14 Recommendations for Using Twitter Hashtags for Ethical Business & Non-profits

Hashtags are very important component to categorizing tweets. There are several reasons you want to use hashtags within your stream, including to publicize and increase participation around an event, determine how many tweeted about a certain thing during your campaign, get involved in conversations and tweet-ups or to be more easily found on Twitter.


Definition: The # symbol (placed before a word such as #socialmedia), called a Hashtag, is used to mark keywords or topics in a Tweet. It was created organically by Twitter users as a way to categorize messages. Determining how you want to use this feature (more information found within your social media strategy) will determine how successful your campaign will be, so make sure to plan how and why.


14 recommendations for using hashtags for ethical business and non-profits:


1. For offline events. Participate in other others’ event streams particular to your industry. Whether your focus is recycling or corporate philanthropy, ensure your company representatives are participating online. Twitter is an ideal place to represent.


2. Recommend others. To recommend others with the #EcoMonday or #FollowFriday (also #ff). Alternatively, if you are adventurous, create your own recommendation hashtag.


3. Use popular hashtags. To enable users to find out about your tweets, you can use #green #socent #susty and others. Find out about how popular tweets are by searching http://hashtags.org.


4. Create your own. Then make your hashtag popular. Publicize it; especially if you’re trying to gather a Twitter stream for a particular campaign or event, put it on promotional material such as posters, name badges or otherwise.


5. Be topic-relevant. Use hashtags only on tweets relevant to the topic. Not a good idea to falsely advertise, so don't add a hasthag to a non-relevant topic. 


6. Not too many. Don’t #spam with #hashtags. Don’t over-tag a single tweet. Twitter best practices say you should keep your hashtags to under 3 #hashtags per tweet.


7. On your website. Have a specific campaign or chat happening using a particular Hashtag? Make sure to include a Twitter widget that publicizes it to get even more interactions. 


8. Categorize blog posts. Looking to promote your blog posts? When tweeting about your post, ensure it has popular hasthags to be found easily by those searching.


9. Join conversations. If you are going to be tweeting about a trending topic (that might be off-topic within your organization) make sure you add your voice to the conversation just in case readers would like to follow you.


For example: If you’re a sustainability expert interested in the royal wedding in the UK, add a #royalwedding and #green hashtag to ask about how sustainable are royal weddings?


10. Create conversations. Like #agchat, #journchat or #csrchat, creating a topic-focused conversation around your industry makes your business or not-for-profit a leader. Make sure you publicize and promote your event so there's interaction, and always get the biggest industry players on Twitter to join in. 


11. For categorization. Add hashtags to your tweets so others will be able to find your tweets.


Sample tweet: Are you a social entrepreneur? Check out @Ashoka's definition http://bit.ly/lChjN5 #socent via @ericagrigg


12. For funnies. Or not. The over-the-top hashtags that last forever can be annoying. As written about in the New Yorker, long hashtags can be hilarious at times, but they get old quick.


13. Quantify! Make sure to determine how many people are using the hashtags you've created. You can determine where the peaks and ebbs are on your http://hashtags.org graph.


14. Promote & Publicize. Again, once you've determined how many hashtags, it's also important to determine the quality of conversations. Importantly, you can ReTweet others additions, but you can also publish a blog post on what happened. Even better--get another organization in the space to recommend and write about what happened during your Twitter conversation.


Sample tweet: Just got done with a rib eye sandwich this #MeatlessMonday #JustKidding


Contributor: Erica Grigg is Partner and Director of Marketing and Digital Marketing at Carbon Outreach. Erica has trained hundreds of social enterprises, not-for-profits and corporate social responsibility executives on social media tools including Twitter. Erica recently co-authored, "Facebook for Social Enterprise" in June 2011. Erica speaks internationally on responsible business and marketing issues, and blogs for Treehugger.  

Top 21 Recommendations for Social Enterprises on Twitter

Twitter is one of the most popular social networks internationally with 200 million active users. Social enterprises have effectively used this online marketing tool to garner the attention of millions of consumers, media and competitors—likely some of the reasons you are reading this blog post.


In the middle of finishing our Twitter for Social Enterprise book, we have reviewed many interesting topics around Twitter, including using Twitter for personal and business brand development. Over the next month, we'll offer numerous tips and top recommendations from that book.


