You’d be hard pressed to miss the latest buzz around Twitter and this year’s Academy Awards. A photo, taken at the event (and on live television) has raised $3 million for charity landing Ellen DeGeneres and Samsung in the limelight and St. Jude’s Childrens Hospital and The Humane Society of the United States, each with $1.5 million. This record beating selfie, a social media phenomena, was retweeted 3 million times, breaking the previous record of retweets, held by President Barack Obama and prompting Oscar’s sponsor, Samsung, to donate $1 per tweet to two charities, both supported by host, Ellen DeGeneres.
This is just one of many examples of charities benefiting from not only celebrity sponsors but Twitter as well. Maximizing in 140 characters or less can be a challenge though. Here are a few tips for using Twitter to promote your nonprofit and gain exposure.
- Substantive content is a must: It may feel impossible to make any sort of statement in the limited space available in Tweets but by choosing your abbreviations, symbols and words carefully, you really can share quite a bit.
- Use links: All link, no matter how long they are, take up the same number of characters in a tweet, 22. Linking out allows you to send your audience back to your website or article for more information. These backlinks can also help your search ranking.
- Use retweets to toot your own horn: You don’t want to come across as self-serving by posting solely about your organization’s successes. When others tweet about your most recent community outreach or fundraising event, retweet them! It’s a nice way to talk about successes while thanking your supporters.
- Get to know hashtags: Hashtags allow users to follow certain topics, ideas and organizations so using them can bring larger exposure to your tweets. Be strategic and plan ahead so hashtags are both relevant and trending for most traction.
- Get into a routine: Make it a habit to spend time on twitter daily. It’s an ever-changing medium so keeping up on your tweeting, retweets and mentions can keep you in front of audiences for a more substantial amount of time.
Twitter can be immensely helpful to nonprofits both large and small but approaching it with a strategy is the key to real success. If you are interested in learning more about Twitter and the strategies recommended above as well as where to begin when setting up a Twitter account, contact Rock Environmental at info@rockenvironmental.com. We offer social setup and content management services for nonprofits of all sizes. From event announcements to advertising across social platforms – social management from Rock Environmental can help to create a strong presence and grow your social influence and your nonprofit. We know the correct hashtags and jargon…so don’t worry about it, let us handle it for you! You can also learn more about our numerous nonprofit consulting options at our website.
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