Top 5 Twitter lists

Twitter, the hugely useful micro-blogging platform, is often criticised by those who don’t ‘get it’. Evening Standard journalist Nick Curtis has placed himself right at the pinnacle of that group with a piece this week asking “Is Twitter the new Facebook?” – which he probably wishes he’d never written.

The Twitterfolk have been highly critical of Curtis’ badly-researched and ill-informed article, both in his comments – which he’ll see – and in blog posts elsewhere – which he probably won’t, given his obviously less-than-proficient grasp on social media.

In his rebuttal, Gary Andrews admirably offers Curtis a friendly and thorough tutorial in the ways of Twitter and raises this very valid point:

“The main problem is largely not knowing who or what to follow, so if you don’t know anybody on there it can be a bit, well, pointless. But one of the joys of Twitter is once you start following a few people, most folk are reasonably friendly and chatty. And once you’ve found a few people you want to follow, it’s quite easy to go through their friends and find more people.”

But how do you find these people? Well, bloggers love a Twitter list, and many of these have covered the people you should be following and what you should be doing with the service to get the most out of it. Thing is, there are so many lists to choose from.

So here is Clicking & Screaming‘s List of the Top 5 Twitter Lists:

1. Ten People All Twitter Beginners Should be Following – Mark Hayward’s guide to wading through the initial confusion and following the essential Tweeple from the start.
2. 17 Ways You Can Use Twitter – An exercise in personal branding, a to-do lists, a live-blogging tool. Twitter is so much more than a micro-blog, says Dosh Dosh.
3. Top 50 UK PR People by Twitter Influence – Following Stephen Davies list of PR people on Twitter, Stephen Waddington has ranked them with Twitter Grader.
4. The Master List of Twitter Tools and Apps – A great list of tools which make your Twitter life easier, from SMM Guru.
5. 50 People Who Should Use Twitter – Tom Watson MP has turned his blog’s comment function into an interactive list of people who should use Twitter but don’t.

If you have a favourite Twitter list, we’d love to hear from you.