What do your Twitter connections say about your nonprofit?

Have you ever asked yourself what the accounts you follow on Twitter says to your potential audience about your nonprofit organization, your mission or your brand? If it’s a question you’ve never pondered I’d suggest you give it some consideration, on a pure business-to-consumer basis (translate that to nonprofit to donor) your existing Twitter network can speak volumes about your organization.

In a recent survey over half of Twitter users (58%) say they take some time to review the associated followed accounts and/or followers of a business/organization before choosing to follow it themselves.

Without drilling it down to political correctness who you follow says quite a lot about your online brand and reputation. While there are numerous reasons you might connect with other Twitter accounts consider the potential interpretation of those by your audience too. I point this out because not only may it result in you missing an opportunity to engage with a potential donor, but also because I see so many accounts where people have used Twitter Follower apps and programs that should exist to build a target audience but more often than not are just used to simply grow numbers – and it really shows on so many accounts. Of course there are also options to ‘purchase’ followers which I’ll write about more later but in the meantime the infographic below is very revealing.

Infographic courtesy of http://www.spiral16.com/. Click the link above to view complete graphic.

The reality is that the online circles you keep can have significant impact in showcasing your brand either positively or negatively. In that sense it’s a lot like measuring the value of the traffic to your website or blog. Would you prefer 300 visits daily that were engaged, exploring your site and finding your content useful and relevant or 900 per day who never go beyond the page they land on and leave your website within a few seconds of arriving? In the case of Twitter following 1,500 accounts of which 90% have no discernible relevance to your cause is less valuable than following 300 accounts that are related. An extreme example would be if you were to work for an organization that funds cancer research it would look odd or distasteful to follow a tobacco company.

Your potential followers are of course able to view every account that you choose to follow and while your simple decision click was perhaps made in a split second, to your new potential follower you’ve essentially endorsed that other account or business by following them. Taking the time to consider if an account you choose to follow are sending their own message, and if so is it one that you are happy to be associated with? Downstream this can play a bigger part than you might expect in building your own Twitter followers. Have a look at your own account and see if you might want to pare down your followed accounts or even some followers?

Don’t forget that Twitter is 100% in the public domain, Google can and do index your tweets and your @replies which can be viewed a long time after you hit enter.

At the heart of this remember that more followers doesn’t automatically equate to stronger social media presence. If you follow 2,500 accounts and have 250 followers it suggests your use and understanding of Twitter might be without focus or clear intent. Take the time to review who you follow and who your followers are, dormant accounts may as well not be there and spam accounts are even worse. It’s estimated that over half (yes half) of Twitter accounts are inactive and about 70% are used less than four times a year. If your followed/follower audience has the same inactivity the volume of numbers holds no real value.

On a positive note, the many Twitter users that are very active are finding a tool that keeps improving its ability to find and engage with a target audience and from a business-to-consumer or business-to-business standpoint I feel it’s become a default social media tool to employ regularly if used well.

If you have any tips or questions about building strong brand awareness and audiences via Twitter please do share them below in the comments.

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Miratel Solutions is a Toronto call centre, eBusiness, and letter shop mail house specializing in professional fundraising services including telephone fundraising, online fundraising, lottery services, donation caging, donation processing and other donor management services. We are committed to our CSR business values in all contact centre services