How your organisation can make 140 characters work for you

TwitterHow your organisation can make 140 characters work for you

Marc Bowkerwww.about.me/marcbowker

#begoodbesocial

Twitter has revolutionised the way we interact online.

It has made us used to communicating in real time.

What we’ll cover today

• Where to start with Twitter

• Finding your feet

• What to tweet

• Potential issues

• The Twitter lingo

• Twitter tools

Where to start

• Use a simple or memorable user name, eg. @marcbowker

• No egg – upload a picture

• Complete your details

• Once you’ve done that, Twitter is simple (sort of) and the only way to learn is to jump straight in and find your voice

• Follow people you know, look at who they’re following and follow those you like

The Twitter lingo

@reply: a comment directed at somebody,but beware it’s is public!

The Twitter lingo

DM: a direct message. A private message toanother user that only they will see.

The Twitter lingo

RT: a retweet. Essentially you like a post somuch that you have to share it with yourfollowers.

The Twitter lingo

Hash tags: words prefixed with a # whichhelp track conversations on a particulartopic like #begoodbesocial

Finding your feet

• Who do you want to talk to?

• Will you apply a casual and friendly approach?

• How often will you tweet?

• Make an effort to reply to all comments

• Don’t have auto-DMs for new follows

• You don’t need to follow everyone back

What to tweet

• Interesting content from your organisation• photos• videos• blogs and news• events• campaign actions

• Ask questions and engage

• Knowledge share with other organisations

Potential issues

• Criticism, don’t take it personally

• Differing views, be accepting

• Slow responses

• Broadcasting

• Never sharing content

• Criticising others, don’t do it

Twitter tools

• Twitter.com

• Mobile apps such as Twitter and Tweetie

• Tweetdeck

• Hootsuite

Remember, your potential donors and supportersare on Twitter. Start conversations and build a

Relationship with them today.

Now it’s your turn

• Split into groups of four

• Choose one of your organisations

• Plan a Twitter strategy for six months• how will you encourage staff to tweet?• how will you sustain this over time?• how will you measure impact?• will you create a social media policy?• what tools will you use to monitor Twitter conversations?• how often will you tweet?

My top tips

• Don’t just broadcast information about your organisation, be human. Talk to people as you would face to face

• Always think before you tweet:• can you provide a link• can you include a photo/video• what can you do to make the tweet really work hard for you?

• Be honest, tell people you’re new to Twitter

• Set follower targets: 100, 500, 1000

• Set up lists

Thank you for listening

Keep up with the conversation on Twitter #begoodbesocial

And on Facebook www.facebook.com/begoodbesocial

Need more help/guidance? You can find me here:

@marcbowkerwww.about.me/marcbowkermarcbowker@gmail.com