The Guide to Major Trusts 2025-26. DSC (Directory of Social Change)

More musings on Twitter

Howard Lake | 24 October 2008 | Blogs

Micro-blogging tool Twitter does seem to be social media tool of the moment, or at least the shiniest new gadget that lots of people are discovering.

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Some thoughts and observations on this subject:

Campaigns


Celebrities

We’ve had tennis star Andy Murray and polymath Stephen Fry Twittering and gaining considerable media attention and/or large followings.

Now we have Terry Wogan joining the celebrity Twitterers throng, just in time for BBC Children in Need. He’s already done one good deed for Bullying UK by contributing to their anti-bullying campaign.

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Given the thrill (yes, that’s what I felt) when I received messages telling me that Stephen Fry and Terry Wogan were following me on Twitter, you can imagine the potential in charities encouraging their celebrity supporters to Twitter on their behalf. Or, if they Twitter already, to post messages from the charity to their supporters.


SEE ALSO: Tweets from the Institute of Fundraising Convention 2008 (10 July 2008)


Will this celebrity Twittering be a fad? Almost certainly. So use it fast while you can.

Could you be duped by someone pretending to be these celebrities? Yes. I’m sure it’s the real Stephen Fry but haven’t listened enough (OK, at all) to Radio 2 recently to know if it’s the real Sir Terry.

Charities not even bothering

Many charities have still not taken the time even to explore Twitter. Which could hit them when they realise that someone else has taken the perfect Twitter ID for them. So well done to Whizz-Kidz for at least grabbing their ID, even if they’ve only posted one tweet.

So, if your charity hasn’t registered on Twitter yet or is still undecided about whether to spend any time on it, do please at least register your charity’s name as an ID on it. You don’t need to be reminded of the problems experienced by charities who were slow off the mark registering their domain names.

Third Sector magazine has done so, but has not yet published its first tweet. Its jobs site however already publishes jobs via Twitter.

We’ll keep sharing thoughts, ideas and examples of the use of Twitter by fundraisers, but feel free to chip in your thoughts and experiences.

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