S.I. Twitter 100: Something to shoot for and how to get there

Here’s a goal for the next year: Get on this list, the Sports Illustrated Twitter 100.

It’s an annual list compiled by S.I. after polling the staff, asking them which Twitter feeds “they considered essential to their daily routine for finding news, information and entertainment from the sports world.”

The unranked, alphabetical list doesn’t include Sports Illustrated writers, which leaves off some distinguished tweeters who belong on such a list, including two of my favorite follows, Peter King and Richard Deitsch.

It also doesn’t include anyone from Bleacher Report. You could be the pioneer next year.

If you’re looking for advice on how to make your Twitter feed a must-include for something like S.I.’s Twitter 100, let Twitter itself help. The company shared its research about best practices for journalists with Poynter.org last week.

Poynter’s Jeff Sonderman and Andrew Beaujon sum up the findings in their lead:

Twitter’s research into how journalists can best grow their followings uses data to confirm what you’ve probably been told at a dozen social media seminars: Be a firehose of information about your beat, use hashtags and @ mentions as much as you can, and share what you’re reading.

We’ve offered some of that social-media advice around here over the last couple of years:

• Twitter advice for sportswriters in 140 characters
• Twitter guide for B/R writers: What you should and shouldn’t do
• How to build your brand with the best social-media tools
• Not on Twitter? You’re about to get scolded
• Twitter civility: Remember who and what you represent in social media
• How I learned to use #hashtags wisely #AndYouCanToo

Follow all the advice and best practices and rock a great Twitter feed, and you may just find yourself not just on the S.I. Twitter 100, but on The Deadspin Twitter -100*: The 67 Worst Accounts in Sports. Bleacher Report Lead Writers Dan Levy and Ethan Sherwood Strauss made it at No. 45 and 47, and I made the cut at No. 51.

I’m aiming for top 20 next year. You?