“The time has come,” the Walrus said, “To talk of many things..”
 
Or specifically, one very important news update.

Like all start-ups, we have been working within a very tight budget for a while now, and are sad to announce today that due to cash constraints we will have to shut down the Formulists website.  The team has learned a lot through our experience and have had a lot of fun working with and serving all our users.  We deeply appreciate all the kind support and feedback we have received over the last year, so thank you all for that.

If you still wish to make lists with us we encourage you to do this as soon as possible since the site will be unavailable very soon. Those who have already made lists with us will get to keep them, although they will no longer update on their own.  Also, all users who have paid for either pro or supreme level accounts will be reimbursed for the unused time within a month.

To help ease any potential Formulists withdrawal symptoms, I have compiled a list of a few very awesome apps to help you achieve some of the same goals Formulists assisted with.  If you know others you think should be on the list, please just let me know and I will add them.  

General Twitter list management
Twitilist.com
“Adding more than five users through the Twitter web interface is tedious, but doing it through Twitilist is a breeze.”

Managing Followers/Unfollowers
Tweepi
“…the Twitter management tool with stats!”

Tracking Fans
Commun_it
“Focus on Your Highest-Value Relationships: Influencers that drive awareness, supporters that spread your message, potential new leads..”

Discover and Share Lists of Awesome People
List.ly
“Lists made social! Make collaborate, shareable lists”

Track Unfollowers
who.unfollowed.me/

Name says it all :)

If you need help with anything, feel free to reach out to us.  You can direct any questions you have to our Twitter account, or reach us by email: contact@formulists.com

Why use Twitter lists? This is a surprisingly common question on Twitter. The reason why Twitter lists are so great is that they make it possible to selectively focus on the people or topics that are of interest to you. As you follow more and more people, your Twitter stream can get cluttered fast, making it easy to miss important tweets or opportunities to engage with people.  Twitter lists help alleviate this problem by allowing you to focus on specific groups of people, one at a time. This makes Twitter lists an excellent way to network with target audiences and also stay on top of what’s going on with a topic of area of interest. 

The type of Twitter list that would work best for you depends on your goals on Twitter. If you are using Twitter to keep in touch with or meet new locals, a “locals” list would be useful.  Alternatively, if you want to stay on top of health news, a list of health experts would be useful. You can make a Twitter list for just about any group of people you are interested in and Formulists can help you put together most of them.  

Helpful tip: If you want some ideas of different lists you can create, check out formulists.com/top_tweeps/ or formulists.com/top_tags both of which will allow you to preview some different recommended ways you can organize people in your network into lists.

Formulists can help you identify and strengthen relationships with your fans on Twitter.  First, we recommend all users preview their “top tweeps”, people on Twitter we have analyzed and identified as fans or top mentioners of a given Twitter account. Making a list of these tweeps will help you strengthen your relationships with your fans by making it easier for you to monitor and engage with them.

What is a Twitter list and why should I make one?

What is Formulists and Formulytics?

How can I find new customers on Twitter? 

Some of these questions go back to Twitter basics, all are very important to ask.  To help users and others get quick and clear answers to these questions and more, we have prepared a “how to” and explanation guide on our site to address a number of them. Check it out and let us know what you think.  And if you have you have more questions, just ask!

New followers are potential future friends and customers, as well as an indication of the type of audience you’re attracting. 

Now on Hootsuite, you can easily create a self-updating list of your new followers via the Hootsuite app directory.  Just add the Formulists app and then choose to add a “recent followers” stream.

Who are your new followers? People you just met in real life? New potential friends? Future customers?

It helps to keep an eye on who is following or unfollowing you, so that you don’t miss opportunities to meet great new people and future friends. Learning who your new followers are and when they follow you will help you begin cultivating relationships with the new folks entering your social sphere.

Keep track of who is entering your network

There are a few ways to keep an eye on the new followers you’re getting. One way that you can straight from Twitter or a Twitter client like Hootsuite, is to use an automagically updating list, such as the Formulists “new followers” list, to track new followers. 

