How do people use Twitter?
At the time of writing, Twitter is the world’s fastest growing social media site (1,300% annual growth as of September 2009), but also has a high abandonment ratio due to the initial networking involved.
People say what happens on Twitter is inconsequential, but don't underestimate how powerful both celebrities and public opinion can be, combined with an easily-accessible too like Twitter.
There have been recent examples here in the UK of the power of Twitter in shaping the public consciousness - Jan Moir's article about the death of Stephen Gately led to a record 25,000 complaints to the Press Complaints Commission and Trafigura and Carter-Ruck's super-injunction against The Guardian led to questions in the House of Commons.
When Stephen Fry, a technology evangelist and keen Twitterer, announced he might leave Twitter, it became the top story on the BBC News website.
Because of the number of people following him and his status as a national treasure, Stepehen Fry is a very influential person on Twitter and a message from him promoting your cause or retweeting one of your campaigns could be very valuable. Have you looked to see if your patronds are on Twitter and if they are, have you messaged them to tweet about your organisation?
If you don't have access to a celebrity, you can also utilise your own foloowers to spread the word. Your followers trust you based on the quality of your messages, your past performance and your editorial judgement. If you tweet interesting material, they will retweet accordingly.
You can capture new followers by making use of hashtags - keywords or tags about topics or themes which people often search for and subscribe to. Example hashtags you could use in your tweets are #charitytuesday to promote a charitable cause or #followfriday to recommend another user. There are many more relevant to your cause, you'll discover what these are as you explore Twitter and start following people.
Twitter Lists are a good way to find followers and also to find people who are tweeting about themes relevant to your organisation. Use services such as Listorious to search for lists you can follow and build up your network.
Never forget: you only have 140 characters, so make all your words count!
Do
- apply the art of writing headlines
- your headlines will be taken out of context on social media, write it so it makes sense!
- useful - urgent - unique - ultra-specific
- apply an iterative design process
- include calls to action - Twitter is particularly suited to immediate actions from people who are online at the time, but clickthroughs tail off quickly. Email may be more suited for a more sustained campaign.
- be as concise as possible, but allow enough room for retweets. 50-60% of successful direct marketing headlines are eight words or less.
- stagger your messages throughout the day, to catch the most people
Don't
- automate the submission of your newsfeed unless it's carefully planned & part of a wider strategy
- assume that everyone following you will be in the UK - be sensitive to global timezones & working hours. Tweeting at the beginning and end of a working day will probably catch the widest range of followers
- overuse hashtags and RT, make sure your tweets are still readable!
- just promote your own content. Twitter is a conversation, not a pr newswire, so join the conversation and contribute to the community
- settle for large numbers of followers - only engaged followers matter
Useful links
- The Twitter Guide Book
- Nonprofit bloggers to follow on Twitter
- How non-profits can take advantage of Twiter Lists
- Does millions of followers mean you're changing the world?
- The art of getting re-tweeted
- Writing headlines that get results
- Writing magnetic headlines
- The Art of Writing Great Twitter Headlines
- Twitter postings: iterative design
- How Twitter makes you a better writer
- 140 Characters: A Style Guide For the Short Form
Next: Writing for YouTube