18 Jun 2010 3 Comments

How to create a Twitter strategy for your nonprofit in less than 140 minutes

You just created a Twitter account for your nonprofit. Now, what?  Lots of people are talking about how Twitter can help you engage with your network of supporters by making it easier to listen and communicate. But it can be difficult to make sense of a new set of tools when it feels something like this:

Here are some questions to ask yourself in order to avoid pointless babble and annoying self-promotion (common Twitter pitfalls). Set aside 140 minutes and commit to creating valuable conversations and Tweets with pass-along value instead.

1. Who is the audience?

When you put together a communications strategy for your newsletter or email campaign, you know that you can’t speak to everyone. It’s the same for Twitter. Knowing your audience helps you create messages and updates that resonate with your supporters, which means they’ll be more likely to pass them along.

2. Where you can contribute to the conversation?

  • What are people saying about your organization? Have they had first-hand experience in your field? Are they volunteers? Donors? Your event participants?
  • Search Twitter for some other nonprofit organizations who are working in your field. For example, if you work for an international development organization, you might search for “World Vision,” “Save the Children,” and “American Red Cross” (all of which, incidentally, have pretty stellar Twitter strategies). Pay attention to see what they are saying and how they are influencing conversations on Twitter.

3. What is your goal?

Some nonprofits use Twitter to raise awareness about their work, some to post news and updates. Still others use Twitter to highlight what is happening within their community of supporters, such as stories of people raising money on FirstGiving. Figure out whether some combination of these ideas is appropriate for your strategy, or come up with more of your own. If you get stuck, check with some coworkers for more ideas, especially ones who use Twitter themselves.

4. Map out your strategy

By now you should have a good sense of who you are speaking to, what you want to tweet about, and how you should say it. Be thoughtful and don’t just post something for the sake of posting something, like the recent arrival of your new fax machine (that’s the pointless babble we were talking about). Do be authentic. Keep paying attention to what is going on around you to figure out things like how often to post and how best to contribute to conversations. Experiment and contribute where you can add insight or encouragement. If other people in your organization are part of the strategy, clarify who is responsible for what. Figure out where Twitter fits in to your social media strategy if you’re also on Facebook and LinkedIn.

You’re ready to start Tweeting! Let us know how it goes by posting a comment below.

Follow FirstGiving on Twitter, and check out this post by our friends over at HubSpot for some more advanced Twitter strategies.

Download FirstGiving’s Twitter strategy white paper for more tips on:

  • getting to know your audience
  • contributing to the conversation
  • clarifying your goal
  • building your strategy

by admin in FirstGiving news, Nonprofit resources Tags: , ,