Derek Powazek’s post, Twitter for Adults, is a nice summary of how to use Twitter well. Reading it, I realized what my single best Twitter survival technique is: a private VIP list. It looks like I’m following 551 people in total on Twitter, but in practice, that is just not possible. So, I put people whose tweets I don’t want to miss on the VIP list, which appears as my first column in TweetDeck. Right now there are only 51 people on that list, well below Dunbar’s number, and I intend to keep it that way. On busy days (and let’s face it, most are), I read only that list of tweets, my mentions and direct messages. When I have more time, I scan over to my All Friends list. Sometimes I promote people from All Friends to VIP if their stuff is really interesting; other times I demote folks from my VIP list if they’re driving me crazy. The fact that the list is private means no one’s feelings are hurt if they’re not on it, and this setup means I can follow people liberally without worrying about them cluttering up my primary timeline. I use a similar technique with my RSS reader subscriptions, and it’s one of the best ways I’ve found to focus my attention on the good stuff, while auditioning more potential good stuff in my All Friends/Subscriptions list, too.
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4 Comments
James Enloe
Now that’s a slick idea (that I wish I had thought of on my own). I especially like it for RSS feeds, which I have pretty organized, but there are those that I don’t like to miss and a VIP list would prevent that when my feeds blow up.
Ustice
I actually have several twitter accounts for this reason. I have one that is for people that I personally know (my main account), and one for following public figures and sites and the like. With Tweetie, it is very easy to switch accounts.
Craig Sauer
I’ve been using this for a while in Google Reader for my RSS feeds, and it has really made a big difference. I still have an issue with feeds that are super-prolific (like Lifehacker). I have a desire to read every post, but it’s not really possible. I’ve given up trying to read everything in feeds like Engadget, but I have a few filters set up via Yahoo! Pipes that help me reduce a few fat feeds down to more manageable chucks.
hawaii2000.com/wp/
My Twitter desktop client of choice, Mixero, is designed entirely around the concept of an active list. Adding to or removing those you follow from a list is a snap. You can create as many groups of users you want and as many lists you want and add/remove groups from lists. Were it not for Mixero, I don’t know how I’d be able to easily manage following more than a couple dozen people.