Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
TITLE: Getting Started on Twitter: The Vital First Fortnight from Connect Communicate Change
Intro: This is a video from Connect, Communicate, Change...social media for the non-profit sector
at www.connect-communicate-change.com
Philippa Willitts: Hi. This is Philippa Willitts for Connect, Communicate, Change. Today, I'm
going to talk about how to get started when you have set up a twitter account for your
organization. I'm not going to take you through exactly how to sign up, because there are
lots of guides to that already online and there is no point of duplicating certain things.
So I'm assuming that you've done the physical going to twitter and registering a name and
password and account basically, and start from there.
So what should you do first? It's tempting to just go out and follow anybody and everybody,
but there is a problem with that actually. And that is that lots of people get email
notifications when someone new follows them on twitter, and quite often they will then
click and look at the account of the person who's just followed them to decide whether
to follow them back. And if you've just set your account up and have sent no tweets, and
your profile isn't filled out, and you don't have a photo, people will just look at your
page and not follow you back. Following people in the first place can be a good way to draw
attention to your existence, so don’t waste that opportunity by immediately following
anybody and everybody before you've set things up.
So the first thing to do is to fill out your profile information. You've got to personalize
your page to your organization. You need a profile picture first. Now this should be
your organization's logo really. Occasionally, if just one person tweets from the account,
and it's a bit personal as well, then it can be that person's photo but in the past majority
of cases, your profile picture should be your organization's logo. Fill in your name and location
- location you can be very specific, some people are very specific while some people
just put their country. And how you fill out will depend on if you are a national organization,
for instance, you might just write "France" if you are an organization that covers all
of France, or Canada ,or Mexico. But if you are more of a local organization and you specifically
work in Miami, then you put Miami as your location.
So it depends on your organization's scope exactly what you should put for the location.
Then a link to your website… there is a space to add a link and you should always
have a link to your homepage of your organization's website.
And then the bio, in the biography bit, fill in what your organization does. So that's
the basics of your profile. There is also an option called 'design' under 'settings',
where you can pick from various preset options, what the background to your tweet page should
be.
And changing the background to one of this can be a nice way of just standing out a bit,
or there are there are lots of websites that offer free the twitter backgrounds if you
want to do that, but it's not a necessity.
The next thing to do that is very important is to start sending tweets. Again, before
you start following hundreds of people, they need to be able to look at your page to
decide whether you are someone they want to follow back. And if they can't see any tweets
or they can only see one, which invariably says “trying to get the hang of twitter”
or something, then they won't know whether you're interesting or not or whether you'll
ever tweet again or not so they won't probably follow you back.
So what you need to do, ideally over a week or two, send a few tweets every day. Now, the
content of these can be things like "do you want to know more what we do? Check out
our website”, then a link. Or if you send out a press release one particular day that
also appears on your website, you can link to that. You can post details of what you're
up to, so it might be something like "we're looking forward to the event tonight, maybe
see you there" or “we've been very busy this week with funding bids - fingers crossed!”
- whatever you really like, whatever suits you and your organization.
And so over a couple of weeks, you'll be building up a list of tweets, and the other thing to
do during these first couple of weeks is to follow just a few people, but key people.
And this would vary depending on what your charity or organization does. So if, say,
your organization is a charity for people with epilepsy, then what you want to do is
to find some of the big epilepsy charities that are already on twitter and follow them.
And as you see their tweets, you can retweet anything that they post that is relevant to
what you do.
You can also send replies to tweets during this time as well. And what this also does
is, when people do check out your profile to decide whether to follow you not, it shows
that you are interactive, it shows that you're being social and shows that you're not just
going to be blaring out links at all times. It shows that you are getting into the spirit
of the social aspect of social media.
So over these first few weeks that you are sending out few tweets a day - not hundred,
not dozens a day, just a few a day but consistently. And you are also following the big tweeters
that are relevant in your area. So if you are a housing charity, this might be the national
housing charity in your country. This is obviously different to everyone who’s listening, but
you'll know yourself who the right people are.
So try and interact a bit with them. Retweet them, reply to them and start gradually building
up just a handful of followers. After this first couple of weeks, you can then change
tack in terms of following other people and seeking people to follow you, and that is
what the next video will be about.
Now the videos are also released as podcasts for people who prefer audio only. Not all them
are but some of them are. So if you follow the link to connect, communication, change
website and go to the follow page, you'll find out there how to like us on Facebook,
how to follow me on twitter, how to circle me and circle connect, communication, change
on Google+ and subscribe in YouTube and all that kind of thing. Not all videos are made into
podcasts, but most are. And so you can find a podcast link on the connect, communication,
change website. Thank you for Listening. Thank you for watching. Visit our website
at http://www.connect-communicate-change.com for information about, and insight into, social
media for the voluntary and not-for-profit sector.