Twitter BEST PRACTICESSocial Media

Conversation in Community

Susan Tenby, DirectorOnline Community/Social Media Team

TechSoup Globalsusan@techsoup.org@suzboopSusantenby.com

We are working toward a time when every nonprofit and social benefit organization on the planet has the technology resources

and knowledge they need to operate at their full potential

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KingdomUnited States

Double-click to enter titleDouble-click to enter textCommunicating across social media channels for the TechSoup Global online networks

Online Community and Social Media Team

Cause, campaign or organizational plan & presence?

Effective Social Media Strategy and Powerful Tactics for Networked Nonprofits

Campaign or organizational plan?

Mission & Purpose?

What do you want to accomplish?

Measurable Goals

Call to Action Request

Organizational voice and brand

Authority Position?

Step One:CHART THE COURSE:

Determine whichChannels are right for you – and right for your audiences to receive you

WHY TWEET?_______________2- Way ConversationKeeps you currentKeeps you as AuthorityFeedback LoopSpread word abt youCOMMUNITY

Mission

Measurable Goals Connected to Specific outcomes

Call to Action Request

What do you want to accomplish?

What is your call to action?

What do you want by having & monitoring your social media presence? • Drive traffic to your website? • Increase your org’s thought

leadership? • Generate partnerships? • Donations? • Buzz? • Volunteers?

Pick one or two goals: Stay Focused!Be Charming!

Being Nonprofit Twitter Rockstar Doesn’t = Fundraising $$

SOCIAL ESSENTIALSMission, Goals, Vision for sharing your story

• Minimal Outreach and Community: Facebook & Twitter• Minimal Listening: Google Alert & Twilert/Social

Mention/Topsy• Minimal Tracking: Hootsuite & Insights

The Right Formula = Your Secret Sauce

Managing your internal voices

Listening to your external voices

Who do you want to participate?How do they participate?At a minimum...When setting up your networks, make sure you include the following:1) Photo and/or logo2) Links back to your website3) Content about you or your organization

Organizational voice and branding…

What is your Authority Position?

Twitter account branding:

Think abt it!Outreach:Identify newPotential partnersAcross many media Outlets & Channels

What is your story?

Who is telling it?

With what voice?

Who voicesyour social

sites?

Find your peeps through hashtags, Listorius & Twellow

Carefully name your account & Fill out/update your bio with campaign info. Show people!

Don’t Tweet Like CHER.

• Don’t tweet like Cher• Don’t make up

#uselesshashtags• Don’t spam via DM• Don’t call yourself a

rockstar or guru• Don’t put an emoticon

or exclamation mark after every tweet

• Don’t be self-referential in all your tweets

• Track click-thru using Bit.ly & do what works

• If yr going to RT something, READ IT first

DO Tweet Like…57% of Nonprofits are on twitterAvg follwer base up 2%, 1822 followers

ENGINEER SHARING!

CONVERSATION

Hashtags #NPtechResearch and find tags from many communities related to your field

Participate in conversations that help you engage new audiences and strengthen your authority positions

Use tags to organizeInformation and grow diverse conversations

TECHSOUP CAMPAIGN:DIGITAL STORYTELLING

Social stories shared amongst trusted friends

A community created around a hashtag

http://tiny.cc/tsdigs

Social: What to do & what NOT to do

• DO find a third party listening dashboard tool that you like such as NetVibes or Google Reader for RSS/alerts

• DO subscribe to Alerts about relevant topics• Don’t delete or Ignore negative feedback,

address it• Don’t use your friends and followers for their

networks• DO tag Strategically, redundantly across

many channels• Don’t only broadcast about your org, share

stories & respond• Don’t be a control freak: guide conversations• Don’t just expect someone will run your SM

channels, designate someone!• DO track your progress using social analytics

tools that help you track success

Amplify, but speak the right local language

• Don’t use other people’s pages as a platform for your spam

• Don’t Auto Feed your Status updates to Facebook

• Don’t use Selective Tweets• Do take a little time, show

you care• Do take advantage of

features of the channel such as crosstagging to groups, people and places at once with links

• Do find your niche community & stay focused on that topic

LISTENING

A few good Dashboards:Use for listening,NOT Broadcasting

HootsuitePros:• Good for listening, include tags, common misspellings, lists/groups• Allows us to follow multiple streams across many social media

sites, creating specialized campaign and search tabs for various projects, events and organizations

• Paid version gives downloadable reports for ROI information

Cons:• Free version won’t allow for multiple accounts or multiple users

CoTweetPros: FREE• Schedule & assign Tweets ahead of time PR releases &

allows teams to manage accounts• CoTweet & Hootsuire allow us to see who responded, when

& so we can figure out how to follow up to each request

Cons: Not as easy to use as a listening interface

Use TAGS to serendipitously search for your peeps

• Look for others using a tag you choose• Find what else those people bookmarked• Find other relevant tags• Packrati.us = Twitter + Delicious (you tweet, it bookmarks

automatically)• Share your resources via social media• If you’re listening, you can learn new tags on twitter & search other

networks too

Who’s talking about you & what hashtags & FOLLOW!

