Twitter Best Practices by Allison Gross

Twitter Features, Tools, and Best Practices Why use twitter?

Twitter is unique platform allowing for two-way dialogue with target markets. Foundations and business alike are using twitter to promote their programs, share knowledge and best practices, connect with like-minded individuals and organizations, ask questions, and listen to key stakeholders’ opinions. Twitter can be an invaluable tool for marketing and communication, microblogging, business networking, breaking news, and streamlining electronic inboxes.

Other Foundations on Twitter Acumen Fund MSDF gates foundation grameen foundation ICICI Foundation SoCap09 CGAP GrayMattersCap

tweets/day 6.5 1.8 2.4 2.4 1.8 6.7 1.4 4.1

# tweets oct '09 82 25 87 46 10 34 22 45

replies to 12.85% 3.59% 2.16% 13.23% n/a 6.54% n/a 6.90%

retweets 30.72% 19.16% 8.27% 7.94% 52.11% 18.71% n/a 6.90%

followers 124,590 234 141,844 2,653 120 1,704 436 40

following 4,457 30 44 1,955 14 288 129 61

Acumen Fund Acumen Fund has 16 employees with their own accounts in addition to a generic AcumenFund account: - Jacqueline Novogratz (jnovogratz), CEO - Yasmina Zaidman (yasmina_acumen), Director of Knowledge and Communications - Robert Katz (robertkatz), Managing Editor Next Billion - Biju Mohandas (Biju_Mohandas), field agent in Nairobi - James Wu (bunkywu), Knowledge and Communications Associate - Brian Trelstad (Trelstad), Chief Investment Officer - Marc Manara (nhlhomer), Portfolio Associate - Sasha Dichter (sashadichter), Business Development Director - Aden Van Noppen (Adenvn),

Recommendation for GMC: Using Twitter gives GMC the opportunity to build followers, increase brand awareness, gain insight into sector trends, and follow what other foundations and organizations are doing for free. GMC’s operations are centered on collaboration, awareness building, and being pioneers in the sector and twitter is an essential tool to not only talk to constituents, but listen as well. This will help GMC employees stay in forefront of sector activity and ensure our work is relevant and inline with others,

ultimately maximizing impact. GMC’s audience is other foundations, investors, and social enterprises and many of these organizations are currently using twitter. This gives GMC an opportunity to tweet about investment opportunities, advocate the social enterprises in the mission-based portfolio, discuss vision of the sector and sector trends, share latest articles and research being done in this area, promote EnterprisingSchools.com and link to content in order to drive users to the site. Additionally, actively following other organizations provides immediate, constant knowledge about what other organizations are focusing on. This helps the entire sector stay connected and enables organizational growth through symbiosis. All employees that regularly connect with individuals in other organizations or use the internet to find relevant information should be on Twitter. The only way to individually see the benefit of twitter is to be on the site and part of the conversation. Employees can build their own network of organizations and individuals that they follow to get the information they want all in one spot and share important information with other doing similar work. Additionally, the Communication & Marketing Director should be responsible for overseeing activity on the generic GMC twitter user. Below is more information on Twitter tools that make managing multiple accounts within one organization very easy.

Twitter tools/terms Retweets

When someone makes a great tweet, you can share with others on your network by retweeting. To retweet someone else’s post is arguably the highest form of endorsement, compliment, and flattery on Twitter because retweeting helps drive traffic and conversation about that person’s work. Best Practices: - Use the common syntax “RT” or any other phrase to start your tweet; give credit to the original tweeter by adding @name next; add the link along with a quick note about the link and why it is relevant. Example: “RT: @originalPoster The 5 best Blog Tips http:is.gd/56f – great tips” - Be selective when you retweet since the point is to benefit your followers

Replies to If you want to respond to someone publically, you can address them by starting an update with @name followed by your comment. This continues the group conversation, and although you are addressing one person, they aren’t the only one that can see it Best Practices: - Start a conversation by proposing a question or making a comment and ask for comments. This will allow your followers to followers reply to you (Example: How would you define APS?) - use the replies tab to see replies to you from people you weren’t following - The “Swoosh” was recently added to the web interface to more easily reply - Generally, people’s settings are such that they don’t see your replies to someone they aren’t following, so there’s no need to worry about comments being out of context to some of your followers

