4 Clever Uses for Lists

In my first post of this series, I talked about my hope that Twitter’s upcoming Lists feature will help boost Twitter’s growth rate. (A hope Evan Williams apparently also has.) In the second post, I provided a basic strategy you can use to help grow your following and drive some website traffic with Lists.

Now, for the fun stuff. What clever things can you do with Lists? Below are four ideas. One of the most important things to note is that simply by trying one of these strategies, you have an excuse to reach out and connect with more people on Twitter—which is always a great thing!

1. Use Lists to create mini-communities

Let’s say you blog about parenthood, or you’re a retailer that sells products for new and expecting parents. Why not build a community that also aligns with your business needs?

Create a list for expectant parents on Twitter. Make the initial list from whomever you know is expecting, then invite others to join your list. Spread your invitation far and wide on Twitter, your site, Facebook, etc. Expectant parents can @ you to get added to the list. Ask the List members to nominate other expectant parents on Twitter. Keep spreading the word until you hit the 500 List member limit.

Now, you’ve created a mini-community consisting of your target market. It’s a great resource for the List members and provides a real service to them. It’s a place they can go to view the tweets of other expectant parents, kind of like a chat room. In the process , you’ve met a whole bunch of new potential customers that you can now get to know and share your products with.

2. Offer a service or special discounts through Lists

Let’s say that you offer marketing consulting services to small businesses. You know that your followers, and the new ones you’re seeking, are interested in cost-effective ways to market, information they can use to evaluate their products and websites, etc.

You aren’t the only person out there marketing to small businesses and I bet you’re following some of the others on Twitter. Enlist these other tweeps to group together in order to offer a service to small businesses, through a List.

Here’s the strategy: you all agree to be in the List and to provide specific content or services to subscribers. For example, you might all agree to provide one free webinar a week and tweet three tips a day. You agree to do Twitter chat sessions at specific times, on specific topics. You publicize that you’ll take questions and the appropriate List member, with expertise in the topic, will answer the question. (Create a hash tag for your List, so all questions can go to the hash tag and the appropriate person can pick up the question.) You can also each offer special discounts or offers to List subscribers. Like 10% off consulting. Or a free website evaluation for List subscribers only.

3. Connect with people in the “real world” through Lists

Take that example of expectant parents. Let’s say you’re a Seattle retailer selling furniture and equipment to expectant parents. Create a Seattle Expectant Parents list, just as I discussed in #1. But in addition to using this List to help parents connect with one another, use it to publicize local events and news of interest to Seattle expectant parents.  When you do, find out who from the List is attending. That’s your chance to meet them in person.

Moreover, hold some events for the people in your List. You might invite List members and followers to a lecture on breastfeeding or bonding with a newborn, and hold the event in your store.  Ideally, hold a series of events that you host.  And, of course, they should feel free to invite other parents. You could also offer discounts only on certain days to List members who shop at your store—a different kind of event.

4. Create contests with temporary Lists

Lists aren’t diamonds. Who says they have to be forever?  You can use Lists as a way to do short-term promotion.  For example, could you use a List to create a contest?

One way is to ask for nominations for your List.  Ideally, think of a list idea that would appeal to the type of followers you want to attract. But one that is also broadly appealing. Then, ask  for nominations. Set a limit on your list. Maybe you’ll only take the top 20. Solicit nominations. If you get more than 20 nominations, use http://twtpoll.com/ or something similar application to take a vote. The contest to become part of this list will obviously span at least a week, so it gives something fun to blog about, too.

You could also engage users in a short-term contest using Lists. For example, create a contest to see who is the funniest Twitterer. You invite people who think they are funny to become part of a List and participate. Invite people to nominate the funny Twitterers they follow. (I’d nominate @nicedreams.)

You create the Funniest Tweeps Contest List, based on the nominations, and announce that it’s open for subscription. You set a date for the contest to begin. The contest runs for a week, during which time subscribers are supposed to monitor the stream daily so they can vote for the funniest Twitterer. The day the contest ends, you take votes and announce the winner. (And, of course, you can blog about this, too.)

There are four ideas. I bet your brain is buzzing now, and you can think of even more. In the meantime, here are suggestions for implementing some of them.

Soliciting people for your list

In all of these strategies, you’re trying to find people who want to be part of your List or asking other people to nominate people to be part of your List.  From what I’ve read of how Lists work, you can only add people who are following you. So:

• Create the initial list from people you’re following.
• Obviously if you aren’t following the right people, search for the right people and Follow them, first.  Then you can add them.
• Also ask existing followers and List members to tweet about the List to anyone they think might join.
• Solicit additional List members by using the appropriate hash tags to tweet invitations. “Starting an #expectant parent List group. @ me to join other Twitter expectant parents. #pregnancy” Obviously, you’ll need to tweet these messages more than once.
• Search for the right people and @ them telling them you’re creating a List and would like to include them.

Making special offers through Lists

If you’re using this strategy, you’re asking other Twitterers to be part of your List and to commit to providing something specific to List subscribers.  So:

• Each member of the List should promote the List through their tweets and on their site.
• At this point, it appears that you won’t get notified automatically when people subscribe to your List. But as you get new followers, you can check their profile to see which Lists they are subscribed to, and make sure your List is one of them. You’ll want to know who is really subscribed to your List if you and the other members of the List are going to make special offers to subscribers only.
• For subscribers to get special discounts from a List member, the List member will DM them. That means you need to inform subscribers to follow any List member whom they’d like to get special offers from. The member follows them back and can then DM them a code of some kind or a link to the special offer. That ensures only the people who are actually subscribing (and soon following) get the discount.

I’d love to hear your ideas. Or, if you want to brainstorm how you can use Lists for your blog or business, please comment below, or tweet me so we can connect.