Have you ever created the perfect Twitter list to share with people only to realise that you can't add yourself to the list? It can really ruin the usefulness of your list.

Yeah, I'm afraid Twitter seems to think that the list of "Pete's BBQ mates" no longer needs to have "Pete" on it. Why? Who knows. Perhaps Twitter expect lists to be private instead of shared. Maybe featuring in your own list is considered "gaming the system" rather than just "useful". The point is, you used to be able to do it and now you can't. And there are good reasons for wanting yourself on your own list.

Don't worry, we can get around this, and it's not even that hard to do. All you need is a Twitter client and a few minutes to spare.

Why Would You Want To Be On Your Own Twitter List?

Twitter lists are great. They help you filter the noise of Twitter and focus on the topics you find interesting on a moment-to-moment basis. You can even use them to essentially block Twitter users without them knowing. Plenty of people also make useful Twitter lists public, so you can follow them instead of creating your own.

If you're part of a group and want to create a Twitter list to keep all of the members up-to-date with Twitter goings-on easily, creating a list of that group that doesn't show your own Tweets doesn't make sense. Basically, Twitter nowadays only lets you create that list for the rest of the group. You're excluded from it even though you're the one trying to do the organising. Great.

I found this out when I tried to make a list of Twitter users from a group I frequent on Facebook. Of course, I want to be on it — then everyone can just follow my list instead of creating their own replica of the list.

Another, more professional reason for doing this, is if you're a small business or marketer and want to group together like-minded businesses. This can make it easier for your followers to see your updates all at once. For instance, a bunch of Twitter accounts of businesses from the same town, or a list of your favourite activists for any given cause. If you fit into the group, you'd want to feature on the list. It's only natural.

So how can you do this?

Use TweetDeck To Add Yourself To Your Twitter List

To add yourself to your own Twitter list, you actually need to use TweetDeck, which is thankfully available online now (as well as a TweetDeck Firefox addon and a TweetDeck Chrome extension).

Either sign in with your TweetDeck login or your Twitter account. Twitter owns TweetDeck now, so it doesn't make a lot of difference which account you use, unless you want to see your old TweetDeck layout. For now, you just want to see the one list.

Tweetdeck-bottom-left

Down in the bottom-left you'll see an icon for your lists. Click that to bring up the lists window. Now either find your list or create a new one from here. Note that this will change your actual Twitter lists, not just lists within TweetDeck.

Click on the list, then click on edit in the top right-hand corner. A search form will come up on the left, where you can type your Twitter handle and click on the search icon. Click on the plus next to your Twitter bio in the search results. Here you can see I am going to add myself to my "Artists And Musicians" list.

Tweetdeck-Musician-list

Once you're on that list, you and everyone else following the list will see your Tweets included alongside everyone else's. Finally.

Tweetdeck-Added-Myself-To-List

So, the process is a little convoluted but not that difficult. Twitter stopped allowing it on the regular client, so maybe this trick won't be around forever. Set up your lists now and you'll be sorted!

Are you glad to be able to add yourself to your Twitter lists?