Shine While Your Light’s On: Remixing Twitter for Young Nonprofit Professionals

I recently read a great blog post by Scott Allen about how Twiiter can be used for entrepreneurs. I thought his ideas also applied to young nonprofit professionals, with a little tweak here and there. So I decided to remix it!

Most of my nonprofit peers my age are on Facebook, and we get to connect with each other there. But by my rough estimates, it seems that less that 1/2 of my friends on Facebook are on Twitter.  When I ask them why, most people simply say, “what’s the point of Twitter?”  Well, to answer that question, one must understand what Twitter is, essentially. Commoncraft offers a great 3 minute explanation of Twitter in Plain English on YouTube. Now that you know what Twitter is at its most basic, we can answer the question, what’s the point? Twitter is a big chat room party with interesting people sharing lots of useful information before you could only get if you were in their “real-life” circle of colleagues. Even though I’ve only been active on Twitter for a few months, it’s has been more useful tool to me than Facebook. It’s gotten to the point where sometimes I Cheat on my Blog With Twitter! I’ll give you three good reasons why young nonprofit professionals should be using Twitter (like yesterday):

1. You can share knowledge, resources and tips with other nonprofit workers you wouldn’t normally see face-to-face. On Twitter you’ll find fundraisers, people who work at food banks, CEOs, communications professionals. You can ask them questions and help them with challenges they may have.
2. You can learn more about the nonprofit sector by following thought leaders in the field like @BoardSource (which is an actual organization www.boardsource.org). Boardsource uses Twitter to share timely and relevant nonproift news articles you might not otherwise be aware of. By having access to experts in the field, you can often save yourself a lot of time doing original research.
3. You can enhance your personal brand and market yourself as a resource in whatever your expertise might be. If you tweet about what you know, people will begin to respect you as a professional, regardless of your age.  Plus, it’s easy to get started!

How Do You Get Started on Twitter?

1. Pick a user name, maximum of 15 characters (no spaces). I recommend using your REAL NAME! Please don’t make it difficult for people to find you if your name is CutiePie1985. Plus, using your real name makes it easier to associate that name with the particular value and expertise you bring online. And really, it’s just the grown-up thing to do.
2. Sign up at Twitter.
3. Fill out your profile. For the “More Info URL” enter whatever web site you want to direct people to in order to learn more about you and your business. That could be your blog, your LinkedIn profile, or your Facebook profile. Please don’t use your Myspace profile that has no professional information about you on it!
4. Upload your photo. You’re already in the Settings area, so click on Picture (top center menu). It’s harder for people to build a personal relationship with you without seeing who you are.
5. Find your friends on Twitter. If you use a web-based email like Gmail, Yahoo, AOL, etc., Twitter can search your email address book for friends of yours who are already on Twitter. Otherwise, you can search for them by name. When you find people you know, click on the Follow button to view their updates on an ongoing basis.
6. Don’t forget to follow me @rosettathurman for information on nonprofits and young professionals, race and diversity issues, inspirational quotes, social media and whatever else I feel like sharing. Also feel free to directly ask me questions about those same topics.
7. After you sign up, send a tweet to me @rosettathurman and introduce yourself!
8. Start posting (“tweeting”)!

What Should You Tweet About?

A lot of young nonprofit professionals are worried they won’t have anything important or useful to tweet about.  That’s okay. When you first start out, you’re going to want your tweets to be a mix of different kinds of posts – info about yourself, interests you have, tips you’d like to share, articles you recommend. As you expand your Twitter usage, your content mix will start to vary depending on what you find useful to yourself and your followers.

The basic content you want to include in your mix are:

1. Status updates: What are you working on? What has your attention at the moment?
2. Sharing links: Whether it’s breaking news or valuable resources, share links that would be of interest to other nonprofit professionals.
3. Have an opinion:  Add your own commentary to those links. Help people get to know you as you share information.
4. Ask and answer questions: Google doesn’t have the answer to everything. Sometimes there’s just no substitute for a human being. Ask your followers how to do something, what they think about an issue, etc. Great information comes from the crowd!
5. Retweet:  Did someone you follow share something interesting? You can repost it out to your own network by using ‘RT’ atthe beginning i.e. RT @rosettathurman link to new fundraising resources. It’s simple and quick, and it acknowledges the person who sent it out in the first place by giving them a little extra exposure.
6. Organizational announcements: Yes, you can directly make announcements about your nonprofit – events, news, etc. Just don’t overdo it.

What Comes After That?

It’s really up to YOU. Twitter can help you shine while your light’s on and make you more visible as a young nonprofit leader. The only real way to find out is to dive in!

If you’re already on Twitter, please share your experiences! How has it been useful to you?

Up Next: Top 10 Young Nonprofit Professionals on Twitter