’ve recently Tweeted, if I enjoyed conversing with them in an online chat, or even if I like their Twitter background. Don’t worry if you get behind on doing this. You’ll catch up eventually. You’ll also enjoy more regular contact with these followers through this type of personalized engagement.
- List Those You Follow. Create Twitter lists before you go to personally greet your followers. Before you send each new follower a message, place that follower on one of your lists. If none of your lists fit the follower, consider creating a new list. I have a few general lists, where some Twitter users have many lists.
- Trim the Fat. Review your account monthly to see how many users you follow who don’t follow you or don’t Tweet often enough for engagement. I used to naively do this through a long profile review process. I will never do that again after learning about Manage Flitter. I learned about the site, which allows you to see how many people you are following who aren’t following you and determine which accounts are active Tweeters, from Mack Collier. I’m not sure why I hadn’t looked for this type of site before because it saved me hours in my monthly review. During my first time on the site, I discovered that I was following 625 users who weren’t following me. Many of those accounts were agencies or news sites, others were people who were not active or whom I had failed to engage. After whittling the list, I ended up with 421 accounts that weren’t follow me. I chose key accounts on the list to send another personalized message in a second attempt to engage.
This process still is bulky, but it works for me. It takes about 15 minutes a day and 30 minutes once a month. It can take longer if you allow it to do so, but I don’t. I typically set a timer to keep myself on task.
How about you? How do you manage your Twitter accounts?
