How to use Twitter Lists as a tracking tool

Even though it’s well over 15 years of age, Twitter stands strong as one of our primary sources of information. The little bird’s social network lets us stay updated with all types of news and relevant profiles, always coming up with new features to provide content in different formats.

One of these features is Twitter Lists, a section where you can group profiles and create a personalized feed with their tweets. Although it’s not very popular, this feature takes Twitter to a new level of value for businesses and serves as a great monitoring tool. In this article, we’ll look at how to manage Twitter Lists and how they can be helpful to your marketing strategy.

How to create and manage Twitter Lists

Your first step is heading to the center of the lists, which is very visible: head to the sidebar and click on “Lists.”

On this tab, you’ll be able to see your lists and discover new lists you can follow. In addition, since lists can be either private or public, you can check out other users’ lists and follow them if they’re helpful to your goals.

You can also pin the most relevant lists to you, so they appear up top.

Now let’s create a list by clicking on the “New List” icon on the top right. First, it’ll ask you to choose a name for the list, which is mandatory. In this step, you can add a description and a header image and choose whether it’ll be a private or public list.

Once that’s done, you can click “Next” to add users to the list. Twitter will show suggested profiles, but you can go ahead and search for whomever you want. You can check the “Members” tab to see the entire list as you add users.

When you’re ready, click on “Done” and voilá. You have a new Twitter List!

Lists can be edited at any time to tweak the title, description, or image or add or subtract members. Just click on the list, go to “Edit List,” and all the options will be there.

Using Twitter Lists as a tracking tool

Now that you are familiar with this feature let’s see how using lists on Twitter can be useful to your marketing goals.

Twitter Lists to track competitors

With its short-form posts and fast information transfer, this social network is perfect for brands to give updates. That can go from discounts and offers to a statement or new product launches.

By having a list of your competitors, you’ll have a personalized feed of just their updates. Competitor tracking on Twitter is easy since it’s the perfect place to know what your competitors are up to at all times regarding all areas of communication, allowing you to respond accordingly.

And besides general updates, Twitter also appreciates a good sense of humor. That means brands will often turn to this social platform to share funny, attention-grabbing messages and marketing efforts that engage the audience.

A list of your competitors can help you stay up to date with these actions, not only to be in the know but also to see if you can jump on to any of them. For example, take a look at what Taco Bell replied to a tweet by Old Spice:

Tweet reply

Old Spice hadn’t directly mentioned them, but the brand still managed to take the opportunity to participate. Of course, to achieve this, it’s crucial to monitor your competitors, and Twitter Lists are a great tool for that.

Twitter Lists to monitor influencers

If your brand usually works with influencers or thinks about doing so, Twitter Lists can be a great ally. Creating a list of influencers you currently work with can help oversee what they share on social media. That is useful to check if they’re following your agreement correctly and getting to know the topics they associate themselves with.

It’s also helpful for potential influencers: if you have an eye on a new profile, you can monitor them for a few weeks to see if they match your values and messaging.

Influencers are people just like us and can make mistakes. For example, a controversial tweet from a profile strongly related to your brand can be an issue, so periodically monitoring these users can help detect problems on time to respond.

Twitter Lists to detect new trends

Put influencers and leading brands together in a list to get a gateway into hot trends. You can detect new products and use cases early by performing social monitoring on Twitter through key players of your industry or a different industry you’d like to get into.

Pay attention to the content, the topic they’re referencing, and how they talk and write. Trends don’t only refer to the product; they can mean a new meme or style of writing, like all lowercase or using certain emojis.

Twitter Lists to build PR

Similar to the tracking work you can do with influencers, you can create a list of blogs, writers, and specialized media you’d like to collaborate with. 

With a Twitter List, you can keep an eye on what they’re writing about, so if the topics match your brand, you can eventually reach out to work together on a new piece. That is incredibly useful for link-building and SEO purposes.

Twitter Lists to check on clients

An agency can greatly benefit from a Twitter List dedicated to clients. If you’re managing their Twitter account, you can use the list to verify if their tweets are being published and that they look ok, as well as have a quick overview of retweets, likes, and replies.

If you’re not managing their Twitter account but other social media profiles, you can use the list to see what they post on Twitter and make sure you’re all following the same style and tone of voice. That is also useful to detect controversial tweets or things to adjust for the future, so you can give them recommendations on how to work on this platform.

Archive Twitter Lists with automated screenshots

Twitter Lists have been around for a long time, and we hope that, even if it’s just now, you start using them to drive new marketing efforts.

This tool can feed us with lots of information, and with an infinite scroll, it can be a bit overwhelming to check this source constantly. However, there’s a way to get periodic access to your lists without visiting them every 10 minutes.

With an automated screenshot tool like Stillio, you can set captures for any interval you want, monthly, weekly, daily, or even up to 5 minutes, with the best plan. In addition, these full-length screenshots of your Twitter Lists are automatically saved to your drive for you to check out whenever you want. 

For example, you can set daily captures. Every Friday, you can set 20 minutes aside to look through and analyze your list screenshots. Archiving tweets is way better than checking them out in a rush daily. You can set a weekly screenshot if your lists are updated less frequently. You set the interval that works best for you.

You can also set email notifications when a new screenshot is available to get the information in time.

Pricing starts at $29 for daily screenshots of 5 URLs.

Conclusion

It’s time to dust off your Twitter Lists feature and put it to good use. Periodically performing this monitoring activity can be vital to fostering new marketing actions! Feel free to book a demo with us if you want to know more about Stillio for marketing.