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HOW TO: Use Twitter Lists in 5 Different Ways

Written on August 27, 2010 by Becky in How To, Twitter

When the Twitter lists feature was introduced, I was super-excited. Before that day, I would use the search feature and save a column on Hootsuite. (Actually, I was using Tweetdeck at the time, but that’s a useless bit of info.) So anyway, Twitter lists were introduced last year, and are limited to 500 twitter users per list. Each Twitter user is limited to making 20 lists but can follow an unlimited number of other’s lists. I have found that there are five very different ways to use lists:

Filter - Lists come in handy to me to filter the people I follow. I am currently following over 18,000 people. This makes it a little difficult to read every tweet! Lists give me a way to filter in any way I want: by location, by interests, etc.
Get a user to follow you back – I don’t have any of these lists, but I am included on them often. And each time, I follow that user back. You are more likely to catch the attention of a high-profile user by putting them on a list then just following them.
Give props to a user – Also known as kissing ass and another way to get a user to follow you back. For example: “Awesome tweeps”, “Best Twitter users”, “Most beautiful”…you get the idea.
Thank a user for listing you – Some people don’t understand the use of these lists, and it’s not that I actually check it often, but I’ve always had good manners. This is a quick and easy way to thank users for including you on their lists.
Conversationlist – When I first saw my name popping up on these lists, I thought it said “conversationAList”, which would make sense for me, since we all know I like to talk. Then I noticed that they were popping up ALL over the place, and they all had the same description: “A dynamic list rebuilt daily of the people you are talking to and about.” So, I decided to Google it. And I found Conversationlist.com, a site that will rebuild your list every day for you based on your Twitter conversations! GENIUS.

Below is a screenshot of my lists, so you can see how I use them:

I also have one protected list of my closest friends on Twitter:

***IMPORTANT TIP: Add yourself to every list you have!!! To some, this may seem silly, but it’s a way to meet new people on Twitter. If someone who isn’t following you follows your list through someone else, they will never get to see your tweets. If you add yourself, you will be included in the stream and be seen by more users. There are exceptions to this rule: Pet lists, brands and celebrities, because lets face it, you don’t want to be the only human among a bunch of dogs and cats, and you certainly aren’t a brand or celebrity, are you?

How do you use Twitter lists? I love comments, so please share!

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HOW TO: Personalize Your Facebook Feeds

Written on August 17, 2010 by Becky in How To, facebook, internet

Did you know that Facebook automatically picks which friends you view in your feed? How do they know who you want to talk to? There is a way to fix this! Scroll all the way down to the bottom of your news feed screen. There are two options: “Older Posts” and “Edit Options”. Click “Edit Options”. This screen will pop up:

If you click “View Recommended Friends”, it will bring up a list of all the friends/pages that currently appear in your feeds (in other words, who Facebook thinks you want to hear from.) In the box where the number 5000 is highlighted above, the number of friends/pages that are now shown in your Live Feed will appear. I chose the number 5,000 (the limit) since I have nowhere near 5,000 friends and pages I ‘like’, I will never have to go back and change it. You can put any number here, but remember to make it larger then your amount of friends, to include any pages you also ‘like’, or you won’t see their updates!

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HOW TO: Turn Off Google Personalized Search

Written on February 19, 2010 by Becky in How To, Internet Tools, internet

It was recently brought to my attention by @jselss that Google saves your web history and has been doing so for some time. Now, they are also using this information to fine-tune any searches you do. See Google’s explanation of Personalized Search below:

I understand that Google is trying to make their search engine better, but I don’t like this idea AT ALL!!! I have been known to search some crazy things in my time. Do I really need Google to remember these silly searches? Luckily, for all of us, according to Google, there is a way to opt-out:

Signed in searches
To disable history-based search customizations while signed in, you’ll need to remove Web History from your Google Account. You can also choose to remove individual items. Note that removing this service deletes all your old searches from Web History.
Signed out searches
If you aren’t signed in to a Google Account, your search experience will be customized based on past search information linked to a cookie on your browser. To disable history-based customizations, follow these steps:
1. In the top right corner of the search results page, click Web History.
2. On the resulting page, click Disable customizations.(Because this preference is stored in a cookie, it’ll affect anyone else who uses the same browser and computer as you).
Or, if you’d rather just delete the current cookie storing searches from your browser and start fresh, clear your browser’s cookies.
Note: If you’ve disabled search customizations, you’ll need to disable it again after clearing your browser cookies; clearing your Google cookie turns on history-based customizations.

