Written by Phyllis Zimbler Miller, Twitter Marketing Expert

Thanks to public relations specialist Cathy Larkin at http://WebSavvyPR.com for sharing with me her Twitter lists strategies with permission to share these here.  (She’s @CathyWebSavvyPR on Twitter.)

First, some facts provided by Cathy:  You can have up to 20 lists, each list can have up to 500 people, and these lists can be private or public.  (There appears to be no limit to how many other people’s lists you can be on.)

Categorized Twitter List Strategy:

Now here’s the genius of how Cathy uses her lists.  She has created lists of categories of people that are related to the kinds of PR clients she has.  For example, she has a public list of @CathyWebSavvyPR/branding-marketing-pr and let’s imagine today she wants to share information on this topic with her own followers.

Cathy can click on her list, see the most recent tweets, and select a tweet that she deems worthy to retweet.  And voila!  She’s shared information relevant to her chosen topic.

By using her lists as filters, with one click she can alternate between topics.  If today she wants to see what the people on one list she follows are up to, she goes to that list.  If tomorrow she wants to check in on another topic, she does so.

And one of the neatest features about lists is that everyone could have, for example, an authors list.  There’s no fighting over Twitter list names because each list you create has your own username as the first part of the list name, thus creating a unique list.

Yes, at this time there is no way to send a single tweet to everyone on your list at once.  And while people can “follow” your lists, this simply means that they can click on the link to those lists to check that tweet stream.

Private Twitter List Strategy:

She also has a private list of friends in order to be able to quickly check on those Twitter participants whose tweets she wants to be sure to see.  (And because this is private, no one’s feelings are hurt if he/she isn’t on the list.)

Another strategy is that Cathy keeps a private list of people who have asked her for publicity tips.  She’ll check in with the tweets of these people to see if there are other questions she can answer, thus potentially forming a stronger bond.

Tip for Twitter Newcomers:

Check out the people on other people’s lists. For example, if you want to connect with people interested in deep sea fishing, you may have a head start if you find one Twitter user with a deep sea fishing interest and he /she has a list on that topic.  This list then makes it easy for you to connect with other people of the same interest.

One Final Tip:

If you’re on Twitter, follow Cathy at http://twitter.com/CathyWebSavvyPR — you can learn good info from her (and she often retweets my tweets).