Using Twitter to enhance your fundraising potential – part 2

In part one of this post we looked at the potential of Twitter being meshed into your overall approach to fundraising; including some of the gaps it can close with donor engagement and also an overview of some Twitter basics. I wanted to carry that forward today so you can develop a plan for using twitter on a daily basis for your non profit. Developing a plan that will not only provide followers to your Twitter account but more importantly followers that are relevant and interested in your cause doesn’t take a great deal of time so long as you identify the answers to a few key topics beforehand.

The very first question you need to address is just who might comprise your audience? Just as with other methods of communication such as your your website updates or email broadcasts you can’t always speak to everyone and more particularly about the specific interests they may hold. Twitter has the same limitations but understanding who your audience are will provide you the structure to create messages (twitter updates) that will appeal to your supporters. In turn something well worded and informative has much greater potential to be forwarded to the user’s own individual followers (retweet).

Some easy steps to learning about your audience include the following.

• Make a daily search on Twitter for the name of your non-profit
• Find Twitter users who are discussing your name and then follow them
• Track what else they post and discuss to determine what is of importance to them
• Gauge if they seem like people who will be interested in the work that you do and the values behind your organization
• Review more general search terms which will provide another cross-section of twitter users. If your non profits focuses on homeless issues search ‘homeless’ or ‘homeless organizations’, if you are health related try broader searches to broaden the scope
• Look at who else these individuals are following, how many people follow them and whether they seem to hold a position of influence. You can establish this by seeing if they are retweeted, post pertinent information frequently or link back to an active website or blog

Then establish how best to participate in the conversations that are taking place You need to review what people are saying in reference to your organization and similar organizations if applicable. If you support breast cancer awareness in California there will still be relevant discussions taking place in the UK, Canada, Australia or New Zealand. Are the people talking current or past donors, partners, advocates or perhaps those who have participated in fundraising events in the past? Ensure you search Twitter to look at how other large non profits interact with their followers. Twitter is such an open and public resource that you have no restrictions in your research. Look at some of the larger non-profits Twitter accounts National Wildlife Federation, Greenpeace, March of Dimes and see how they interact on Twitter. They have spent years developing a Twitter strategy based around engagement. Look at what and how they often they post; look at their following/follower ratios (usually close to 1:1) and see what they say to their followers directly.

If you are still unsure about Twitter I’d like to borrow a direct quote from Lon Cohen – the Director of the ALS Association who fight Lou Gehrig’s Disease:

With the free and easy-to-setup interface, a potential to reach a vast audience, the ability to engage with people in conversation directly, and the possibility to garner an audience more open to causes than advertisements, it seems a no-brainer for any organization seeking philanthropy and recognition for their mission. Like a cadre of superheroes, these organizations are on the spot, helping people with disaster recovery, health and human services, or just to get a dog a nice home

In part three we’ll look at hashtags, determining your goals, linking your network and building a winning strategy. If you have ideas, questions or comments please get in touch. We’ll also include a case study to get you started. Miratel Solutions have been providing the very best in Telephone Fundraising and Lottery Management services for over a decade, please visit our site and see learn more about how we can help you with your non profit.