Twitter can be a great space for building community around your membership-based organization, whether you work for a professional society, trade association or a cause-related nonprofit.

Here’s a quick eight-step rundown of how to set up a Twitter account for your “.org”. This isn’t the only way, of course. But if you are starting from scratch, this is what we’re finding works the best.

1. Set up a main “umbrella” account for the organization – e.g. @ORGtweets or just @ORG (“ORG” being whatever your acronym is).

Why? So people can find you easily. In the description, put in a nutshell what the organization does. A mission statement in under 140 characters, for example. (Be pithy – people like that. There are lots of other places you can be boring). For the website link field of the profile, create a Twitter landing page on your website which says, “Welcome to the Twitter page for [ORG]! We’re glad you’re here. Here’s what we’re all about. Here are some of the things we tweet about. And here are our team members, should you be interested in following them too.” Then list your staff on Twitter as per #2.

2. Give your staff their own individual accounts – e.g. ORG_Bob, Maggie@ORG, etc. If you have several staffers already on Twitter with their own followers, allow them to use their accounts for tweeting on your behalf, assuming they are willing to do that.

Why? because people want to see individual people representing their organizations. There can be backlash when that doesn’t happen. Presumably each staffer will have their own personality, their own things they like to tweet about personally and professionally, and they will also have their own content that they are responsible for – namely PR, or marketing, or advocacy, or publications, or events. Each person will grow their own followers independently – and can share them under the umbrella account as they go along (see #5.)

3. Use a multiple Twitter account client to manage your accounts.

Why? Because it’s MUCH easier than signing in and out of accounts all day. SplitTweet works great, as do HootSuite and CoTweet (currently in private beta).  All these services allow you to monitor multiple accounts at the same time – so your team can choose to tweet something to their individual accounts and the umbrella account, or just to one at a time.  SplitTweet has a cool “track your brand mentions” feature; CoTweet allows you to tag your replies as being from a particular person, and allows you to assign responses to team members. HootSuite has great analytics and intelligent search for Twitter conversations. All three are always improving and evolving as professional Twitter use grows, and there may be a new multiple account application on the scene by the time this post appears, so just find the one that has the functionality you need.

4. Ask each staffer to follow people who tweet regularly about your industry or cause, as well as actively Tweeting members, donors, or other stakeholders.

Why?  Because Twitter is about conversation – and directed conversation can build community.  Find those other interested Tweeps simply by using Twitter search for your particular industry keywords, your organization name mentions, even competitor or sister organization mentions.  Twitter directories like Twellow , We Follow , and Twibs allow you to find people based on tags or types of business.  Each staffer should find their own relevant people to follow, based on their particular interests or area of expertise.  If you have members, or an email list of any kind, use Twitter’s own import function to import emails and find those members already on Twitter (only do a few at a time).  Look for names you recognize, or clearly active Tweeters (you can tell by the number of updates, friends and followers they have).  You only need to find a few key active stakeholders – others will come with them when they start to interact with you.  Ask those you have a good “real life” relationship with to help you spread the word about your new presence on Twitter.

5. Under the umbrella account, periodically retweet items from your team members as well as from their followers/friends.

Why? To show a coherent stream of content where visitors can immediately see what you’re about and that different people speak for you in different ways. If managed well, you can follow relevant public conversations between team members under the umbrella too – conversations that might draw people in to whatever topic you are discussing. Retweeting good stuff by people who are part of your network gives them an ego boost and shows them that it’s not all about you, that you’re paying attention to what they are talking about, that you’re interested in learning from them too.

6. Got an annual conference or big fundraising event? Use hashtags to enable your registrants and anyone else to find you through your event promotion.

Why?  Because the buzz leading up to and during face-to-face events can bring your organization into focus and can attract new people to your cause. Tweet lots of good stuff about how cool your event will be and use and promote a specific designated hashtag for it. Remember to publicize the hashtag in your other promotional materials too. We’re often asked about whether it’s a good idea to set up a separate Twitter account (as opposed to a hashtag) for a conference – this can work too, but a hashtag is more easily found in search, will trend if you have lots of people Tweeting the event, and allows you to differentiate between annual conferences from year to year – e.g. #Tech09 versus #Tech10.  Also, the staff members who have built a following on Twitter will stay visible and won’t be hidden under a conference account. They will each be enabled to add their own personal takes on the conference, by talking about the particular sessions they are attending and the things they care about from their individual (professional) viewpoints.If you set up a new account for each conference, you are basically starting from zero friends and followers each time – and it takes time to build those networks.

