Twitter for Nonprofits

Twitter for Non-Profits Presenter: Liz DeLoach, Social Strategies Sponsors: Palmetto Technology Hub Charleston County Library December 2, 2010

Sponsors:
The Palmetto Technology Hub :
Providing technology support and resources to the South Carolina lowcountry not-for-profit community. Website: www.scpath.org . Twitter: @SCPath .
Charleston County Public Library
Committed to continually identifying, evaluating and responding to your informational, educational, cultural and recreational needs. Website: www.ccpl.org . Twitter: @chaslibrary .
Palmetto Technology Hub www.scpath.org

Twitter is a social networking and micro-blogging service ( www.twitter.com ) enabling users to send and read brief updates. Tweets are text based posts of up to 140 characters that display on your profile page and those of your followers. It’s free , easy to use, and available anywhere you have an internet connection. Palmetto Technology Hub www.scpath.org What is Twitter? Why is it relevant?

You can follow people, businesses, and organizations and get important info about them. You can post links, pictures, and send private messages. It’s brevity is one of its best features, allowing you to cover more ground faster than with other social mediums. You can talk to others and use Twitter to connect with donors and encourage supporters to engage with you. Palmetto Technology Hub www.scpath.org

Why should we use Palmetto Technology Hub www.scpath.org
According to The 2010 Nonprofit Benchmarks Report released by NTEN (NonProfit Technology Network):
60% of Nonprofits are on Twitter as compared to 43% in 2009.
Twitter’s average community size (i.e. number of followers) grew the fastest and by 627%. In 2009 nonprofits had an average of 286 followers. In 2010, nonprofits average close to 1800 followers.

Awareness of Twitter has exploded from 5% of Americans 12+ in 2008 to 87% in 2010
Twitter is now attracting 190 million visitors per month and generating 65 million Tweets a day.
Nearly two-thirds of active Twitter users access social networking sites using a mobile phone.
51% of active Twitter users follow companies, brands or products on social networks

Social media for Social Good’ isn’t just a catch phrase. During the Haitian earthquake, Twitter was a lifeline to communicate conditions and needs to better mobilize disaster relief!
Adds yet another tool to your marketing and communications arsenal – talking to many at the same time and in real time!

Top Tier Non-Profits using Twitter
Women Who Tech : Helping Talented women break new ground ( @ womenwhotech ) 13,544
Water.org - Bringing clean water to those who lack it. @water 367,878
Doctors without Borders : Stepping in to treat the sick @MSF_USA 26,238
Livestrong: On the front lines against cancer @livestrong 86,508
UNICEF : Humanitarian action on behalf of kids( @unicef ) 231,149

Local Non-Profits On Twitter
Charleston Moves: Advocacy group promoting active living through alternative forms of transportation: walking, bicycling and mass transit. @charlestonmoves 449
Increasing H.O.P.E (Helping Others Prosper Economically) financial training and money management courses to low-and-middle income individuals and families who struggle with budgeting, credit, debt or other money obstacles.
@increasinghope 151

Local Non-Profits On Twitter
Center for Women: Helping women succeed every day both professionally and personally. @c4womenchas 1,067
Lowcountry Aids Services: Dedicated to enhancing the quality of life for persons living with HIV and AIDS and to providing HIV prevention resources and programs @LASchs 486
Here’s a great list from @TinaArnoldi:
http://twitter.com/chsnonprofits

Getting Started
First, establish objectives:
Relationship building
Fundraising
Volunteer recruitment
Event buzz
Exposure

Palmetto Technology Hub www.scpath.org Getting Started Set a Social Media Policy, and considering the following: Who will update the Twitter account? One employee or a team? Tools like CoTweet and Hootsuite make it possible for multiple staff members to collaborate and schedule tweets from a single tool. How often? I recommend three to four updates per day to give your name a consistent presence in follower’s timelines. Early to mid morning, late afternoon, and evening are good times.

Getting Started
How will you determine ongoing content? This is where team collaboration is key!
Will you allow/encourage employees to tweet on their personal Twitter accounts on the nonprofit’s behalf? Fine, so long as they understand and abide by guidelines set in place.
Who should you follow? Donors, businesses, local reporters, news organizations, and other nonprofits are great places to start.

