November 06, 2009
How Can Nonprofit Groups Make Most of Twitter Lists?
People in the nonprofit world now have a new feature on Twitter that can allow them to create lists of followers centered on a specific topic.
In the past, Twitter users had only two lists at their fingertips — a list of people they are following and a list of people who follow them.
The lists are long and offer no options for searching, grouping, or segmenting.
As a result, when a Twitter account gets thousands of followers, sifting through the list becomes an exercise in frustration.
The new Twitter Lists feature removes some of that frustration by allowing users to create user lists by category.
The Chronicle‘s Twitter feed, for example, now includes lists of nonprofit groups, foundations, and our own writers and editors, among others.
We’ll be adding to these lists — and creating new lists — in the coming days, weeks, and months. And we expect this to be an evolving process.
Best of all, the lists are public, so anyone on Twitter can follow our lists to get segmented feeds of other Twitter users centered on a topic.
Lauren Cochrane, who manages online communities for a nonprofit group in Australia, writes on Geeking for Good of several ways nonprofit groups can take advantage of lists on their own Twitter feeds.
Ms. Cochrane suggests creating lists of supporters, organizations with similar missions, volunteers, and media figures that are of interest to your organization.
How is your organization using Twitter lists? What lists would you like to see the Chronicle create?
Click on the comments link below this post — or connect with us on Twitter — to share your thoughts.
Comments
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I think it’s important to start off we these 3:
1) Your Twitter team, Show the people behind your group. Ex: http://twitter.com/nature_org/team
2) Other nonprofits your company likes to follow. Ex: http://twitter.com/nature_org/nonprofits
3) Best sources of news within your industry. This is a great source of RTs. For our organization, we look for great environmental news sources. Ex: http://twitter.com/nature_org/cool-green-news
— Amy G Nov 9, 10:33 AM #
Some more on Twitter lists – just catching up with your blog
http://beth.typepad.com/beths_blog/2009/11/ways-to-use-twitter-lists-for-your-nonprofit-work.html
— Beth Kanter Nov 12, 03:21 PM #
Thanks, Beth.
Saw your post after this went live.
— Peter Panepento, Chronicle Web editor Nov 12, 03:37 PM #