{"id":241,"date":"2011-07-26T14:16:00","date_gmt":"2011-07-26T14:16:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/coyoteblog.posterous.com\/how-i-use-twitter-microblogs"},"modified":"2017-05-16T16:52:41","modified_gmt":"2017-05-16T23:52:41","slug":"how-i-use-twitter-microblogs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/2011\/07\/how-i-use-twitter-microblogs\/","title":{"rendered":"How I Use Twitter \/ Microblogs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/Twitter_logo_blue-e1466452140856.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-1936\" src=\"https:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/Twitter_logo_blue-150x150.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><\/a>I&#8217;ve written a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.coyotecommunications.com\/culture\/microblog.shtml\" target=\"_blank\">primer for mission-based organizations on using microblogs<\/a>, including Twitter, so rather than repeat that advice on how to get started using such, thinking strategically about using such, etc., <strong>I&#8217;ll tell you exactly <a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/#!\/jcravens42\" target=\"_blank\">how I use Twitter<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>I seek out Twitter feeds:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>dedicated to activities that help women in developing countries have more control over their lives (it&#8217;s a priority issue for me), OR<\/li>\n<li>dedicated to resources to help nonprofits, NGOs and other mission-based organizations use Internet, computer and other networking tools, OR<\/li>\n<li>dedicated to resources to help mission-based organizations effectively engage the community\/volunteers<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>AND<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>from organizations or individuals I want to follow and that\/who share information I feel is a priority for me to receive daily <em>or<\/em> that&#8217;s mostly different from their Facebook page or email newsletter<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>If I already get all the information I want from an organization or individual via their Facebook page or an email newsletter or a blog, I don&#8217;t subscribe to their feed via Twitter as well. And I don&#8217;t follow every Twitter user that follows me, though I do check out every new follower. That offends some folks &#8211; they feel you should follow every person or organization that follows you, that you should follow every person or organization that you already follow on Facebook or via a blog or as a newsletter subscriber, etc. I don&#8217;t. I&#8217;m on information overload already; Internet tools, including so-called social media, is not just about receiving information &#8211; it&#8217;s about controlling it in such a way that it stays meaningful and essential to you.<\/p>\n<p>In addition, I also follow certain phrases on Twitter. Some of these I search for daily, some I search for weekly. These include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>#volunteer<\/li>\n<li>#volunteers<\/li>\n<li>#VolunTweet<\/li>\n<li>#microvolunteering<\/li>\n<li>#nonprofits<\/li>\n<li>#nonprofit<\/li>\n<li>#ngos<\/li>\n<li>#humanitarian<\/li>\n<li>#ict4d<\/li>\n<li>#TechWomen<\/li>\n<li>#WomenInTech<\/li>\n<li>#Tech4Good<\/li>\n<li>#digitaldivide<\/li>\n<li>#NP<\/li>\n<li>#NPTwitter<\/li>\n<li>#VirtualTeams<\/li>\n<li>#distributedteams<\/li>\n<li>#workshifting<\/li>\n<li>#TechSoupDYB (for <a href=\"http:\/\/forums.techsoup.org\/cs\/p\/dyb.aspx\" target=\"_blank\">TechSoup microvolunteering projects<\/a>; I helped relaunch <a href=\"http:\/\/forums.techsoup.org\/cs\/p\/dyb.aspx\" target=\"_blank\">this initiative<\/a> earlier this month)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>A term I follow, but doesn&#8217;t generate much information regularly, is <em>#withoutvolunteers<\/em>, a tag that allows someone to post a short message that says what the results would be if an organization didn&#8217;t involve volunteers. Sadly, most posts with this tage are phrases like &#8220;We couldn&#8217;t do what we do!&#8221; or &#8220;We would have to cut services&#8221;, both of which <a href=\"http:\/\/www.coyotecommunications.com\/volunteer\/value.shtml\" target=\"_blank\">imply that volunteers are just unpaid staff and reduce the need for employees<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Lastly &#8211; your nonprofit, NGO, or other mission-based organization or department needs to make it clear to staff about who owns a Twitter feed &#8211; <a href=\"http:\/\/wallblog.co.uk\/2011\/07\/25\/how-the-bbc-lost-60000-twitter-followers\/\" target=\"_blank\">this story from the BBC does a good job of explaining why establishing ownership is essential<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Also see: my <a href=\"http:\/\/www.coyotecommunications.com\/culture\/microblog.shtml\" target=\"_blank\">primer for mission-based organizations on using microblogs<\/a> (including Twitter)<\/p>\n<p>And, ofcourse, <a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/#!\/jcravens42\" target=\"_blank\">follow me on Twitter<\/a>! I post a lot to my Twitter feed that I don&#8217;t share via Facebook.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tags<\/strong>: <span style=\"color: #808080;\"><em>microblogs, microblogging, Twitter, Tumblr, social, media, outreach, communications, marketing, public, relations, collaboration, community, volunteer, engagement<br \/>\n<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;ve written a primer for mission-based organizations on using microblogs, including Twitter, so rather than repeat that advice on how to get started using such, thinking strategically about using such, etc., I&#8217;ll tell you exactly how I use Twitte&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[13,14],"tags":[250,650,477],"class_list":["post-241","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-community-relationsoutreach","category-tech-tools","tag-ict4d","tag-social-media","tag-tech4good"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3fFJB-3T","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=241"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3147,"href":"https:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241\/revisions\/3147"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}