The first in a series of tips for June, below are recommendations for responsible businesses and not-for-profits leveraging the power of Twitter: 


1. Listen carefully. Determine who are influencers in your industry based on leaders of businesses you’ve likely heard of (for example @greenbiz @wwf @greenpeace). Find out more on green twitter users to follow via http://mashable.com/twitter-environmentalists. 


2. Follow competitors. On that note, when you are looking for movers and shakers in your industry, whether that's not-for-profit management or environmentally-friendly cleaning products, determine who your competitors are. Online and offline, knowing about their mistakes and successes is important.


3. Find influencers. Follow those individuals and business accounts, who are likely influencers in your industry. For a start, add yourself and find other influencers on Twibes.


Questions to ask when reviewing profiles of influencers: How many followers do they have? How many lists do they appear on? How many tweets have they written? Have you seen them retweeted (RT) by others you know and trust?

4. Get busy. Update constantly; around 1 or 2 times daily is a good number for regular updates. Don’t worry, you can schedule tweets via the Hootsuite client (see ‘Clients’ section below).


5. Use a client. Use a Twitter client on your desktop or mobile to streamline your interface with your work for easy access. Twitter clients include HootSuite, Seesmic or Tweetdeck. For more Twitter clients, see this Tech Radar blog post on February 2011.

6. Tweet events. Create Twitter streams for your events. To categorize tweets during your event, make sure to claim a hashtag stream.


Tip: Don’t ignore the Twitter stream throughout the program, rather, have one employee managing the stream to ensure conversation, and answer any questions or feedback about the event when it happens. Make sure to watch out for negative feedback and address that feedback when it happens.


Sample tweet: Great point! RT @honeyberk Always make sure you have a strategy in place when encouraging employees to engage on #Twitter or FB #sm4socent


7. Stay active offline. Sending a company representative to Tweet at events is beneficial for both the company and employee. Checking-in on Foursquare, Facebook Places or Gowalla is also very beneficial for company speakers or otherwise. Doing something special outside the office? Check-in!

8. Enable donations. Provide the opportunity for potential donors to contribute. Whether followers will be directed toward your Facebook page, website, blog or otherwise, if you’re considering a fundraising campaign, don’t forget Twitter. Take success stories of Twestival or Twit Change for example. 


Sample tweet: Have you checked out our donation tool on Facebook? http://bit.ly/sampletweet


9. Connect to your blog. Connect your blog to your Twitter accounts. Create a Twitter widget if possible. This can include either a ‘Follow Us’ button, your latest tweets or a hashtag stream for an upcoming event/ advertising campaign.


10. Connect from your blog. Link your blog to your Twitter account. Tweet each blog post, also syndicate the blog to magnify your reach, for instance on TreeHugger, Triple Pundit or other green media outlet.


Sample tweet: Our latest @Treehugger article: Dare to be a Social Enterprise! http://fb.on/235b2 #socent #greenbiz


11. Connect from your website. Make sure you have Twitter (Facebook, YouTube or other social networks) buttons on your website.


12. Put it on sale. Create specific sales for your social media followers. While you don’t want to constantly sell yourself, Twitter can be an efficient way to promote sales. You can also create a Sales Coupon on places like Twtqpon.


Sample tweet: Visit today for your 20% off Twitter coupon http://bit.ly/greendeal.


13. Have a tweet-up. Meet your fellow Twitter users together at a bar near your headquarters or throughout the country for an even bigger launch party or other event (like for example, having a series of Tweet-up’s alongside a Tweet-up at SXSW).


Sample tweet: 3 cities join #GreenTweetUp tonight to celebrate our eco project launch http://bit.ly/greentweetup #csr #green


14. Hold a chat. Have a sponsored Twitter chat like #agchat #csrchat. Learn who are influencers in your industry, learn from your participants and use those chats like a focus group. 


Tip: Make sure you monitor these conversations well and have personal conversations with numerous influencers before moving forward. Having a great group interacting is pivotal for the success of a chat.


15. Check-in with strategy. Constantly check your social media strategy to make sure your objectives are being met—monthly and quarterly.


16. Track links. Use http://bit.ly or http://ow.ly to measure the success of each tweet. Then, you’ll be able to determine how successful each tweet was, which will help you determine ways to write tweets that will get more clicks.