INTEGRATION

Create your own special sauce

• Figure out what your needs are, use a combination of tools• Don’t forget about mobile tweeting (Tweetdeck for multiple

accounts, channels mobile interface)• Many mobile clients have pic uploader installed in the app

(Peep)• Figure out a workflow that isn’t confusing to avoid Freudian

tweets• When you don’t have anything to say: Curate, ReTweet, reply to

conversations using hashtags and Share widely• Think more about RETWEETS & amplification than followers

Social Media Policy?

Don’t bother writing your own. There are TONS out there!See: http://npsocialmedia101.wikispaces.com/Facebook

http://www.scoop.it/t/social-media-policies-in-the-work-place

Be Redundant: Amplify Your Events & Message

• Remember your audience is in more than one community

• Think about these channels as communities, speak their language, use the local media

• Broadcast your events via livestreaming & Twitter

• Follow all your events with wrap-ups & broadcast the Slideshare link

• Have regular events and be consistent about how you share them

• Enlist volunteers to live-tweet / blog

SHARING is a deeply passionate activity for engaged audiences

to continue conversations+

SHARING is an act of conversion

Curate, Point to others, Save bookmarks & Share

• Don’t ever be afraid of having nothing to say: you can always Curate!

• Use Delicious to save bookmarks and share them

• Use Scoop.It to help you find topical, relevant, reusable content

• Share it and content from others

• When in doubt, ReTweet and be generous with @replies

BENCHMARKS & SUCCESS

Aim for realistic goals as you grow your social presence

http://nonprofitsocialnetworksurvey.com/

Know your goals and communicate the steps

Timelines:

VISION

STRATEGY

PROGRAM TIMING

DELEGATION

INVOCATION

COMMUNITY CARE

CEREMONIOUS CLOSING

ANALYSIS & WRAPUP

STEP TWO:STRATEGY

Know your course, deadlines, and work out a plan step by step

EXAMPLE OF CAMPAIGN TIMELINE

• Reminder to promote all this week from TS and personal accounts.

•  • Here’s a trackable bit.ly to use:

http://bit.ly/tstext2give •  • Marketing timeline

September 19 Promo blog post synopsis due to Patrick by MichaelSeptember 21 Promo blog post due in blog tool by Susan ChavezSeptember 22 By the Cup (9/27) text due by MichaelSeptember 26 Content spotlight on homepage goes liveWeek of September 26 Tweets, Facebook, LinkedIn promotion by all team begins, listserv promo text due to URAN by MichaelSeptember 29 By the Cup (10/4) text due by MichaelOctober 3 Targeted outreach and DMs to friendly tweeters and content experts

#Text2Give tweetchat

Nonprofits rely on multitasking teams working 10 hours a week or more on posting, listening, analysis and conversation on the social web

Most organizations have almost no budget for social media yet some leverage thousands in support thru volunteers

http://nonprofitsocialnetworksurvey.com/

Timing and Investment Needed

Blogs: 1-4 hours per post

Twitter: 5-30 minutes a day

Facebook: 5-30 minutes a day

LinkedIn: 15-30 minutes, weekly

Listservs: 30 minutes weekly

Other Groups: 30 minutes weekly

Photo Uploads: 15 minutes weekly

Videos: 2-4 hours a week

Curation: 1 hour a week

Total Average Social Media Time:

90 minutes per day

11 hours per week

3 minutes: Check for Twitter chatter about yr organization and sub-sector.2 minutes: Scan Google Alerts, Social Mention and Blogs Alerts for important articles and mentions.3 minutes: Filter and flag relevant sector-related LinkedIn group and Quora questions.2 minutes: Log in to Facebook to scan your wall and comments.

If you have 5 extra minutes, chime into a listserv to keep yr presence there!

MINIMUM Time it will take: 10 minutes a day

Questions?

Contact Me.. Really!http://susantenby.com/@suzboop@techsoup@npsl

www.techsoup.orgsusan@techsoup.orghttp://www.slideshare.net/suzboophttp://www.delicious.com/suzboop

http://npsocialmedia101.wikispaces.com/