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@Amanda on Twitter,
Amanda Rose probably in real life,
or do you just go by Amanda?
Depends who you are, but I will answer to Amanda.
You are the kind of brain child behind Twestival.
You are one of the kind of main organisers,
the person that is doing a lot of good in explaining and expressing
what's important about the Twestival movement
and about what you've done to make a difference using Twitter as a tool.
What's happening?
It's been such a success so far,
and you've created this, dare I say, phenomenon.
What's happening next?
Yeah, well, what's happening next is
we're actually gonna have another Twestival.
The first one was in February, February 12th,
and that happened within a matter of sort of three, four weeks,
and some people even organised events around the world
in less than two,
so I definitely knew I wanted to give people a lot more time,
but I wasn't ready to have another global Twestival,
which means rally round one cause,
because there's a lot of thought that goes behind that.
I get approached by, I don't know, 20 charities a week,
not-for-profits, people that just want to tap into this
and tap into the already plugged-in network
that wants to support a cause.
But ultimately I'm working globally.
I'm not working just in the US or the UK.
So there has to be a lot of thought behind it.
So there is gonna be a global one that'll happen in February,
sort of annually, but in September, on the 12th,
we're gonna be doing Twestival Local,
which will happen on the same day, in an international sort of aspect,
but allowing people to select charities locally.
They have to be registered. They have to be reputable charities.
We will verify that with volunteers,
'cause Twestival's run all by volunteers,
with sort of like a central operations, being me.
Just making sure that things are run in accordance with, you know...
We wanna make sure... Twestival is a brand now,
so we wanna make sure it's used properly.
What kind of training does it take to actually undertake
something this huge?
- I don't know. - What's your background?
How come you seem to be able to manage quite well?
I've got an events background, so obviously that certainly helped.
I'm an entrepreneur at heart.
I don't have a problem taking on new challenges,
and that's sort of what I thought.
I thought after the first Twestival, which happened in London...
We called it Harvest Twestival,
which was just, you know, a fun event,
and we just wanted to bring people together.
We didn't raise a huge amount of money.
We raised a lot more canned goods than anything else.
But it was just that concept of thinking we could, you know,
I could multiply it into other cities by using my network
and getting the word out.
I just knew I could do it.
I think it probably helped
that I did my masters and my dissertation on Twitter,
which I don't actually promote.
Not many people know that, I don't think.
No, mostly because my dissertation was awful.
'Cause I just wanted to soak up so much knowledge from people
that I did probably four or five times
the number of interviews I needed to do,
and it just ended up escalating.
So what I'm gonna do is I'm...
You know, I definitely passed and I got my masters,
which is, you know, the nice checked box.
But I wanna take that as a resource and I am gonna put it online,
so all the interviews sort of a year from the date that I did them,
which'll be quite interesting,
which are, you know, Jemima Kiss from the Guardian,
and, you know, Rory Cellan-Jones from the BBC,
and then there's other entrepreneurs and different people,
just to see what their perspective is maybe a year later.
So I'll be doing that this summer.
How do you keep people as generous as they were the first time round
without them thinking, "Oh, more charity stuff."
Because other people have seen your success
and they're starting to do a lot of social good,
which is fantastic, Twitter should be used for this.
How do you keep them keen?
How do you keep them excited and passionate
about the causes that you're talking about?
I... Yeah, charity fatigue is a huge issue,
which a lot of people would wanna host events every month,
a lot of people wanna host events every quarter.
For me, I've been very particular.
I've actually had to pull out, you know, sort of,
"I have trademark rights on Twestival."
Because there is already a designated support network and loyalty
to the fact that if I say...
Yesterday I sent out an email
a couple of hours before I made the announcement.
I said, "Hey, organisers," 202 of them,
"I'm gonna make an announcement."
"I'm not gonna tell you the specific day,
but I'm giving you a couple of months, so don't worry,
but are you in?"
And all of them came back within an hour.