17. Count Followers. Follow your Twitter follower numbers with applications like http://www.twittercounter.com.

18. Reply and @Mention. If your Followers or colleagues @reply you to recommend or try to connect, engage with them as soon as possible. Making a good impression and offline relationships is what social media is all about! 


19. Create and Read Reports. Read monthly and quarterly social media reports from HootSuite or PeopleBrowsr. Make sure to review those who have tweeted about you most and which are your most popular links clicked.


20. Keep following. No need to follow every user who follows you, but follow users when they are interesting and pertinent to your industry. 


21. Use hashtags. Make sure you use Hashtags to categorize your tweets and to be found easier.


Contributor: Erica Grigg is Partner and Director of Marketing and Digital Marketing at Carbon Outreach. Erica has trained hundreds of social enterprises, not-for-profits and corporate social responsibility executives on social media tools including Twitter. Erica recently co-authored, "Facebook for Social Enterprise" in June 2011. Erica speaks internationally on responsible business and marketing issues, and blogs for Treehugger.  

Top 11 Community Management Tips for Not-for-Profits

This article was also published on the NTEN Blog.

As Facebook reaches 600 million users in January 2011, social media continues to attract attention from not-for-profits internationally. We are glad to see NTEN’s continued focus on community management because at Carbon Outreach, we believe community management is fundamental to successful online marketing.


Whether you decide to in-source or outsource community management, we recommend discussing the following items with your community manager to make sure your not-for-profit is making the most out of your marketing and digital advertising.


1. Put your ear to the ground and listen. What are your competitors speaking about? Where is there room to become viewed as a thought-leader in your industry?


Tip: It truly is amazing what information Google and Bing.com holds. Don’t stop there; also check Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. Your not-for-profit should learn from the successes of others.


2. Do your homework. Are you new or seasoned at social media marketing? Even for social media gurus, the area is constantly changing. So keep up! Read Mashable.com and other social media news outlets.


Tip: We are in the process of writing a series of books on social media for social enterprise. Register for complimentary beta versions here http://carbonoutreach.com/books.


3. Tie together networks. Are you publicizing across networks and cross-promoting your networks? Doing this effectively ensures more active and connected users.


Tip(s): Always make sure your online communications materials (such as eNewsletters) can be shared via social media easily. Make sure to cross-post to multiple social networks if you are sending out communications about an important subject.


4. Empower visitors. How can you empower your community? When devising strategies to reach out or communicate with your community, how can you empower them? Successful community management is not just about driving up donations (though that’s important), but also driving conversation and behavior change.


Tip(s): Twitter campaigns are a great way to drive donations around a specific event or campaign. Like TwitChange or Twestival, community managers can encourage users to donate money and a tweet.


5. Define your target audience. Where does your target audience reside, how old are they? What are their interests? The more information you know, the more information you should provide your community manager, which will help him/her to connect not just with an audience but the right audience.


6. The more targeted the better. Who is your target audience for this particular campaign? Does this audience match our overall target audience of consumers and donors?


Tip: This is especially useful for targeted Facebook Ads. Within Facebook Ads, community managers can target by age, gender, interests and other information. In Facebook Ads, make sure to segment your target audience making each ad even more valuable.


7. Make time. Does your community manager have enough time to manage your community and/or specific campaign? Depending on the objectives of your campaign, community management can take hours daily. Being a community manager should not just be one of their many responsibilities, because to be an effective community manager it takes time and skill.


Tip: Make sure to estimate how long your community manager should take on tasks throughout the day. Do you really need a full-time community manager?


8. Plan for success. How do your social media objectives work to support your medium to long-term marketing objectives? Social media plans should support overall marketing plans.
 
9. Improve touch points. Learn where your customer or donor touch points are, and then improve them. Constantly improve your donor experience online through good design principles.


Tip: Possible touch points include website, eNewsletter, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube or Flickr. Remember your online presence should engage visitors and potential donors!


10. Expand touch points. How do customers currently learn about our products or services? How would you like to get heard about among your target audience?


11. Give props. Don’t forget to thank your community, partners, sponsors and donors. On Twitter @mention, on Facebook @mention. These are your most important fans!


