Twitter is an online social network created in March of 2006;
think of Twitter as sending a text message over the web. Twitter is called “microblogging”;
you have 140 characters to get your message across (tweet). Fundraising is all about
building relationships and any successful fundraiser does just that. But the
hardest part of fundraising is maintaining a relationship with the donor after the
donation is given. I’m going to give you some suggestions on how to do just
that in this article. But first let’s learn a few interesting facts about
twitter.
- Twitter has over 400 million accounts worldwide.
- Twitter has 200 million active accounts worldwide.
- A Twitter user on average has 208 followers.
- A Twitter user on average follows 102 people.
- A Twitter user on average has sent out 794 tweets over the last 3 years.
- Twitter users send over a Billion tweets every 72 hours.
To make use of Twitter’s fundraising potential. You will
have to do more than send several tweets all day.
The Goal
Twitter is a community builder. Use it to build relationships with your
volunteers, donors, and those who need your help. My focus in this article will be on gaining,
building, and keeping your donors engaged in your cause all year long by using
Twitter.
1. How to gain a follower.
It is very important that you state your group’s purpose. A
potential follower needs to know your history. State your cause clearly. Be
passionate about it, tell the world how and why you got involved. Get people
interested, make them look forward to seeing what you will tweet
today. Promote traffic to your website. Make sure your website is a treasure
trove of valuable information about your group and really gives a lot of information
about your cause. Find out what people think about your cause, ask questions.
You will be amazed at how many followers you can gain across the world, who simply answered a question.
2. Build a community.
Now that you have gained some followers, it’s time to build
a community, by using Twitter to get people involved in your mission. The strategy
we are going to use here is to combine offline and online fundraising tactics
to grow a bigger audience. Your goal will
be to turn a follower into either a broadcaster, volunteer, potential donor, or
all three. The best way to do this is to promote some type of event, or
meeting. Use tweets to instigate attendance, let the community know everything about
your event and what it’s for.
The broadcasters: I love these people. Ask them to “retweet”
the event to their followers then have their followers do the same. Your cause could
be tweeted to hundreds of thousands of people. There is a lot of potential in
asking for “retweets.” Your broadcasters will get people hyped up, they are the ones who deliver the buzz.
The volunteers: These are the people who believe enough in
your cause to show up and support you and the community that you’re building.
When tweeting ask them to bring friends along who may be interested in your
cause. Let them know how they can help.
Do you need a guest speaker, someone to manage a booth, or people to pass out
flyer's?
The potential donors: If you have managed to properly engage and build your community. Most likely you will truly have a group of people who believe in your cause. Make sure you continue to ask questions and find out what interests others about what your doing. Eventually you will turn some of your followers into donors, others will bring donors to you, and many will listen.
3. Maintain a Lasting Community
As I stated earlier most groups are unable to maintain the
relationship that was built to get the donation. Twitter gives you the ability
to maintain that relationship with your donor. This in turn can help you to
maintain your donor for years to come. Recognize volunteers, sponsors, retweeters, and donors. If they
make a contribution of money or their time, tweet it. Keep followers up to date
on the progress of your fundraiser. How much did you raise last week or at your
weekend rally. If possible tell them how their contributions have impacted the
lives of those it has helped and the community.
I hope you now see Twitter as more than just another social media platform. Instead I hope you think of
twitter like I do. My followers and those I follow on Twitter are family. Treat
them well and you will be rewarded.
Most of the statistics I posted in this article came from http://www.beevolve.com/twitter-statistics/
I would like to thank you guys for a very interesting read.
Thank you for reading,
Dasia
