Power of the Twitter List

Twitter lists are the ultimate in real-time content rich segments.

Warning, this piece is an opinion rich article. I'm going to be saying things, you might not want to hear. If I got to train startup CMOs and corporate CEOs to use twitter better, I'd seriously make a fortune. I'm convinced, Twitter with the right tools, and the right interest in valuable targeted content, is by far the best lead generation and growth-hacking tool for your business. 

There is a little hidden resource in B2B, that is more valuable than LinkedIn Groups, more social than G+ communities and less spam-based than Facebook groups. If you don't know what I'm talking about, it's Twitter lists. They are the ultimate in real-time content rich segments. As I get more into video content, and content curation, as opposed to the time-consuming aspect of content production article writing (which I do for my clients), the genius of the Twitter list has been slow to dawn on me. 

What happens when you curate the content of the top curators in your industry? Can you guess? Check out your Klout score and learn what channels are trending. It's not LinkedIn. Twitter & Instagram are the content rich engagement high channels. Besides an RSS feed of the best blogs in your industry, using Twitter Lists is like magic. What can 4 hashtags do on Twitter, what can 30 hashtags do on Instagram to target organic traffic? Enough with the pesky algorithms already.

Take me for instance, I'm a very late adopter of Twitter with a general passion for all things digital marketing. I've hit a Klout score of 66, over 70 is considered decent, with my personal networks in 4 months of being active. I haven't linked Facebook to any professional network, just my personal one, and while I enjoy Instagram, it's more as an educational channel than for follower hacking there. My Twitter follower base is modest, and the only video on my YouTube that has trended is about Justin Trudeau. 

The great thing about lists, is you can easily find influencers by topic and industry

I follow, as of the writing of this article, some 340 Twitter lists that are relevant to my industry. See them here. The great thing about lists, is you can easily find influencers by topic and industry. It's because you are tapping into a community, others have already curated segments of the top influencers in any field (no need to recreate the wheel), just find the right segment and tap into it. Social media isn't about competition, it's about community, and that's the beauty of it. As much time as I spend searching influencers on Klout, Twitter lists is the quickest way to learn about your industry, and speed read articles, many of which are educational but designed to be click-bait as well. 

For folks on LinkedIn, that may be a bit awkward on Twitter and see it as a feed of chaos and mindless RTs, there's a beauty in the information density. So start building Twitter lists, create communities relevant to keywords in your industry. The micro interactions of Twitter add up, the reciprocity is in real-time, the pace is more intense and the learning is accelerated. Twitter lists are the key, in conjunction with Medium, Twitter outshines LinkedIn for content, variety, influencers, leadership by doing. 

What really irks me, is the sales tone to a lot of LinkedIn pulse articles as compared with serious longer articles on Medium and even the click-bait of Twitter. That sales tone is 5 years behind the times. Social media no longer works like that, but some habits die hard. In a sense the blame falls on the corrupt LinkedIn pulse funnel and the fact that a lot of sales people aren't very good at social media, or if they are they rely far too much on self-promotion than on educational content. The idea of content marketing is fresh, authentic, educational and useful. In sense, the UGC experiment of LinkedIn Pulse is more like sales click-bait, and formulas of general topics recycled. It's not the info-dense micro content that is actually going to win you any engagement. 

Here are some of the lists that I'm subscribed to that I can recommend: 

SEO Influencers, 5001 members, 50 subs. 

Social Media, 1442, 51 subs.

Big Data Leaders, 4051, 53 subs. 

Social Selling, 5103, 60 subs. 

Human to Human, 3997, 96 subs. 

I recommend you to get into the habit of always creating segments around topics that interest you, it will will become a valuable road map to your Twitter learning, and trust me, in content marketing, we are always learning about our respective fields, the learning never stops!

I challenge you, stop doing what you are doing, for every hour you spend on Twitter, you will be diving into content richness that will accelerate your passion for your field, far more than you will experience on LinkedIn, in my humble opinion. Become a geek, instead of a networker, become a maker, instead of a socializer. If you are passionate about B2B, it's a must.