How Twitter can help Non-profits

This morning I participated in Theatre Communications Group's enlightening Teleconference, "Twitter as Audience-Builder and Branding Tool." Tons of great advice on how Twitter can help you build a community for your organization. Here is a summary of what I found most valuable, with thanks to the conference’s presenter, Callie Kimball of Red Bull Theatre, @Calindrome.

The key message: Twitter can be a great tool to cultivate a community around your organization.

Q: Is Twitter just a fad, and does this affect whether we should use it?
Social media experts think platforms like Twitter represent a new way for people to connect to each other. Whether that stays as Twitter.com or evolves into something different, the technology itself is here to stay.

Q. Who uses Twitter, and why would my organization want to get to know them?
A main demographic of Twitter users is “informed global citizens,” in their 20s to 50s, who want to share information. They are often people who work in front of a computer and use Twitter like a coffee break. They are the people their family and friends turn to for information about what’s going on in the community. These are exactly the type of people you want to have in your organization’s community.

Q. What’s the most effective way to use Twitter as a marketing and community-building tool?
Treat Twitter like a cocktail party: pop in frequently and engage people with conversation. This means don’t just spit out facts like “Opening Night on Friday” or “Get half-price tickets now.” Mix those in with tidbits that are warm, friendly and make your followers feel like they are getting insider information. Insights from the inner-workings of your organization, especially if they are funny.

Your goal is to end up with a homepage that looks like a conversation, where you are tweeting messages that entice your followers to respond, and where you are tweeting back to them.

On that note, it’s really important to follow people, and not just have them follow you. An organization who follows nobody and spits out facts about dates, prices, etc. will appear cold, mechanic and boring. Follow others who share your organization’s interest, and send them responses that spark conversation amongst all your followers.

Q. Can Twitter help in Fundraising?
Sure, if you are creative. A tweet with a generic fundraising ask like “Support XYZ Drama Club” probably won’t be effective. But updates on how fundraising is going and how close you are to your goal can build momentum around your fundraising campaign.

A few other things:
• Create a personalized background.
• Consider in your bio stating who on staff is doing the tweets, or have staffers “sign” their tweets.
• One sign of a successful tweeter is someone whose homepage has a lot of @ signs, indicating conversation back and forth. A good way to attain this is add followers.
• Search your company name frequently. If people are tweeting about you, add them! And respond to them – “hey, thanks for coming to the show!” or “yeah, great suggestion” or whatever. (Especially respond to anyone who says something negative, by encouraging their feedback. Once they register that they are conversing with a real live person, they will be less inclined to be as negative!)
• Your theatre should follow all cast, crew, staff, and board members on twitter as well as audience members and thereby encourage them to communicate. This helps build a community around your theatre.

So that’s it in a nutshell…I’m on Twitter @CEBernardi. If you want to see some good examples of organizations using Twitter successfully, look at @SeattleRep and @GuthrieTheater.

And if you participated in the Teleconference or if you just have ideas or questions about how non-profits can use Twitter, please respond here in the comments section.