As of today, a brand new Formulists list has been added to the stock: the “People-Who-Retweeted-Me” list. This list is an instantly generated list of people who have RTed you and will continue to self-update as more people RT you. 

Aside for giving thanks to the people who retweeted you, this list can be used to to keep tabs on some of your most loyal followers- ones who are both reading and sharing your tweets.

The default setting of this list will feature people who have retweeted you in the last month (30 days), but you can change this setting to be 300 or more days if you would like and get people that have retweeted you in the last year or… ever! You also have the option to control for how many times a person retweeted you to get at consistent versus one-time retweeters.   

Once upon a time:

Manually click on each person in a desired twitter list and add them one-by-one to a new one you created. Follow with desired edits.

Now:

Select the list you want to copy. Click a button.

And, keep in mind you still have the option to filter the list (by location, bio) or edit it further manually… if you want :)

Whether you want to network and make friends in your current city or perhaps to get to know the community in another, Twitter is a great way to do it. It’s also a very easy way to do it since as it stands there at tons of public lists of locals floating around Twitter.  Here are four different ways you can find locals in your or another area:

1.       Check to see if you yourself are in a locals list

This is a good place to start looking for quality locals lists since you will be mutually friends with the other people on this list through at least the one person that made the list.

2.       Check directories

Using directories like listorious you can find at least a handful of good locals and sometimes good lists of locals.

3.       Combine a bunch of existing lists to form a “Super Locals List”

This can be a good idea either if you can only find small locals lists or if your goal is to network or get to know as many people as possible.  Using Formulists, you can make a “custom” list and add or intersect together as many as 10 existing lists.

4.       Find one socially active local

If you know someone great in either your city or anther and want to find more locals like them, simply enter them in as the “someone” in your Formulists “People-Like-Someone” list and then enter your city into the “location” filter.  You can make this list as large or small as you want 

Just wanted to keep everyone interested posted on some new changes we’ve implemented in response to beginning feedback on our first alpha version.  Some changes just involved wording and debugging but there are also a few fun new features for you as well:

1.       Hovercards

Now when you hover over the people in your list you can see more details about that person as well as choose to follow or unfollow them directly from the site as well.

2.       Permanently fix a person in one or more of your Formulists lists

Formulists lists self-update but now, if there is someone special you want to add to one of the lists (and don’t want removed through updates) you can add them manually and they stay there unless or until you choose to remove them

3.       Permanently removing a person from one or more of your Formulists lists

Now, if you remove someone from a list (on the Formulists website) they will be permanently removed.

4.       Highlight notifications to keep you posted on which Formulists lists have been updated/changed since you last checked.

Now you will be able to see exactly which of your lists have changed by noticing which are newly highlighted since your last visit to the Formulists home page.

Keep us posted on any questions or feedback you have and thanks for what you’ve given us so far :)!

On every single type of list you can generate using Formulists, there is an options tab to filter by location, bio and followers.  Here are the steps on how to work it:

1.       Go to the tab that says “Profile Filter Options” either right when you first make a new list or when you are editing an existing one.

2.       Filter by one, two or all three of the filters- location, bio or followers.

3.       You can enter in multiple words to filter by and use the same type of advanced operators used in google search (“and”, “or”, “-“ or “”.

and    => include all words that have “and” in between them  

or       => include at least one of the words that have “or” in between them

-         => exclude the word that comes after the “-“

””       => keep only the exact words in that exact order without any change

One of the most awesome things about Twitter is how at any given time, there are public conversations going on around just about any topic you can think of.  Whether you’re interested in Nascar, jazz, or gluten-free recipes, you can find your niche on Twitter.  The question then is how. Here are some strategies:

1.        Go through existing directories

There are a handful of good Twitter directories on the web featuring a number of hot tamale Twitter accounts categorized in different ways. These can be helpful especially when the category you are looking for is a popular one like “Social Media” or “News”. Here are three:

·         Twellow

·         WeFollow

·         Listorious

2.       Google

A not-so-oft mentioned strategy but one that is simple, easy and turns up decent starting results is to use Google.  Basically, Google search: “site:Twitter.com [word of interest to you]”

More often than not, top results on Google turn out to be quite top-notch.

3.       Generate a “People-Like-Someone” list

If you have even one good example person in mind, then just plug them in as the “someone” in the “People-Like-Someone” list and hit “create list”. 

The default settings will give you a list of 40 more people you are not yet following that are similar to that person. You can change the default to as many as 500 people and can also choose to filter the people that make it onto the list by bio keywords (ex: “Gluten”) or by follower characteristics.

Above: Example bio filter use. Use “and” if you want all keywords included and “or” if you want at least one of the keywords included.

Aside from the basics of keeping tabs on who recently followed or unfollowed you, Formulists follower management lists can take into consideration other variables such as timing and the type of people who are entering and exiting your social graph. Below are just two different kinds of power lists you can create with Formulists that may help give you added insight into your followers.

