Undeniably, social tools like Twitter and Facebook can help your congregation. But which is better? Take two nanoseconds and give us some feedback on our poll. We’ll report our findings.
Twitter messages (aka tweets) may be limited to 140 characters, but have an impact greater than your typical sentence. Follow these tips to make sure your efforts aren’t the equivalent of online mumbling. (Curious about what Talance is saying? Follow us @talance.)
Just because you’re tweeting doesn’t mean anybody knows about it. Make sure to tell them. Announce it in your bulletin. Mention it during meetings or services. Upload your contact lists to see who in your network is using Twitter. Take steps to make sure people know about your Twitter initiative.
Even if everyone in the world is listening, they’ll tune out if you don’t say anything worthwhile. Plan what you’re going to say, and make sure it’s worth saying. This doesn’t mean you need a daily Twitter script, but it does mean you should think about what topics you’ll be covering. I keep a sticky note on my monitor that has a list of the topics I want to make sure to cover in Talance’s communications.
Your website should be the central hub for all your communication. This means that any Twitter, Facebook, e-newsletter, etc., project you have should lead back to your site. Since you can keep deep stores of information on your site, this is your opportunity to point people there for more details. In terms of Twitter, this means showing your most recent tweets show up in a Twitter feed, and also providing a link back to your Twitter account on the homepage.
Most social networking services, including Facebook, Delicious, LinkedIn, MySpace, Wordpress blogs, all have Twitter plug-ins, which allow your most recent tweets to show up on those services. Use them!
Start bragging about your tweets by telling us about it in the comments box below.
Too many of the non-profits and religious organizations that come to us think of their communications strategies as one-way streets that never intersect. While they may send messages through their website, Twitter account or Facebook Page, many never ask for feedback or take steps to build a conversation. Instead, they’re focused on one-way announcements of ticket sales or special initiatives.
Usually, those messages never intersect with a blended communications strategy. You may see that a church has a Facebook account – but only if you happen to come across it on Facebook.
The important thing to remember is that someone who might be really interested in what you do might not be a Facebook or Twitter user. So that means that if you put all your energy into Facebook or Twitter or any other singular thing, they’ll never find you. Spread it around.
Here are a few good examples of how to blend different communications initiative:
Add a custom background on your Twitter page that has information on how to find your website or subscribe to your blog. Check out ours.
Send messages on Twitter that point people to useful information on your website or blog. Rather than, “Did you know we have a blog?” try something compelling like a snippet from a recent blog post or initiative, “We’ve placed a bounty on Michael Vick. You read that right. Get details.”
This plug-in, which works with Drupal and Wordpress, in addition to other websites, lets members log onto your website using their Facebook login and share information in both places at once.
It helps to see what other organizations are doing right to guide your own Web strategy. Here are six stand-out examples from non-profits that have a presence with websites, Twitter and Facebook.
10ThousandDoors.org is a gutsy move by the United Methodist Church to be a truly interactive experience. The whole site is innovative, but the Talk page is a new breed of discussion boards that has really opened up sharing and communication.
Take the Walk has a great counter on its homepage. They tally the number of miles supporters have walked to support fighting AIDS in Africa. The placement is perfect: front and center. This ensures the site is geared toward pulling in new supporters.
Ashoka started promoting their e-book through Twitter and quickly built up a following. This multi-tasking post is smart, because they thank their followers, help everyone feel included and continue the promotion all in one Tweet.
The town of Richmond, VA, had a double-header of a good idea. First, they started a city wiki (others here), and then they set up an automatic Twitter feed that publishes any updates to the wiki. It gives you a real-time, accessible view of any changes that happen at the town level.
Peta launched a Facebook Cause to raise funds and donations to protect animals. They’ve raised nearly $60,000 and have enabled others to recruit more supporters and raise funds on their behalf.
Synagogue 3000 claimed a great web address so they’d be easy to find on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/synagogue3000) rather than the ugly and hard to remember stream of numbers that Facebook adds to the end of your URL when it assigns one to you. Click here to set yours.
Twitter updates come as fast as you can draw a sharp breath, but they may not be as spontaneous as they seem. Thanks to a selection of scheduling services, you can create tweets ahead of time and post them in the future, while you’re busy with something else.
Delayed tweeting isn’t the best strategy for building relationships with your followers (can you imagine having your half of a conversation an hour before you meet a friend for lunch?), but it can help when you want to deliver a message but aren’t able to.
For instance, if you want to notify everyone about a new project you’re launching on a set day. You can schedule the announcement to go out while you’re busy setting up said project. Or say you’re at a conference getting ready to speak. You want to tell your followers you’re about to step on stage so they’d better bustle down to the conference room, but you need to give the live audience your full attention.
Here are some tools you can use to set your tweets into the future:
[Have a question you’d like answered? Use the comments form at the bottom of this page to submit it. We’ll review your question before posting (don’t be shy about asking!) and get back to you with a response.]
E-mail lets you send a message to one person or a list of people you select. A discussion board lets you post a message to a group of members (usually). Twitter, on the other hand, lets you post a message to anybody in the world who wants to read it.
This got a participant in our recent presentation Does Twitter Matter for Nonprofits? asking:
When you broadcast, can you broadcast only to people who are following you?
It’s a great question, and one that we’re frequently asked. The short answer is yes.