Setting Up Your Twitter Account

Let’s start the conversation!
Compose early tweets – First one might read: “Glad to be on Twitter to share info about our community outreach programs.”
Decide upon a few early followees: staff, other non-profits with active Twitter presence, donors, etc.
Follow and LISTEN. What are they sharing and discussing? Add to their conversations by responding, answering questions, etc.
Intermingle the informative with promotional!! Find ways to tell your nonprofit’s story
Develop a timeline of 4-5 days worth of tweets. Make a few of
these questions to elicit feedback.

Search Resources

Great Tweets Are:
Brief: Be friendly, but get to your point quickly.
Conversational: Think “cocktail party” where you communicate with many people.
Humorous: Just be careful…keep it clean!
Informative: Did you just come across an article of interest? Link to it using a url shortener such as www.budurl.com . A basic account is free, and enables you to measure click-through traffic.
Inspirational: People love good quotes and are likely to Retweet them.

Benefits?
Help you gain more followers
Get Retweeted – thereby increasing exposure
Earn you a good reputation in your online community for contributing to it .

How do I determine who to follow? Palmetto Technology Hub www.scpath.org How often do they tweet? Are their tweets of interest and value to you and your organization? Are they conversing and responsive to others? Do they have a good “mix” of tweets? Do they Retweet good info? That’ s a sure sign of a generous tweeter.

Palmetto Technology Hub www.scpath.org And Who Should I Avoid Following?
Does the User:
Have a large number of identical @mentions such as: “@lizdeloach: check out this great offer (link)!” to a lot of users? A sure sign of a spammer.
Have a skewed follower to followee ratio: If they follow a disproportionately large number of users compared to those following them, they’re likely boring, a spammer, or both.
Have many followers, but follow very few? If they don’t follow anyone,
why should you follow them?

Mastering Twitter-ese and Twitter-quette
RT: Retweet. Passing on information from another user in way that gives them credit as your source. This is a must of twitter-quette!
Hash tag: # symbol before a word that categorizes info for quick and easy searches.
@replies and @mentions mean you are addressing or replying directly to that user. A must so specific users know when you’re addressing them.

Mastering Twitter-ese and Twitter-quette
Be careful with humor. Off color and political is best avoided.
Spread your tweets out. Several in a row is considered clogging followers’ feeds and can get you unflawed.
Use proper spelling, grammar and punctuation.

Mastering Twitterese and Twitter-quette
Be sure to review Twitter Best Practices and Rules in the Twitter Help section.
Pay special attention to Automation Rules and Best Practices if you plan to automate your Tweets.
Review Twitter Basics and Twitter for Business 101

Useful Twitter Features
Lists:
You can create lists of recommended follows on any topics of interest
Mobile Phone:
See if there is a mobile version for your phone. Great to have!
TwitPic:
A great tool for adding pictures. Anyone with a Twitter account can sign up

Marketing Integration
Twitter can be used to bring more inbound traffic to your Facebook Page, Blog, and Website.
Add graphic links to website to indicate social presences and vice versa.
Be sure to notify everyone on your newsletter and email lists of all your social media presences, including Twitter.
Check into some of the available widgets to create routing of traffic between all your mediums.
Add Social presences to your business cards.

Twitter “Must Follows”
These Verified Twitter Accounts keep you up-to-date on all things Twitter, and are an easy means for reporting spammers and problems.
@spam
@twitter
@safety
@support

Why are we doing this?
To build and engage our donor community.
To provide info of general and specific value.
To draw more awareness of, and support, to our cause.
To educate, learn, and have fun doing it.

Sources and Resources
Edison Research - www.edisonresearch.com
Twitter Usage In America: 2010 Tom Webster
Apr. 29, 2010
Socialbrite - http://www.socialbrite.org
12 great nonprofits & causes to follow on Twitter, March 27, 2010, Brandy Scoggan
TechCrunch: www.techcrunch.com
article by Eric Schonfeld June 8, 2010
Frogloop – Nonprofit Blog - highest rated in Google Search Rankings
Tina Arnoldi, Coastal Community Foundation
Presentation on Social Media and NonProfits January 2010

Sources and Resources
Twitter.com
Listorious – NonProfits on Twitter List by Jason Pollack http://listorious.com/Jason_Pollock/nonprofit-orgs

Questions??

Thank you!
Liz DeLoach
www.socialmediawiz.biz
[email_address]
Facebook: Social Strategies
Twitter: @LizDeLoach
(843)532-9335

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Twitter for Nonprofits

by Social Strategies on Dec 03, 2010

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Twitter for Nonprofits — Presentation Transcript