Type of List 1: A Twitter list that keeps track of recent followers that have characteristics you really like. Whether you want to pay attention to new followers that are people you have interacted with, locals or maybe just people with a lot of mutual friends, you can make this power list with Formulists.

Why use it: A lot of people will end up following you. Not all are people you want to follow back or even pay attention to.  That’s why filtering for qualities you care about can be really helpful.

How to make it:

As an example here are the steps for a list of locals who recently followed and have at least ten mutual friends-

Step 1: Generate a “Recently-Followed-Me” list and set the location filter in that list to filter for your city

Step 2: Generate a “Mutual-Friends” list and change the number of mutual friends you need to have to “10”

Step 3.  Make a “Custom-List” that keeps only people from the “Recently-Followed-Me” list that are also on the “Mutual-Friends” list.

Type of List 2: A Twitter list that keeps track of recent followers or non-followers that have conducted some note-worthy action (ie: follow, unfollow, interacted) in a certain time period.

Why use it: People respond to actions on Twitter and it can be really helpful to take into consideration the timing of certain actions (ie: following, unfollowing) in response to certain actions (such as interacting with them).  Additionally, certain time lags are expected based on time zone, level of activity, etc, so sometimes it can be helpful to take these into consideration as illustrated in the following example list.

How to make it:

As an example here are the steps for a list of people I have recently followed that have not followed me back after a week of my following them-

Step 1: Generate a “Who-I-Recently-Followed” list. The default should be set so that people on the list are people you have followed in the last week (7 days)

Step 2: Generate a “Does-Not-Follow-Me-Back” list. 

Step 3: Make a “Custom-List” that is the people in your “Does-Not-Follow-Me-Back” list but with the “Who-I-Recently-Followed” list members removed

Voila!

@TheSourceress raised an interesting list-related question in a recent blog post touching on issues of Twitter etiquette and philosophy.  Her question: “What happens when you make a list of people who are not following you back public… and should you?”

By default, this Formulists-made list starts out “private”.  However, for the brave, there is always the option of flipping the switch to “public” which can lead to some mixed reactions. 

On one hand you have the cons of drawing people’s attention to these lists:

1)      Upsetting people who make it onto the list

Most people are not too keen on being known as someone who “doesn’t follow back”

2)      Pressuring people into following you

As @thesourceress said “Twitter’s easy opt-in, opt-out, no pressure vibe is one of it’s biggest strengths” and such a list is “fairly confrontational”.  And is someone who only follows you out of shame or awkwardness someone you really want as a follower?

The Pros

1)      Pressuring people into following you

For some people, the above question is an obvious “yes”. After all, the people who will tend to notice this list are ones already choosing to not follow you which means, they will either realize the error of their ways ;) or they will just continue to not follow you. In some cases they may even be people who would have wanted to follow you but didn’t realize they were not. In the case of @thesourceress, about 20 new people followed her as a result of this list.

 2)      Indexing your following

Depending on your approach, these people may be people you want to interact with more (in hopes they will get the message and follow back) or perhaps people you want to interact with less and possibly un-follow. In either case, this portion of your following is neatly sorted and easily accessible in a list form.

…What do we recommend?

Another Option

For now, all members of the team keep their “Don’t-Follow-Me-Back” lists private.  However, there is another option: “Filtering” your “Don’t-Follow-Me-Back” list or making a combination list of people who don’t follow back so that you only draw the attention or focus on a subset of people who don’t follow you back.

Here are a couple example ideas:

1.       People who you interacted with a certain number of times that have not followed you back

The Formula: Make a new “Custom-List” that includes people from your “Recent-Interactions” list that are on your “Don’t-Follow-Me-Back” list

2.       Locals that don’t follow you back

 The Formula: Filter “Don’t-Follow-Me-Back” list using the “Location Filter” for your city 

Formulists, a new Twitter list creation and management tool is officially released in alpha on our website: www.Formulists.com.

Formulists lets you automatically sort the people you follow into Twitter lists, find new people to follow based on characteristics you’re looking for, merge or intersect existing lists and a lot more!

Since we’re brand new, we can only let a limited number of people use Formulists to start. It’s first come, first served, so if you’d like to join the waiting list please do so on our site right under the blue octopus where it says “click here to request access”. 

Cheers!

By saying “lists within lists” I really mean double or even triple listing a person you like into different lists of yours, each with a different “filtration” level. For instance, one possible list could be a general “locals list”, with a second list “Locals I talk to” and a third “Locals I know in person”.

The same simple tip can be used for business purposes as well. For instance, a coffee shop may have a general target customer base (perhaps locals in the area, or locals that have shown an interest in coffee). But from there, a sub-list of those people might be locals that are in closer proximity or are loyal and regular customers.

Once the lists are made, getting in touch with, monitoring or even doing research on each segment becomes easier as well.