1. Be newsworthy and/or interesting.
Many people use Twitter as a primary news source or to find relevant information to their interests throughout the day. Know what your followers care about and share this with them.
2. Drive website traffic.
140 characters don’t provide much room for detail. Offer an appropriate hook, and then lead them to your website for more detail.
3. Link to fundraising appeals.
Twitter doesn’t let you raise funds on the platform, but you can easily create tweets that raise interest and drive traffic to fundraising appeals online.
4. Introduce petitions on timely issues to capture email addresses.
Twitter is ideal for micro-actions and nonprofits can leverage this for housefile growth. Lead supporters to simple petitions and pledges to capture email information.
5. Follow people with similar interests.
Help increase your visibility and understanding of your audience simultaneously by following users with similar interests that apply to your organization and its mission.
6. Shorten and track links to measure ROI.
This not only leaves more room for your message, but by using a dedicated link shortening service your organization can easily track what tweets receive the most clicks.
7. Leave enough room for the re-tweet.
The popular action of “retweeting” a user’s original tweet is the prime way of peer-topeer sharing on Twitter. When possible, leave enough room in your original message for someone else to retweet with your handle. Example: RT @username.
8. Tag advocates and influencers.
By using the @username of influencers, advocates and relevant parties in your messages, you alert them of the information and make sharing on their part easier and more likely.
9. Reciprocity is key.
Master the art of both retweeting and responding. Followers will be more likely to pay attention to what you tweet, as well as share it with others, if you’ve conversed with them or shared their content in the past.
10. Integrate.
To maximize the success of your Twitter efforts, integrate into other online and offline tactics. Incorporate a Twitter feed on your website, add a link to follow Twitter into direct mail pieces and include a “Share” on Twitter link in email.
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