So you’ve signed up for Twitter, you’re tweeting some, you’re following some people but you’re getting totally overwhelmed. How do you keep up with the people and topics that are most important to you without having to stress about the rest?
It’s time to get organized and prioritized with Twitter lists, hashtags, and Tweetdeck.
Twitter Lists
A few months ago, Twitter introduced a feature that allows users to organize the people they are following into lists. While you’re logged in to twitter.com you’ll see a section in the right sidebar titled lists with an option below it to create a new list. Lists can be private: only you can see who is on the list or public: everyone can see who is on the list. I keep most of my lists private in effort not to offend anyone. I have a variety of lists to sort people by how I found/know them and what topics they mainly tweet about.
Hashtags
Hashtags are keywords or phrases preceded by the # symbol in a tweet. Hashtags are used for groups of people to discuss certain topics or upcoming events so that all the related tweets can easily be grouped together. If you’re replying to a tweet that includes a hashtag and you want all the other hashtag followers to be able to read your reply, make sure to include the hashtag in your reply (Tweetdeck will do this automatically for you).
Putting it all together in Tweetdeck
Tweetdeck allows you to create columns to group updates by social network (I use Tweetdeck for Facebook and Foursquare as well as Twitter), lists, hashtags, searches, and many other items.
With the Tweetdeck window maximized to take up my entire computer screen I can see 5 full columns at once (ok, so I wrote that in regards to my 15″ MacBook Pro; on the 27″ iMac I can see almost 10 full columns and that’s information overload so I had to make the window smaller). I’ve prioritized my columns so that the ones that are most important to me to keep up with are on the left and I can scroll right to check out the less important columns as it is convenient and interesting for me to so.
So when I open Tweetdeck, I see:
- Facebook (keeping up with my real life friends is a priority over Twitter for me)
- Twitter mentions and direct messages (Twitter communications with or about me)
- my exclamation mark list (the Twitter people I most want to keep up with)
- and then the hashtag columns start…
I’ve currently got columns for 9 hashtags mostly related to blogging and some upcoming events I’m attending. I’m interested in reading these things but if I don’t have the time or interest to keep up with all these tweets that is a-okay.
After the hashtags I’ve got:
- my Twitter “All Friends” column which contains the 200 most recent tweets among all of the people I’m following on Twitter (there’s no way I could constantly keep up with that column but sometimes I scroll through and see if I have anything to add to those conversations)
- New Followers (I do check out everyone individually and see if I want to follow back but I usually do this in just one batch a day so it’s not a priority for me to see those right away)
- Foursquare (which is occasionally interesting but the major advantage of this column is that it removes all the Foursquare check in updates from your other columns and keeps them neater)
One feature I’d really, really love for Tweetdeck to introduce that would make this system even more efficient would be if I’ve marked a tweet as read in one column, it’d be marked as read in all of my columns because some of the same tweets currently show up in 3 or 4 columns.
How do you organize and prioritize your use of Twitter?
Related posts:
Reflecting: How to Use Tweetdeck to Keep from Being Overwhelmed by Twitter
Formulists Creates Twitter Lists Based on Interactions
How to Get Started on Twitter
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{ 13 comments… read them below or add one }
I have some public Twitter lists and some Tweetdeck-only lists. What I use varies, but I manage two accounts out of it, which makes lists and such more helpful. I also filter for certain words and hashtags using their Global filters. Makes life easier. I filter out everything from Foursquare, for example, because I just don’t care.
The New Followers column is a lot easier to use than the e-mail notifications, so I’m very attached to it.
I just learned to make lists. But I haven’t yet figured out how to make a column with them yet.
I can’t seem to download tweetdeck to my ancient iBook G4. Any ideas?
the ibook g4 is pre-intel processors so i expect the software is just not compatible with it.
to make the column in tweetdeck you press the plus sign at the top left of the tweetdeck window.
This is a very good review of Tweetdeck. I am using Hootsuite, which has some nice features, but it does not give me a list of my new followers. I have to actually sign into Twitter to see my new followers.
Does Tweetdeck have an iPhone app too?
yes it does have an iphone app too
Thankfully I am already doing all this, well not all I use tweetdeck solely for twitter, but I switched over to lists a bit ago and now I can really keep up with the people and info from the people I follow. Before I would still read a lot of it but my interests vary so much I wouldn’t be able to really grasp what I was reading when it was all jumbled together.
It’s really great to have this in a well written post so I can point my family/friends over here.
I wish I could see tweets between people in different lists. I don’t like how conversations between people I am following don’t show up if they aren’t in the same list.
I use Hootsuite now, both at work and home. The webbased format suits me, and it means I can manage multiple social accounts at work, too (cause we can’t download anything on those PCs). I have both my twitter accounts, Facebook and LinkedIn on there, along with er, one list so far. (I have many more, I just haven’t imported them into Hootsuite. I should get around to doing it. Clearly they aren’t as important as I thought!)
HI Carrie! This is my first time visiting your blog – and wanted to let you know that this is SO helpful for me! I do use tweetdeck, but I have never moved my columns around – just did that and I can *see* everything much better already! Thanks for the tips
Thanks Carrie — this is really helpful. I have 2 twitter accounts + a third I track (thinkingautism ) as if I wrote it… I hadn’t really used the list feature to full advantage for either account.
I’m going to have to re-think my lists. Also I might have to change how I use “mark as seen” ….
And in BlogHer related news, have your tired tootsies recovered?
My feet are making progress. I’m ready for sandals but not sneakers yet
I need some organization here, so this is a well timed post for me, and I see in comments that there’s an iPhone app! Yeah, thanks.
Thanks so much for the tips! I have tweetdeck but dodn’t really know how to use it well. This post definitely helps.
Stopping by from the Lady Blogger’s Tea Party!
Oh my goodness, Carrie, thank you so much for this post! Everyone always talks about hootsuite, tweetdeck, etc. but always from the assumption that you’re already using one of them. I knew so little about the idea that I actually thought trying to use one would make the whole thing *more* overwhelming rather than less. This is a lifesaver post!
Still trying to work out the balance between “conversational” tweets and “all business” – but I guess that’s an art we all have to learn by doing.