Paul's Web Space 2.1

How can nonprofits use Twitter?
Publication or Coordination!

Net² wants to hear ideas for how nonprofits can use twitter, or if they should even bother. This query is part of the Netsquared Think Tank, a project seeking ideas on useful applications of the social web for nonprofits. This entire project is very self-referential, as it takes place on a blog (preferably via references to answering posts on other blogs), and I received my call to action via messages to members of their Facebook group.

Anyway, I can envision two easy ways for nonprofit organizations to take advantage of twitter. I work for a nonprofit publisher, so the first way, which could apply to edweek.org as well, would be this: create a Twitter user for edweek, or perhaps several for different news feeds or different publications (or blogs, the possibilities are endless:). Then you could use something like twitterfeed to direct the RSS feeds from those blogs or publications (or topics) straight into the twitter feed of that user. See c|net News.com or CNN Breaking News. If you don't want to automate this, assign a producer to post stories that are most interesting or controversial. We're planning to make several stories per day totally free, and thinking of ways to spread these around the web, so this idea might be put to the test.

The other application I envision is something a little more in the spirit of the service — use twitter to coordinate a group of people on the ground during an activist activity, such as a large demonstration in Washington DC, or a group out canvasing, or a lobby day on the hill. Make sure everyone has a twitter account a cell phone with adequate SMS capacity, and configure the twitter accounts to follow each other with SMS notification on. This would end up being almost like a cell phone SMS chat room, where you could coordinate locations, ask for help, etc. It seems like there would be a lot of set-up, and potential noise unless you turned everyone else's notification off, so may be impractical, but it could be cool if it worked. (Note: probably not appropriate for "actions" that would benefit from discretion ;-) ;-)

Labels: net2thinktank

   Link: http://www.netsquared.org/blog/britt-bravo/join-net2thinktank-how-can-nonprofits-use-twitter-should-they-even-bother

¶ 12:05 AM | Permalink | |
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