Twitter explains best with this passage (which I shortened a bit. You can read the whole explanation here):
When you sign up for Twitter, you have the option of keeping your account public (the default account setting) or protecting the account to keep your updates private. Public accounts are visible to everyone. Protected accounts aren’t. Only approved followers are able to see these profile pages.
To protect your profile:
When you navigate to your home page after protecting your profile, you’ll see a notice reminding you that your profile is now protected.
If you have a public account and you protect it, all updates after the time of protection will be protected.
Congregations have been wild to know what Twitter can do for them, proven by the powerful turnout at two presentations I’ve given on the topic.
The uses are many, but here’s a quick run-down of what I’ve found in my work with churches and synagogues, divided into clergy members (rabbis, preachers), administrators and youth group leaders. Find more tips by following Talance on Twitter, and of course, send your own.
Clergy
Administrators
Youth Group Leaders
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Hi, Friends!
If a picture is worth a thousand words, how many words is a video worth? And how much is that video worth if it travels virally, propelled by someone other than you, and saves you effort and boosts awareness of your organization?
In short, a lot.
Many of you have figured that out already. You turn to YouTube to learn about other organizations, for tutorials and movies from your friends and colleagues. And you’ve seen that free and wide-reaching video-sharing sites not only let you tell a story through moving pictures, but they open up the conversation to your fans. This means they can sing your praises for you, and you have a chance to build a stronger relationship with them.
We’re so excited to be presenting on just this topic at Massachusetts Service Alliance’s 2009 Conference on Service and Volunteering on June 4 in Marlborough, Mass. Learn more and register here: http://www.mass-service.org/
Our own Monique Cuvelier will be presenting the closing session, Using YouTube in Volunteer Programs. We hope you can come and learn a bit about engaging volunteers through video and share some of your stories. We’ll also be holding a drawing for a $300 Talance gift certificate and a copy of Jill Friedman-Fixler’s book Boomer Volunteer Engagement: Collaborate Today, Thrive Tomorrow.
If you can’t make it, but you’re on Twitter, you can follow the discussion at #MCVS.
Twitter Webinar – Free
Remember that Talance is offering a 30-minute free webinar on Does Twitter Matter for Non-Profits?, Tuesday, June 23, 2009 from 2-2:30pm Eastern. Learn how you can make sense of this madly growing tool and how it applies to you.
»Register for this free webinar now!
Reader Q&A
Have a technology question? Ask it, and we’ll answer! We answer a reader question in the blog every week for the benefit of everybody. We’ll review your question before posting (don’t be shy about asking – no question is stupid!) and get back to you with a response.
The most popular recent posts on Talance Friendly Web Tools Blog. Make sure you’re reading http://talance.com/blog and sign up for the news feed.
Reader Question: How Do People Find Me on Twitter?
Description of a few ways people might be finding you on Twitter.
Do Your Own Social Media Survey
The best way to figure out what social media to invest in is to ask the people you’re trying to reach.
Spring Clean Your Website
How to tidy up the messiness that worked its way into your website over the winter.
Who Uses YouTube
Everybody knows it’s full of 15-year-olds lip-synching to pop songs. Right? Wrong.
Why is your synagogue using Twitter?
It’s happening ever so slowly, but more and more synagogues are beginning to experiment with Twitter. Why are you?
Make a Better Website with a User Survey
Set up a questionnaire survey to find out what your audience thinks is most important.
Every Door on Your Website Is an Entryway
One of the mistakes people often make is assuming visitors come to a website only through the homepage.
Working Your Out-of-Office Reply While You’re Away
Get a little fancy with this message and do a bit of promotion while you’re at it.
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Talance has helped clients launch scores of projects, ranging from websites to online newsletters to CRM projects. Please click here to schedule a time to talk about your next project or to request a proposal.
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As social networks spread and become more intricately woven, words like “meme” (rhymes with “dream”) are used frequently, in particular “Internet meme.”
Internet meme, n. an idea or catchphrase that spreads quickly from person to person online.
Examples of Internet memes are LOLcats or Twitter hashtags like #charitytuesday. Wired magazine features Meme Alerts, have a look at some of the ones they’ve discovered.
Pepole make studies of memes. You can read more from this helpful article in Straight Dope and The Lifecycle of Memes.
It’s happening ever so slowly, but more and more synagogues are beginning to experiment with Twitter. Check out who’s there now by going to http://twitter.com/synagogue. Churches and non-profits have cottoned on to Twitter a while ago (check out this recent article from Time magazine), but it’s been moving much slower and with more contention in the Jewish sphere.
Twitter, for those of you who haven’t yet decided to fiddle with it yet, is a utility that lets you send a 140-character message to your community of subscribers. It’s a bit like how Reuters news service delivers stories to newspapers around the country, but you’re the Reuters, and the newspapers around the country are anybody in the world who’s interested in what you have to say. If you want to see it in action, you can follow Talance at http://twitter.com/talance or @talance.
Like any social media tool, Twitter can be useful as long as you think carefully about how you’re going to use it and work it into your overall communication plan. You can find it’s useful for attracting volunteers or promoting events.
We’re wondering how many of you synagogues have thought about how you’re using Twitter, so we put together this poll. Take a few seconds (it’s super short) to answer why you’re using Twitter. We’ll post the results here when the poll is up.
If you’re NOT using Twitter, use the comments below to tell us why you’ve decided to give it a pass.
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