Twitter tips for associations

Saturday, July 19, 2008

Twitter is not for every association. In fact, before you even think about crossing into the Twitterverse, I suggest you make sure you won't be flying solo. So first, find out how many of your members are there in three (slightly techie) steps.

Create an address file out of your membership e-mails. Use CSV file format (Comma Separated Values). For best results, use a CSV file produced by Outlook, Outlook Express, Yahoo!, or Hotmail. For Apple Address Book, there is a useful utility called "A to G".
Create a new Gmail account and import your CSV file into the contacts.
Open your Twitter account--make sure it uses a personal username, as Ben Martin suggests--and go to invite more. Enter your new Gmail account under the invite from other networks tab.

Twitter will find all of the accounts that are based on the contact e-mail in your Gmail account. It may not find everyone, but it will give you a ballpark.

If your association has members on Twitter, then yes, there is a role for you there. First things first. Have you seen Ben Martin's 10 rules for associations using Twitter? They are worth abiding. Also, think about what role your association can play for members in this space.

Share news-worthy links. Twitter is an ideal vehicle for sharing URLs. As an association pro, you have your finger on the pulse of what's happening in your industry. Share not only association links, but links to industry thought-leaders and breaking news.
Be a resource. Listen carefully to what your members are discussing. Be there to answer questions, give feedback, and meet their needs. You might find yourself alternating between customer service rep, librarian, researcher and friend. You're dynamic...now show off a little.
Be a connector. You're the master of the membership list. Just by being there and following every member who is there, you are connecting the members to each other. Add a little friendly introduction and some personal attention to everyone, and you'll be the life of the party.

Is it worth it? You'll have to be the judge. I'd argue that in just a few minutes per day, you can deepen relationships with your most social, vocal members--the members who are online creating a record that is visible to the entire world. It's something worth looking into.

So go follow all your members and take Twitter by storm!

Posted by Lindy Dreyer at 9:19 AM

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1 comments:

Maggie McGary said...

(I asked this same question on Ben's blog--sorry for the repeat!)

My association (ASHA) tentatively started tweeting "just to see what would happen" and it's actually been pretty successful. Our efforts were geared not so much at members but just at some hand-picked journalists and people blogging about our issues. Almost everyone we followed has followed us and we've gotten some good feedback.

Now we want to get the word out to members to try to get more of a following, especially with our annual convention coming up in November.

The thing is that I don't know how many of our members even know what Twitter is. I don't think this is really that much of an obstacle, though--we recently started an ASHA group on LinkedIn and have gotten a great response, so obviously our members are not totally in the dark about social networking.

So my question is do we just start saying "follow ASHA on Twitter" and leave it at that, or should we provide some sort of super- rudimentary explanation about what Twitter is and what the point of following us would be?

August 4, 2008 2:58 PM