Twitter Tips for Nonprofit Tweeple … People


By Joanne Fritz of About.com’s Nonprofit Guide




Nonprofit organizations, consultants, fundraisers, and marketers are all using Twitter. They are among the 18 million people who will be using Twitter by the end of this year.

Why do people use Twitter? At first, it was a way to personally keep in touch with friends and family. But it has been quickly adopted by professionals of all kinds, as well as organizations and businesses. The nonprofit sector has become very busy on Twitter, as its potential for friend building, fundraising, and marketing has become apparent.

I use Twitter professionally for these reasons:

  • It helps drive traffic to my website and blog
  • It provides me with many professional contacts
  • It gives me information quickly about what is going on in the nonprofit world
  • It teaches me new ideas, concepts, and skills
  • It alerts me to hot topics
  • It allows me to share my own enthusiasms such as causes I want to support, great content I want others to know about, and news I think people should care about.

    I’m a fairly new twitterer … tweeter?, but here are some tips I can already pass along. They may be helpful to newbies … uhh, “neweeters.”

  • Stick with it. I tried it. Got confused. Left it. Came back. Read all the guides I could find. Eventually settled in to using it frequently. May now be addicted.

  • Be professional. Don’t have a silly name. Put up a decent photo of yourself or use your organization’s logo. Set up your profile so people can understand who you are and decide if they want to follow you.

  • Follow lots of other people first. Don’t worry, your own followers will come. Search for names you already know. Search on hashtags such as #nonprofit #philanthropy for tweets on those topics. Follow the people and orgs that posted them. Whenever you find a blog or site you like, look for a Twitter button. Follow the people your favorite Twitterer is following, and then follow those who are following them, etc.

  • Twitter mostly on professional themes, but do reveal your own personality as well with a few more personal tweets. Share your experience with a new software tool, how you liked a movie, what book you are reading, or ask advice about something.

  • Retweet a lot. Sharing and promoting others is what it is all about. It is not all about you. People who only promote themselves are b-o-r-i-n-g. Participate in the marketplace of ideas, and not just your ideas. Watch how other people retweet for the best ways to format your RTs.

  • Do not tweet a whole bunch of times all at once. Tweet frequently, but don’t act like a spammer. Don’t tweet just to be tweeting. Make sure you have something of value to tweet about and space your tweets out.

  • Do promote your own stuff, but make sure that it is only a moderate percentage of what you are tweeting. Watch to see if your posts are retweeted. No? Maybe you should find other topics. Yes? Do more on that topic. Twitter is a great place to determine if you are relevant or not.

  • Thank people who retweet you. Use personal Twitter email to do so, with an occasional public thank you to several people.

  • Block spammers. You will get spam. Block suspicious followers right away, and watch for spam tools to be introduced. Mashable is a great source for all things about social media such as Twitter. Visit often.

  • Always help legitimate newbies. Follow them, Retweet them, thank them.

    Did you take our Twitter poll?

    More Twitter Resources:

    • The Twitter Guide Book (Mashable)
    • Twitter 101 (Twitter.com)
    • Twitter 101 for Nonprofits (Wild Apricot)
    • 10 Twitter Tips for Nonprofit Organizations (Change.org)

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    Source: Joanne Fritz, Nonprofit Guide on About.com