Say I am looking for a list on the top social media people/companies to follow.  Where would you turn?  How would you begin your search?  I would start with a trusted social media person themselves to see what lists they created.  Then I would start following that list.  Done.  However, the person that created the list is not on the list since they cannot add themselves.  A break in the whole idea.  Here is one more example.  I follow the PR person that has been tweeting at company A for a long time with great content.  To allow themselves to show in a list for their company, they create a new account that will make a list to include everyone that tweets from the company, including themselves.  But how does everyone find that list from some unknown, or not yet followed, Twitter id?  Listorious?  No, a great sit but not the source the average user would find.

Need another example?  Wayne Sutton said it best.  He created a list for all the speakers at the SocialMediaBusinessForum using the SMBF Twitter account, that he also tweets under.  So we can follow the speakers but not the SMBF id itself on the list now.  Got it?

So the only true way to create a complete list, and have it found, it for the trusted authorities in the Twitterverse all create the lists that would never include themselves.  I created a list for the Atlanta Social Media Club. This means I got their main SMC account and all the officers in a single list and as an officer of the St Louis Club, I might be considered an authority.

UPDATE: I think I found a way!!  After creation of the list itself, you go back to your own profile page in Twitter.  From there the icon to say what lists that account will show in is active.  You can then click down and add yourself to any list!

How can you effectively build a list that everyone follows when the topic may contain yourself?

Scenario: If you build the top list ever, in any category, you can’t be on it!  You do not reap the benefit of making lists for a category unless you have yet another Twitter account.  Which in turn eliminates people finding you for creating the list.  A nasty circle they overlooked.

While this new lists feature greatly simplifies sharing groups of people you want others to follow, and cleans up the confusing #followfriday, the public listing side is greatly messed up.

The issue comes around the naming and sharing of public groups. Since the groups are stored under the person that created them, you can have numerous lists that technically have the same name across Twitter. (the site Listorious shows this off accidentally.) The better option would have been unique naming with the ability to allow others to edit your list, if you so desire. You could open the editing to specific named Twitter users, those on the list or everyone.

While this would create a race to get the best list names and control of them, it would also streamline searching, finding and using the very best lists Twitter offers. There are countless lists already for social media, authors and even companies already forming. How the heck do I know which is the best or worst?

Naming and tagging of the lists is incredibly important as everyone scrambles to create their own. Being able to see the lists that just my friends created would have made sense also as those are people I trust already to provide information I want to see. I think Twitter jumped the shark a bit on introducing this and allowing the mass creation without walking through all the scenarios. When you need a site to list the best list of the multiple lists, something went wrong.

(image credit to John Hayden)

Private lists would not be affected by this idea I am suggesting. That topic is actually in the next posting tomorrow.