Start with “hello”, greet by name where possible

Acknowledgment is nice and on Twitter there are countless ways to do it.  If you are getting tons of new followers all the time, the easiest approach is sending one or a few tweets out that mention and say “hello” to all your new followers at once…

It’s the little things

…Of course, the more personal you can get, the more acknowledged and special you will make your new follower feel. It takes all of about two seconds to learn a person’s name on Twitter, and about five to learn a bit about them.  Just click on their name or display pic on Twitter:

Stay in touch

This is where a list of new followers can help you most. This will help you develop a relationship beyond just an initial greeting and really get to know who your new followers are and what they tweet about.  It will also make it easy for you to notice natural and interesting opportunities for engagement.  Wherever you notice a great idea or link, you can start a dialogue and begin building a relationship.

What other tips do you have for getting to know new followers?

We are super excited to announce that as of today, Formulists will be available from Hootsuite, a leading social media dashboard.
 
Hootsuite is the ultimate command center for managing and measuring your social networks because it allows you to efficiently multi-task from one central location via a number of “streams” of information.

These “streams” in Hootsuite allow you to simultaneously track different audiences of interest, as well as real-time information relevant to your business.  The Formulists app for Hootsuite will give Hootsuite users the added ability to monitor their Twitter communities in some new ways.
 
Discover your top fans
 
A stream of your “top fans” in Hootsuite will quickly identify your top retweeters on Twitter making it easy to acknowledge them and strengthen your relationship with them.

 
 Track new followers and unfollowers
 
A stream of “recent followers” or “recent unfollowers” will allow you to stay up to speed on the new people you’re attracting and also those you are losing.  
 

 
Analyze streams by location, bio or Twitter activity
 
The “Filter Stream” will allow you to take any existing Twitter stream you have and analyze it for location, bio or Twitter activity.  This can be very useful for analyzing your home feed or followers, as well as segmenting your audience for targeted monitoring and engagement.

We would love to hear what you think, so if you are a Hootsuite user (and you should be!), make a Formulists stream today and let us know what you think!

Back in 2008, the Washington post covered a really interesting study in which they had one of the most famous and talented musicians in the world, Joshua Bell, play some of his usual concert pieces incognito in a subway.  Almost no one stopped to listen or recognized how beautifully he was playing.

Within the last few weeks- Jay Baer wrote a great post about how, thanks to new media like Twitter, it is much easier to come by information but along with this new speed of information transfer is a wane in more investigative knowledge mining.  

The way I see it, both these touch on the same theme: as the world moves faster and faster with more and more information and stimulation, are we losing touch with what is truly meaningful? Do we now need contextual cues (ie: big names, high Klout scores, crowds etc) to see the quality of what we read and experience?

But we’re busy

In the case of the both the accumulation of knoweldge and the Joshua Bell experiment, the same, and very legitimate, excuse was voiced: “But we’re busy”, “we have to work”, “we don’t have time to stop and analyze everything”.  That’s true, and also why it’s becoming increasingly valuable to find ways to scale work and social media efforts.  

However, perhaps this need not be an all or nothing type deal.  We don’t need to busily skim over everything or stop in our tracks for hours to analyze something.  As we aim to process information and experiences efficiently, are there any strategies to help us process them meaningfully as well?

Prioritize what is important to you

(comment from Jay Baer’s blog post)

With more information there are way more distractions.  So one idea is to take some time each week, or perhaps even each day, to reflect on what is really important both at work and in life.  With a list of goals and priorities in mind, it will be a lot easier to avoid the distractions of the day and take note of what is important.

Stay Mindful in Your Routine

Most of the people in the subway the day Joshua Bell was playing were doing the same thing they had done countless times over: got up and dressed at 8am, took the subway to work, passed by the street performers, etc etc.  And when you do the same thing every day, it’s very easy for your mind to follow your actions into auto-pilot mode.  It’s a much easier piece of advice to talk about then to actually do, but keeping mentally engaged in what you do will not only help you enjoy it more and learn faster, but also notice the nuances of the experience.  

What other strategies do you use to process experiences meaningfully as well as efficiently?

Two Helpful Tools to Analyze Your Twitter Network:

Top Tweeps Analyzer

This tool on Formulists.com will analyze all your interactions on Twitter to determine who your top fans, mentioners and tweetmates are.  You can preview who these people are and also quickly group them into a list.

Why group “top tweeps” into a list?

By grouping your top fans into a list, you make it really easy to keep an eye on them, stay in touch and return the favor.

Top Tags Analyzer

The Top Tags analyzer will analyze your Twitter community to determine the most common bio words and locations of your followers. You can easily mix and match tags to help you focus on specific segments of your followers and improve relationships with them.