7. Bottom line:  Share great content.

Why?  Because great content sparks word of mouth, and word of mouth (you guessed it!) builds community.  Ask each staffer to take responsibility for sharing links with interesting and useful information relevant to their specific areas of expertise.  Encourage them to engage in conversation with their Twitter networks, respond to things other people are tweeting about, retweet links and tweets from people outside your organization as well as your own; don’t be afraid to actually converse about topics of interest. Find champions within your networks to help you spread the word about specific issues. Use your umbrella account to corral it all in a place where people can find it easily. Community builds around shared interests, but only if you nurture it and feed it, which means listening as well as talking.

8. Bonus: Benchmark and measure!

Why?  So you can see how it’s all going and know when it might be necessary to put in a bit more effort or move up to the next level of awesomeness. Benchmark and measure your progress using whatever metrics make the most sense to you.  Number of followers, organization links retweeted, new registrants to your events, etc.  There are lots of specific Twitter analytics apps out there, but measure engagement in other ways too.  Building community online is all about building community offline.

That should be enough to get you started!  Here are a couple places to find examples of associations and nonprofits on Twitter, as well as three related posts from Twitip that dig a bit deeper into Tweeting for organizational use.  Tweet on!

Associations on Twitter
more associations on Twitter
Nonprofits on Twitter
more on nonprofits using Twitter

TwiTip Resources:
Building an Effective Business Profile on Twitter
Tips for Brands and Nonprofits
How To Handle Multiple Users Within Your Company

[Image by Maggi_94]

© 2008 TwiTip Twitter Tips.



8 Steps For Building Community On Twitter: Tips For Membership Organizations

Twitter Groups is an exciting new application that was launched by a small U.S.-based technology company November 27. With it, I have almost doubled the number of people following my smallish organic gardening niche and have added more than a dozen new resources to my blog! In the span of 18 days, more than 1,700 groups have signed up on Twitter Groups, from the Albuquerque (New Mexico) group to the Zut Society. I predict big things for this innocuous little app.

Don’t Judge a Book by Its Cover

At first glance, Twitter Groups doesn’t look very special. Go to http://twittgroups.com and you’ll find a plain-looking page with a Twitter Groups header, some text about Google Friend Connect, a bunch of ads and networking links in the right column. It looks deceptively simple. If you give it a try, however, I think you’ll discover that this tool will help you not only find the people you are marketing to but also give them an easy way to find you!

The big news is that on Monday TwittGroups.com joined forces with Google Friend Connect. Now you can connect with peeps all over the social networking universe. My Twitter group now has a Facebook-like wall that comments—even videos—can be posted to. I suspect Twitter Groups pages will not be “plain-looking” much longer.

Signing Up Is Ridiculously Easy

Before starting your own Twitter group, I suggest you explore some others to see how they are set up. Maybe even join a few. Many Twitter groups have very little activity. Based on what I’ve observed, and depending on your purpose, a broad framework will generate more activity than a tightly specialized niche. Unless, of course, you have brand recognition like ProBlogger, in which case your name alone will generate activity.

Once you have a feel for the application and are ready to start your own group, it’s a simple process. Click on Create Group located in the right column, fill in a few boxes and you’re on your way! Tip: Choose a short, catchy name for your hash tag (the shortened name that you will use in your tweets and that will show up in the Twitter Search application). For example, the formal name of the gardening group I started is Green Thumb Gardening Group, which is much too long for a 140-character microblogging platform like Twitter. So, in the hash tag box I call it #greenthumbs. Makes sense, right?

When you click on Submit, Twitter Groups propels you back to your timeline with an automatically generated, totally customizable tweet that goes something like this: “I just made a Twitter Group at http://twittgroups.com/[GroupName] for our [Group Name] group. Please Retweet.”

In less than a week, #greenthumbs has grown to 55 members—who are all into gardening! And when they joined the group, they also got to send out an automated tweet to everyone who follows them, thereby inviting their friends to join. Are you beginning to see the potential?

