Tweet PowerGetting the Most Out of Twitter

Presented by Dawn A Crawford

Communications Manager for Colorado Children’s Immunization Coalition & Social Media Strategist for BC/DC

& Dana Rinderknecht

What is Your Twitter IQ?

FledglingJust spreading

your wings Wise owl

Twitter BasicsTwitter is a real-time short messaging service that

works over multiple networks and devices

• Sending 140 character messages• Brand with your organizations name, logo and

images• 21 Million Unique Visitors Internationally

Neilson July ‘09 - http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/online_mobile/social-media-stats-myspace-music-growing-twitters-big-move/

Who Tweets

Do You Know Who’s On Twitter - http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1007250

Networking• Twitter was and is a social networking

service• It’s made to find new people and create

new connections• Remember this is a friend builder first and

foremost

Are you ready for Twitter?

• Do you have autonomy to post information for your organization?

• Do you have a crisis communications plan in place?

• Do you have at least an hour a week to dedicated to Twitter?

• Tweet – a Twitter update• Followers – the people who “listen” to what you are

saying• Following – the people who YOU listen to on Twitter• @ Reply – allows you to reply to other Twitter users or

notify them you have included them in a tweet• DM – a private direct message to another Twitter user• RT – retweet, think of it as a forward to all your Twitter

followers• A lot of users utilize text messaging abbreviations

Twitter Slang

Things to Remember• All tweets are PUBLIC and PERMANENT

– You can DM something to a user but they can repost publicly

– Even if you delete quickly, someone could have picked it up and retweeted just as quickly

• Be nice, positive• This is your brand, take care of it

More Things to Remember• Interact

– There is nothing more annoying than a user that doesn’t respond

• This is one of the best ways to keep your cause top of mind for your supporter on a daily basis

• Don’t cry if you lose followers

I’m Ready to Tweet…Now What?

Content Ideas• Share news articles

– Set up a Google Alert about your cause and tweet daily headlines

– Tweet your organization's press releases and media coverage

• Promote events

Content Ideas Continued…• Website

– Tweet teasers to pages on your website to entice people to read more about you

• Newsletter articles– Create separate tweets for newsletter articles

Interact!• Encourage supporters

– @reply users who are talking about your cause

• Correct misinformation– Monitor Twitter and @ reply users who are

damaging your brand or spreading misinformation about your cause with a simple offer of sending them more information

Interact Continued…• Customer Service

– Ask followers to let you know when they have great or bad customer service

– Make sure you RESPOND to these quickly• Hold a Tweet-Up

– Create a Twitter event when an expert from your cause answers questions or tweets during an event

Fundraise

URL Shorteners

Allows you to shorten a long URL to share on Twitter

– Hoot Suite – http://www.hootsuite.com• Tracks click throughs

– Bit.ly – http://bit.ly/

Photo and Video Sharing• Photo sharing

– Twit Pic – http://www.twitpic.com– 5 Ways to Share Photos on Twitter -

http://mashable.com/2009/05/19/twitter-share-images/• Video sharing

– Twit Vid – http://vidly.com/?twitvid – 5 Ways to Share Videos on Twitter -

http://mashable.com/2009/05/23/video-for-twitter/

Monitoring and SearchesBy monitoring Twitter you can get a pulse on how

much people are talking about your cause. Great for encouraging users or correcting

misinformation

1. Create live searches for your cause2. @ Reply to Twitter users who are tweeting

about your cause

Monitoring & Searching Examples

• CCIC searches for “Immunizations” all day and when ever a parent says “I took Timmy to get his immunizations today – what a brave baby” we reply back thanking them for vaccinating their baby

• An event planner sent me a tweet recommending their services after I said I was planning an upcoming event

Applications• TweetDeck – http://www.tweetdeck.com – desktop • HootSuite – http://www.hootsuite.com – online

Making Twitter Work For Your Organization

Tweet in 10-Minutes a DayIf you are short on time, you can schedule your

tweet to go out when you are not at your desk1. Use your Google Alerts for headline tweets2. Respond to @ replies from the previous day3. Check your monitoring application and tweet

users with more information or encouragement– HootSuite allows you to schedule exactly when you

want your tweets to go out

CoTweetingShare the opportunity of maintaining your Twitter

community with your staff and volunteers

1. Train different members of your staff & volunteers to upload to Twitter

2. Have them add tweets throughout the day to your organization's Twitter account

3. Monitor their work and correct as needed“CoTweet: The Twitter CRM Tool of Choice for BestBuy, JetBlue, and

Ford” - http://mashable.com/2009/03/27/cotweet/

Twitter-attiCreate your own paparazzi or “Twitter-atti” - a group of your

supporters who already use Twitter to help you spread information

1. Engage supporters, board members, staff, volunteers, etc to join a “Twitter-atti” for your cause

2. Email them a list of messages you’d like them to tweet for you

3. Great way to create a unified message across Twitter

Keep on Tweeting

MeasurementMeasure your Twitter engagement on more than followers,

but on the conversation

1. Count the number of RT and @ replies you get a month to measure engagement

2. Use Twitter tools to measure your success– HootSuite tracks your click thrus on URLs

shortened by this application in a graph – HANDY!– “Twittermania: 140+ More Twitter Tools”

http://mashable.com/2008/05/24/14-more-twitter-tools/

Our Favorite Tweople• @ImmunizeCOKids – Colorado Children’s Immunization Coalition• @dana_rinder – Dana’s feed• @SocMediaRckStr – Social Media news feed by Dawn Crawford• @Mashable – Social Media news site• @YNPNDenver - Denver’s Young Nonprofit Professionals• @tuggl – Cause marketing website in Denver• @mistymontano – CBS4 producer and social media diva

Above all…

HAVE FUN!!!!

Questions?Dawn Crawford 720-231-1930

dawnacrawford@yahoo.comhttp://bcdcideas.wordpress.com

http://www.linkedin.com/in/dawnacrawfordhttp://www.facebook.com/dawn.a.crawford

Dana Rinderknecht