Direct message

You can use direct messaging to have a private conversation with someone that is following you by using the Direct command. There are third party services that let you automatically message people that sign up to follow you on Twitter, but some argue it is better to send a personalized message to each new follower. Best Practices: - when constructing your auto direct messages on Twitter: • Be gracious. A simple “Thanks for following!” goes a long way. • Seem human. There are so many B.S. spammers out there that just making your DM seem like it’s coming from an actual person will give you some clout. • Be clever. Think of a way to make your message stand out among the other ones your follower is likely getting. Pique their interest, offer something that’s really unique, share a joke — just think about how you can present yourself as being different from the millions of other Twitter accounts clogging up the web. • Drop a link or two…just make sure that you’re promoting your site/services/products/etc. in a sensible and reasonable manner. • Link to other social networking profiles. Consider doing some cross-promotion (if it makes sense to) in order to expand your network. You might not want to do this if you’re looking to sell products or promote a business, but if you’re building up a personal profile then why not? • Change up the message. Try testing out different DMs to see which seem to drive the most traffic or receive the most responses. Also consider tweaking your DM to pertain to different events (e.g., “Happy holidays and thanks for the follow!”).

Hashtags (#socialenterprise)

Hashtags are a community-driven convention for adding additional context and metadata to your tweets. Hashtags can provide useful context and cues for recall, as well as increased utility for the track feature. Essentially, this feature groups together similar tweets by tagging a tweet as pertaining to a certain subject matter or thread. Best Practices: - when making generic statements, appending an additional tag or two might help others better understand your intent - For conferences and events, create a hashtag so attendees’ and GMC’s comments specific to the symposium or event are grouped together; remind attendees of the hashtag constantly (on website, twitter feed, opening remarks and throughout the day) - Don’t overuse them: If every one of your tweets IS a hashtag, you dilute the usefulness of them by fragmenting the conversation and it can seem like spam - Give your hashtag context – most won’t know what it means so give a quick explanation in one of your tweets, or make it very apparent what you are talking about

Twitter Tools Bit.ly -

the most popular and powerful URL shortener on the Internet Every bit.ly link has an Info page that shows the number of clicks and other relevant data that you can access by adding a ‘+’ to the end of the link

CoTweet: “how business does twitter” - Once you've got a great brand, know the social media landscape, And have a team of Twitterers connecting with more customers and prospects than ever before - Benefits

Keeps your brand human — Automatically include signatures in your updates to identify who's talking and keep conversations personal. Features: o Manage up to six Twitter accounts through a single CoTweet login. Invite colleagues to join your accounts to work as a team representing your company on the front-line of your Twitter presence. Add your personal Twitter account and manage all your tweeting through one interface. o

Monitor keywords and trends directly inside CoTweet. Twitter search is seamlessly integrated within the application. Maintain persistent searches on your product, brand and company names and take immediate action.

Share the responsibility of being on duty. Get email notifications when tweets are sent to your Twitter accounts.

Assign tweets to your colleagues for follow up. They'll be notified via email and the tweets will appear in their "Follow Up" queue. Once they've responded, you'll receive an email containing their response along with the original tweet.

CoTweet works seamlessly with bit.ly. View click statistics on links from your tweets. Configure your bit.ly accounts with CoTweet to keep your link history in one place.

Reliably break news at specific times, or just prepare tweets ahead of time to deliver a steady flow of updates throughout the day.

iTweet -

fantastically-interfaced way of viewing your Twitter stream. by clicking on the picture of someone’s tweet, you open their bio without ever leaving the page. See who’s following them, and easily follow or message new people. It’s great for easily and quickly finding and making new friends on Twitter.

HootSuite -

You can manage multiple accounts, logging into one or several at a time. You can schedule your tweets, to go out at a later time (perfect if you schedule your blog posts for after you write them), and even track your links – as long as you use HootSuite’s own owl.ly shortener.

There’s also a bookmarklet, for quickly sharing pages you’re into. You can even add users to your account, if you have more than one person managing your account. HootSuite’s definitely built for businesses looking to manage and track their tweets, and brand themselves with Twitter.

Twitree

When you log in, you get a tree showing you all of the people you’re following on Twitter, showing their most recent tweet. Click on the plus sign next to any given person, and it opens up a similar list- that person’s friends, with their most recent tweets. perfect for finding new friends on Twitter by searching the friends of people you already know and trust. You can also update your own Twitter status, right click to follow/message/retweet etc from the site very easily

Best Practices -

Leverage other profiles. Add it to your email signature, business card, blog, website, mention it in interviews or guest posts that you might do…. etc. The same applies with any online (or even offline) presence that you have – link to your Twitter page and link to it often Add Twitter icon link in your email signature Encourage Retweeting. Explain what retweeting is and ask followers to retweet posts they find interesting.