But That’s Not All

Each member of your group gets his or her Twitter name, Web site URL, and Twitter Group profile link publicly listed. Group members can also post links to their favorite articles, blogs, forums, photos, videos and wikis, as well as to events, with the option to send out a tweet that includes a link to the group! Now that Google Friend Connect has been added, your potential to connect with other peeps is even greater.

Just in case you can’t tell, I am enamored with this new Twitter tool. My only hope is that as it improves functionality (a Follow link was added over the weekend, which enables you to automatically follow group members without having to go to their profile), it also becomes more visually appealing. Regardless of how it looks, though, I am convinced this new application can help you expand your network beyond your expectations.

© 2008 TwiTip Twitter Tips.



TwitterGroups – A New Twitter Tool Will Help Expand Your Network [REVIEW]

Do you have a Twitter account for your company, and would like to give employees access to post to it? Would you like to start your own Twitter group and allow others to join and post their own relevant tweets? Twittbot may just be what you’re looking for.

What is Twittbot?

According to the website (twittbot.com), “TwittBot is a service that allows multiple people to publish to a single Twitter account, and for a single person to post to multiple Twitter accounts.” Developed by app developer Nick Davis (@davinic), it’s a free service that just launched in open beta on December 4th.

How Does it Work?

By creating a Twittbot account using your current Twitter username and password, you can allow others to post to that account with a simple @ reply. This allows you to create your own groups on Twitter. You can keep the group (or “bot”) closed (meaning that only authors that you allow will be able to post tweets to the account), or open it up for anyone to post.

The Test

To test this out, I created a Twitter account called coffeelinks (for my inner coffee geek). I kept the coffeelinks bot closed and invited others to join my group. I added those who were interested as authors, as shown below (click to enlarge):

I then told all allowed users to post links to coffee-related news, recipes, reviews, etc. to @coffeelinks. When they did, it showed up on the coffeelinks Twitter profile like this:

The post is preceded by the author’s username, so you can see who is posting to the account. I’m able to monitor the status of all posts through the Twittbot user interface and decide whether or not to publish a certain post. I can unpublish posts, or even allow authors who aren’t on my list (since the bot is closed).

The Verdict

Overall, I think Twittbot is a useful tool. It makes “group tweeting” and community-building via Twitter pretty easy – either for a company that wants a new way to engage customers on Twitter, or an individual who wants to start a Twitter group around his/her hobby. Twittbot does, however, have a little way to go before it becomes the robust group Twittering tool that I know it can be.

Looking through the user interface, there are quite a few bits that are still in development and “coming soon” – such as pro settings for auto-following, spam filtering, and update frequency. Also, once you’re in the UI, there are no links to help documentation or even back to the Twittbot homepage (where you’ll find a link to the tutorial). While the UI is pretty intuitive, it wasn’t entirely clear to me how to do certain things (like post to more than one account), and I ended up having to send a tweet to Nick Davis for his help. To his credit – he did respond quickly and with clear instructions for a single user who wants to post to more than one account.

Another drawback is that it can take up to 10 minutes for a post to be published to an account. One of the coffeelinks group members pointed this out to me – he mentioned that he posted a link to @coffeelinks; but it wasn’t showing on the @coffeelinks page. It eventually did; but I think 10 minutes is a bit long to wait in the Twitterworld.

What I’d Like to See

What I’d eventually like to see is a better way to manage multiple Twitter accounts through one Twittbot interface – and clearer instructions for doing so. As far as help documentation goes, I’d like to see a help section fleshed out and added to the UI for easy access – without having to go back to the homepage.

I’d also like to see options for how authors’ usernames are shown on tweets they post. Currently, they’re shown in parentheses at the beginning of the tweet. Depending on how you plan to use this tool, you may instead want author usernames to appear at the end of the tweet, or perhaps not appear at all (useful if you have several people at your company posting to a single company Twitter account; but you want tweets on that account to all show as coming from the company rather than individual employees).

Twittbot has a lot going for it, and a lot of potential as well. I recommend taking a look at it if you’re interested in building your own Twitter community.

© 2008 TwiTip Twitter Tips.



Creating Your Own Twitter Groups with Twittbot [Review]