My use of Twitter has vacillated between moderate to non-existent during the three and a half years I’ve used the service. During my first year or so of tweeting, I was amazed by how it constantly facilitated real world connections. Then as I reached a relational saturation point, it became more noise in my digital world. However, despite its ability to distract, Twitter keeps drawing me back with its unique mix of entertainment, education and community. I’ve found the key to using it has been mastering Twitter lists and using my favorite Twitter app, Tweetdeck.
Filter Out the Noise with Lists
Once you start following a large number of people who tweet regularly, your Twitter stream serves more as a overwhelming river of distraction. All the tweets with links, photos and quips will either serve to prevent you from getting any work done, or you’ll feel hopelessly lost amidst all the conversation.
At this point, you need to learn how to use Twitter’s list feature to start filtering out valuable topics and conversations. Twitter Lists let you create subsets of people to follow. You can add people you follow or even someone you’re not following. As an example, here are the lists I currently maintain with my account:
From reading my list titles and descriptions you can probably get the gist of what they’re about. The only thing I’ll add is that the little padlock next to a list means that it’s private, only I can see it. The others are publicly available for other people to follow. You can follow lists on Twitter in a fashion similar to following an individual user on Twitter.
If you’re interested in using lists with your Twitter account, the best place to start is the Twitter Help Center article How To Use Twitter Lists.
Tweetdeck – Tweet Like a Power User
While you’re getting a handle on Twitter lists, you should also get a handle on Tweetdeck. My favorite feature is how it lets you display multiple columns of tweets. These columns can be made up of your main stream, replies, mentions and DMs; however, my favorite use for columns are to display the Twitter lists I mentioned above. The following screenshot shows my Tweetdeck (click the image to see it full-size):
I use Tweetdeck to display my various Twitter lists.
At first blush, I’m sure it looks distracting and overwhelming. However, once you get used to how the information is organized, you can quickly and efficiently scan the interface to find the information you’re looking for.
As you can see in the screenshot, I have my columns setup for All Friends, Mentions and three lists:
- My Conversationalists list is what makes Twitter fun. These are folks whom I either know personally, have met via Twitter or both. Throughout the day I’ll check that list to see what my friends are talking about. These are the folks that I joke with, share links with and converse with on a regular basis.
- The WordPress list is comprised of people who work with WordPress, the software I use to develop websites. This list keeps me up-to-date on the latest industry news and helps to supplement my professional development.
- Finally, my Clients list keeps me apprised of what the people I work for are talking about on the web.
With the help of Twitter Lists and Tweetdeck, Twitter has become vastly more useful and beneficial to me lately. Here are a handful of benefits I’ve gained from Twitter in the past two weeks:
- Nextdoor.com – A Social Network for Neighborhoods – Via a tweet from my friend Scott Adcox (@sadcox), I learned about Nextdoor. It’s an easy-to-use social network optimized for use by neighborhoods. To join a Nextdoor network, you must verify that you actually live in the neighborhood whose network you’re trying to join. I learned about this service at the same time I was trying to solve some communication problems for the HOA in my neighborhood.
- jAVERDE Coffee is Open for Business – Ever since their first location closed this past March, I’ve been anxiously awaiting the grand re-opening of jAVERDE Coffee in their new West Town Mall Location. By following the owner’s tweets on Twitter, I learned of their “soft-opening”, and I was able to drop by for coffee on their first day open.
- Email Subscriptions Now Available in WordPress Jetpack – I use the WordPress Jetpack plugin on many of the websites I develop for my clients. Yesterday, a tweet by @lloydbudd alerted me to the fact that the plugin’s new email subscriptions feature would solve a problem one of my clients was having.
- Reconnecting with Old Friends – If you haven’t used Twitter to tweet with people you actually know, you may smirk at my suggestion. But, when you tweet with people you know in the real-world, it actually forms meaningful connections. Now that I’m up on many of my friend’s online conversations, the next time we see each other we’ll already have a small sense of what we’ve been up to. Our shared tweets help to bridge the gap that happens after you haven’t seen one another for a while.
to clear out my three ring binders full of old bank and brokerage statements. In other words, this process lets me scan, file and backup all of my documents, thereby letting me shred and recycle the paper versions. It’s neat freak nirvana, de-clutter dynamite and cleanup karma all rolled into one beautiful combination of high technology, and I can’t wait to tell you how it all works. But, before I do, if you’ll pardon me one moment…
When I’m reading on my computer, I tend to avoid blog posts or news articles more than five-hundred words. No matter how good the content, all the scrolling and eye-strain limits my attention span. On the other hand, I love reading on my 
