How Can Law Firm Marketers Use Twitter Lists?

Twitter lists help you manage your time, organize your feed and stay current on a certain topic or industry.

We have written in the past about some basic ways lawyers and legal marketers can use Twitter to raise awareness of their services, strategically grow their networks and position themselves as thought leaders in their areas of practice. Another great way to use Twitter is to create and use Twitter lists. Twitter Lists are a useful, but commonly underutilized feature of Twitter.

A list is a curated group of Twitter users that enables you to view their tweets. It’s a great way to sort through all of the noise and chaos to hone in on what you want to see. 

For example, you can make a list of users with specific expertise, such as tax law, securities regulation or legal marketing.

You can create your own lists or subscribe to lists created by other people.

Creating a list is simple. Your lists page can be accessed via the profile icon drop down menu in the top right. Just click “create list” and enter an appropriate name and short description. Then select private or public.

Lists can be private for your personal purposes. For example, a list of existing law firm clients may be useful for “social listening.” Public lists are for everyone to see and they can help you get on the radar of people you’d like to meet and build relationships with. Even potential clients for your firm may see the list and take interest. Therefore, make lists that are relevant to your firm and your practice, useful and help contribute to your firm’s story.

To add people to your lists, click the gear icon on the users profile and select “add or remove from lists.” You don’t need to follow the user to add them to a list. To subscribe to other people’s lists click on lists when viewing their profile and select the lists you want to follow. You can see which lists you’re on by going to your own lists page and clicking “Member of.” You can share your lists with people just by copying and pasting the URL into a message.

Kevan Lee from Buffer compiled a list of 23 Seldom Used Ideas for How to Use Twitter Lists, some of which have tremendous potential for lawyers and legal marketers.

Grouping news sources together on a list is a common practice. This allows you to have streamlined feeds of local, national and international news or even industry or practice specific news.

For example, Twitter Lists can be used to create a twitter directory for your firm or practice group, to keep track of what your lawyers are tweeting. This can keep you plugged into the what your attorneys are sharing on their personal twitter accounts and help you formulate ways in which you can help them become more effective in raising awareness of the firm or their practice group.

Twitter lists can also be used to keep track of your clients and prospects and are a great tool to use for competitive intelligence. Whether its individuals or companies that are tweeting, Twitter lists allow you to hone in on what is new and important with your clients and prospects. Alternatively, your firm can use lists to help potential clients by aggregating the twitter accounts of experts in a field (including your firm’s lawyers) who may publish something that can help your client gain a better understanding of a problem or issue they may be facing. A list may merely consist of your recommendations for who to follow, such as your firm’s lawyers.

Another way to use Twitter lists is  during an event or conference. You can make a list of attendees to follow what’s going on, without having to rely on hashtags. Many people live tweet during events and conferences, which helps people who can’t make it to the event follow along.

Finally, in order to help with your social media initiatives, Twitter lists are a great resource for content curation as well as to identify influencers in your practice area or industry. It is extremely useful to make a list of twitter users who tweet about your firm, retweet your tweets or regularly engage with your firm. This helps you notice conversations you would like to be part of and leads to developing relationships and expanding your network.

Twitter lists for law firms and law firm marketers can help in many different ways. The best way to start  is to experiment and see what works for your firm’s needs, goals and audience.

Updated and republished March 24, 2017.