*A special thank you to my friends at Remarkable Search for letting me know about this!

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HOW TO: Use Refollow to Manage Your Followers on Twitter

Written on November 28, 2009 by Becky in How To, Internet Tools, Twitter

There are a lot of different third-party applications that claim to make your Twitter experience even better. One has certainly come in more handy than others for me, and that is Refollow. I have found with the more followers I get on Twitter, it becomes a lot more tedious to keep up. Once I discovered this site, it was that much easier. Here I will walk you through, step-by-step, how I manage my followers using Refollow:

1. Log on to Refollow:

This can be done either using Twitter OAuth or by inputting your Twitter username and password. The reason you need to login is that Refollow needs to access your followers, your friends and the followers of people you follow.

2. Load your followers and friends: When you first login, the first thing to happen is an automatic load of 100 of your friends (people you are following) and 100 of your followers. This will take a few seconds. If you want to load more, you can click the “more” or “all” options in the “Show me” box. Each load of 100 costs 1 API call. You only get 150 Twitter API an hour, so if you have a lot of followers, I would suggest closing any other programs that will use the API (such as TweetDeck or HootSuite). If you move your mouse over one of the pictures in the grid, a popup will show you some info about that user. At the top left of that popup is a little icon that let’s you know your relationship (a pink bar means you’re following them, a yellow bar means they are following you, and both bars mean you are following each other. A red “X” through the pink bar means you previously followed them, but not anymore).

3. Get familiar with the filters: While your followers and friends are loading, look at the top of your screen. You will see this:

These filters are how you manage your followers. As you can see, there are several filters for you use: Following me, Not Following Me, I’m Following, I’m not Following, Previously Followed, Never Followed, Locked, Not Locked, With Picture, Without Picture, Tweeting in the last X days, No Tweets in the last X days. There are SOOO many different combinations that you can use. For instance, if I wanted to see who I was following that wasn’t following me who hasn’t tweeted in 3 days, I can do that! Or I can see, 100 tweeps at a time, users who are following me that I’m not following back. With the press of a button, I can follow all of them, instead of going through page by page on the web. There are also Search boxes that can be used in conjunction with the filters. If I wanted to search for followers from Long Island, NY who are following me, who have been active in the past 2 days, this too is possible.

4. Lock Important Users: Before I do anything, I use the “Lock” feature to lock celebrities and other tweeps that don’t follow me so that they are not accidentally unfollowed. I do this by loading all of those I am following and then sorting the users by follow count (celebrities normally have very high follow counts). Now, I see, in pages of 100, all of the tweeps I follow that aren’t following me back. Using the “Select Page” button, I select all 100 people on the page and then click the “Lock” button. After a user is locked, a little icon will show on the bottom right of their avatar on Refollow. These users will never be refollowed, until you unlock them. Once all important users are locked, I move onto the next step.

5. Unfollow Users that are not following you: I try not to do this often, because normally, there is a reason that I follow a person in the first place. However, due to Twitter’s follow limits, sometimes I need to clean out those I’m following to make room for new followers. Once my “following” list is loaded, I use these filters: I’m following, Not following me. Most of those that come up will be locked from the previous step. Those that are not locked can be unfollowed, in lots of 100, with the press of the “Unfollow” button. If I want to only unfollow users who have been inactive for a certain number of days, I use that filter as well.

6. Follow Users that are following you: Once I have cleaned out people not following me, I should now have room to follow all of those users that are following me that I may not be following. I make sure all (or as many as possible) of my followers are loaded. I then check off “Following Me” and “I’m not Following”. This will load anyone who I’m not following. To select the entire page, I click “Select Page” and click “Follow”.

7. Find New People:

Another great thing about Refollow is the ability to view and follow, people that are followed by friends. Normally, if someone I admire is following someone, then most likely, I will enjoy their tweets as well. Using the “Users Who are Followed By” box, I type in a user name. Refollow then loads that person’s friends, 100 per page. The process is the same as with your own followers. I use the filters again to see who they follow that I’m not following.

These steps should get you started using Refollow. Hopefully, the site makes your Twitter experience that much better, as it has for me. Since discovering the site, I spend less time refollowing people and actually interacting with them, and that’s really what Twitter is all about.

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