Social Lists is an emerging category in content marketing. Social Lists have many interesting properties. What's the best way to introduce a list of list properties? A Social List, of course.
Perhaps you have another property, feel free to add to the list. And vote on the items you like and dislike.
Source: http://www.nickkellet.com/2012/03/can-you-help-tell-me-what-is-valuable-about-social-lists/
Lists form communities. Lists flush out people with common interests -the Lurkers. Lists spawn conversations and connections beyond the list. More lists, more connections means more community - see Metcalfe's Law
Lists add structure to life - Baby name lists, to-do lists, bucket lists. List metaphors live with us through each day. We all get lists.
Lists are content marketing with a twist. No they are not white papers. Nor e-books. Lists are not webinars, microsites nor podcasts. Lists aren't even emails, videos or magazines. List can be all and none of these. Lists are as much a medium as a content form.
Lists are quick to consume. Lists quickly let us validate our knowledge and fill in the gaps. It's all about the content. This is why bloggers and publishers love lists.
if you can get someone to interact and comment on a list you might extract them from the Lurker pool.
Lists totally can be fun. You can make a serious topic fun, by how you pick the images and how you write up the items and by the blog posts you place them in. Lists are what you make them.
Lists ooze social proof. Curators, Reactions, Views, Embeds. Crowd-smarts help you decide which lists to explore.
lists are niche. List can be just for you, for 10 people or 10,000. Today with the web 10,000 people can still be a niche.
Lists are interesting to others, especially crowd-sourced lists. The crowds make it so. Lists are easy to share. Lists encourage you to leave you mark. And when you own a piece of a list, you want to share it more. Rinse and repeat.
Lists travel. Lists can live both on Listly and on multiple blogs. A list's crowd travels (as do their votes, reactions & comments).
Lists have their own life and their own story. Some start quickly and grow fast, while others take longer to catch fire - resulting from a mix of topic, curators and timing. Every list has it's day. Lists are highly shareable.
You can do most things with a list - ask questions, ask for help/advice. It's one metaphor with many applications.
Lists can be embedded in any blog that supports "script" tags. Each embedded list provides a backlink from Listly to the Embedded blog. This fact alone makes Listly with exploring.
Yes, lists are never complete. There I said it. It's a strength not a weakness. Someone somewhere can always add something and that's what keeps them interesting.
Lists speak to our human need to make sense of things - to organize and to categorize, to create and analyze patterns, to break things down into parts, and to seek simplicity.
While they can move, lists have an anchor. A host, a lead set of curators and a Credit URL to which they drive traffic.
Lists are keyword rich and therefore Lists are SEO heaven. Lists are crowd-sourced by experts. Lists can also be crowd-ranked or crowd-sorted. Lists are filtering devices.
Normal HTML text lists "rot" from the moment you unleash them on the world. Listly lists are different - primed to explode into action and social engagement at any moment. Lists are social timebombs.
You can see everything and that's the appeal. The social proof is there for all to see.
1+1 = 3. The whole is greater than the sum of the parts. You get out what you put in and more besides. You need to prime lists, you need to share them, you need to nurture them, but they deliver a great return.
Lists are quite often serendipity in action. One thought triggers another. As if by accident a crowd can form around a topic. Yes, lists are accidents, accidents waiting to happen. Accidents you can create.
Lists live forever. So they bring a lifetime of traffic. The mental investment model is very different from a Tweet of a curated story. Lists are never finished, but that's another point.
Lists are the simplest form of self-expression. Lists are what you love and hate. Lists are your thoughts and feelings. Lists are how you choose to express you personal views (aka your preference graph).
List are hard to pin down. Their dynamism makes them hard to define. The value of Social Lists are spread across multiple disciplines, lists engage the consumer, equally list help promote the blogger, publisher, brand or person featured on the list.