Post pictures. Pictures are heavily retweeted and spread around http://twitpic.com/

Ask questions. Keep questions relevant and acknowledge answers by either responding to each or send a general ‘thanks for your answers’ type tweet o pick a few responses to retweet and highlight as key answers o use answers publicly – for example you could pull the answers together and use them (or at least some of them) in a blog post o summarize findings – for example if you ask people a ‘yes or no’ question tweet the results – eg: ‘13 people said yes they’ve tweeted from the toilet and 16 said that they hadn’t’ o repeat question a few times throughout the day and use hashtags to gather and display answers o some use a set time each week ask a question so followers grow accustom to log in at that time each week to participate in the conversation o start tweet with QUESTION: to get more attention o you can also ask followers to finish the sentence: (social enterprise is…) Get Feedback. Need an alternative perspective on how a website looks or the right course of action to take? Blast out a message asking for advice and you’ll receive replies from other users. This collective intelligence can be used as fodder for articles or projects.

Look for the #hash topics and jump in on the conversation

Get Listed in Twitter Directories- Just like with your personal website, you want to get your Twitter profile listed in directories also. Sites like Just Tweet It and TwitDir make it easy for you to list your profile in relevant categories. While this won’t generate a sudden surge in followers, it will help you maintain your visibility over time.

Add People- If you want to entice people to add you, add them first. Every time you decide to follow someone, a message is sent to their email alerting them of your add. There’s a good chance they’ll visit your profile to check you out, and if they’re interested in what they see, they’ll add you back. Simple enough, right? Of course, you want to make sure you aren’t just blindly adding random people. Remember, you have to follow these people so you want to make sure they’re interesting to you.

Tweet Regularly- You can never expect your Twitter profile to gain any attention if you don’t Tweet regularly. I understand that maintaining a Twitter account can be time-consuming, but if you want the benefit of more followers, you have to be willing to post on a regular basis. Post at least a few times a day with quality content to maintain your visibility.

Be a Resource- If you’re using Twitter for professional reasons, this is something you should already be striving toward. You need to establish yourself as a leading authority in your field. How do you do this? By keeping your Tweets relevant; giving insight into hot industry topics; linking out to other great resources; and engaging thoughtfully into user-generated discussions about your industry.

Have more than one twitterer at the company. People can quit. People take vacations. It’s nice to have a variety. When promoting a blog post, ask a question or explain what’s coming next, instead of just dumping a link., ask a question or explain what’s coming next, instead of just dumping a link.

Hire People. Need a good logo designer, marketer or programmer? Send out a message asking for recommendations. This is a very quick and easy way to hire freelancers or even companies based on familiar recommendations.

Network for benefits. Twitter can be used as a socializing platform for you to interact with other like-minded people, especially those in the same industry. It can be used to establish consistent and deeper relationships for future benefits such as testimonials or peer recommendations.

Business Management. Twitter can be used as a company intranet that connects employees to one another. Workers can liaise with each other when working on group projects. Particularly useful when certain workers go out often in the field. Updates could be set to private for security reasons.

Event Updates. Businesses can use Twitter as a means to inform event participants and latest event happenings/changes. This is a hassle-free way of disseminating information, especially when you don’t have the means to set up a direct mobile link between you and the audience

Provide Live coverage. Twitter’s message size limit prevents detailed coverage of events but it can allow you to provide real-time commentary which may help to spark further discussion or interest on the event as other Twitter users spread the message. Very useful for citizen journalism.

Acquire Votes. Send a link to your stories you’ve submitted in other social news sites like Digg. Sometimes your followers will vote up the stories because they agree with it. This allows you to acquire more support for your efforts on other social media websites.

Tweet when People are There- On Twitter, timing is everything. Obviously, you don’t want to Tweet when your followers are sleeping. Of course, you also don’t want your Tweets to get lost in the peak hours shuffle. So, what should you do? The best thing you can do is keep an eye on your Twitter feed to see when there are gaps in the conversation for you to jump in. Obviously, business hours are best because that’s when most people are around. So, keep your eyes peeled for openings, and be ready to take advantage.

Help Others Out- It’s a tired but true adage; you have to give if you want to receive. Help others out by retweeting their posts and by linking out to their content. It sounds silly, but people really

do take notice and remember when you help them out online. It strengthens your relationship, and it will pay off when they click and retweet your links.