We had 50 cities within an hour say, "I'm in,"
and didn't even now beyond that what it was.
I didn't say we're doing anything local or anything.
I just said it's gonna happen in about a couple of months.
But I think mostly because I've said no.
I really think it's important to make conscious, proper decisions
about what you're supporting,
and I represent something quite global and powerful,
and I'm happy for people to take something on,
but I don't want them to use the Twestival name.
Now, I think after the next global Twestival in February,
it'll become, you know, a bit more open-sourced,
in the sense that you'll have check boxes of, you know,
are we raising money, as opposed to just raising awareness?
Now, that's a huge thing for me.
So we had people that wanted to do a peace Twestival,
which is great, and I'm all for peace,
but I just don't think it was, you know, the right use.
You can do that with conversation.
You can do that with inspiring people with good content.
Yeah.
It takes a little bit much to be able to get the money
and process the money and then make sure it goes to the right place,
which I saw with your amazing follow-up videos,
where you actually went into Africa
and showed people where the money was going.
Well, that part of it really came down to charity: water,
and I was always trying to be as transparent as I could,
using the technology, with the time that I had.
'Cause I would have loved to, you know,
have a lot more tools at my disposal, which we will for the next one.
But, yeah, charity: water,
I couldn't have picked a better organisation to work with.
They were fantastic.
And eight weeks later, to show people exactly where their money went,
that doesn't always happen.
So I think there's a real lesson here for charities and not-for-profits.
I notice there was an article in the Harvard Business Review.
They were talking about how it was easier for not-for-profits
to utilise social media.
I didn't finish the whole article, so I can't give you any feedback,
but, you know, I think that people are really,
it's a really interesting area,
and I think there is a huge opportunity.
And I don't want people to think that they can carbon-copy Twestival,
because there is charity fatigue and people will get sick of it.
But I advised another organisation is I said,
"Why don't you do, you know, Tweet for Peace?"
"If you wanna use Twitter, don't do Twestival."
"Create your own brand."
I think there's room for everyone, but...
What tips would you give?
There are so many charities out there
wanting to kind of get into the conversations,
because obviously they're as passionate as anybody else
about what they wanna raise money for.
Give a couple of tips, how they don't make mistakes,
don't get charity fatigue and don't start spamming the timeline.
Yeah. I think, well, focusing straight on Twitter,
'cause that's probably what I know best,
just be yourself, don't push at it.
I know that things can happen instantly on Twitter,
but it doesn't mean you should have 500 followers within five minutes,
because what you need to do is instead of having 1,000 followers,
it's better off having 100 followers
who are really dedicated to your cause.
Because what that'll mean is those people will tweet,
they'll evangelise you, they'll support you,
they'll wanna host events, they'll get other people excited about it.
And don't push too much content out there.
Sort of listen and have a dialogue
and, you know, follow people back that you find interesting
and that support what you're doing.
I think those are ultimately the first things you should be doing.
I don't think it's accidental that it was a lot of fun, as well.
Yeah, yeah. You should enjoy it.
I mean, I feel really bad turning charities away.
I say turning charities away.
I just say, "As you can appreciate, I get a lot of requests."
"At this time..."
"I think there will be an opportunity for you in the future,
but at this time I can't make any decisions because it's not fair."
But, you know, I'm always encouraging,
and I just say reach out to those people who you think, you know,
would support you on Twitter.
Ultimately, there's a lot of causes out there,
but Twitter will make it easier to reach out to them
if you just have a bit of patience and be truthful with it, so...
Brilliant. Give a quick plug to wherever everybody can go to
to get a pre-empt on what's happening in the future.
Yeah. So if you go to twestival.com,
we will be updating with more content
and you'll be able to download guidebooks.
I'm just updating that in the next week.
So by July 1st, there'll be a way for you to access
and join in to the Twestival group with your own city.
Brilliant. Thank you very much.
- Thank you. - Good luck.