Contributor: Erica Grigg is Partner and Director of Marketing and Digital Marketing at Carbon Outreach. Erica has trained hundreds of social enterprises, not-for-profits and corporate social responsibility executives on social media tools including Twitter. Erica recently co-authored, "Facebook for Social Enterprise" in June 2011. Erica speaks internationally on responsible business and marketing issues, and blogs for Treehugger.  

Top 13 Facebook Apps for Social Enterprise

Wondering what we mean by social enterprise? We are speaking specifically about green business, not-for-profits and corporate philanthropy programs.

Almost sealed and settled, we are at the tail end of launching our, "Facebook for Social Enterprise" book #fb4socent. With over 150 pages of tips, tricks and top recommendations, both beginner to advanced user will learn effective ways to create personal and business brand development, especially focused on community management and campaigns that garner media, customer and donor support. 

Be one of the first 250 to receive your complimentary copy today! Visit the Carbon Outreach website to register for your copy. Otherwise, our book will launch on Amazon kindle on May 16. In New York City? RSVP to our launch party on May 16. 


Without ado, below are applications recommendations for either or both individual and business pages. 


1. [Individual profile] Branch Out. This is a LinkedIn-style social networking application to help you discover business opportunities through friends. There, you’ll be connected with 3 million+ job listings.

2. [Individual profile & business page] Causes. According to Facebook, “Causes empowers anyone with a good idea or passion for change to impact the world. Using our platform, individuals mobilize their network of friends to grow lasting social and political movements.” Since starting this application, it has raised over $30 million for 25,000 not-for-profits internationally.

3. [Individual profile & business page] Poll. Similar to the “question” feature, this application enables individual users and pages to create and share polls. Currently, there are over 2.3 million users of this application.


4. [Individual profile & business page] Twibbon. When creating your campaign to raise awareness, change legislation or educate, Twibbon is a great way to expand your reach virally. This means you can upload a small logo onto your Facebook profile picture, as well as create a small logo for participants to upload in their Facebook profile picture. Some successful Twibbons include “No to Prop 8” and, “Pray for Japan” currently garnering around 50K uploads each.

5. [Business page] Constant Contact Labs. This application helps Facebook users interested in your business or organization to join your Constant Contact contact lists. 


6. [Individual profile] Marketplace. Facebook Marketplace lets you sell, give away, buy, rent, ask, or search for anything you want. You can also support charities by selling for a cause. Marketplace makes it easy to see what your friends have posted and what is available in your area. 

7. [Individual profile] Networked Blogs. Import your blog feed to your profile or public page - Promote your blog on Facebook and to discover new blogs. NetworkedBlogs is a community of bloggers and blog lovers. Join the fun, add your blog, and connect with others who read and write about subjects you like. 

8. [Individual profile] Slideshare. Upload your presentations, documents, PDFs, add mp3 audio to make webinars or embed Youtube videos into them. You can also import your SlideShare.net presentations into Facebook. 

9. [Business page] Video. Facebook Video allows you to publish your personal videos on Facebook and send video messages to your friends. 


10. [Individual profile & business page] Petitions. When you add the “Petitions” application, you can create and sign petitions on issues you feel passionate about. 


11. [Business page] Eventbrite. Are you organizing an event through Eventbrite? This application gives you all the online tools you need to bring people together for an event and sell tickets especially within Eventbrite. 

12. [Business Page] Twitter. Use the Twitter for Facebook app to: find and follow your Facebook friends who tweet, post your tweets to your Facebook profile or Facebook page, encourage your Facebook friends to follow you on Twitter. 

13. [Individual profile] StumbleUpon. Explore the web like never before, flipping from page to page across more than 500 topics like you would go through your favorite magazine. Get recommendations tailored to your unique preferences so you only see what you want and less of what you don't. You'll only see content already filtered by like-minded users who share your passions and interests. 


Contributors: 


Contributor: Erica Grigg is Partner and Director of Marketing and Digital Marketing at Carbon Outreach. Erica has trained hundreds of social enterprises, not-for-profits and corporate social responsibility executives on social media tools including Twitter. Erica recently co-authored, "Facebook for Social Enterprise" in June 2011. Erica speaks internationally on responsible business and marketing issues, and blogs for Treehugger. Follow Erica on Twitter @ericagrigg or LinkedIn.


Tim Watson is Chief Technology Officer at Carbon Outreach. Prior, he spent over a decade with Microsoft, AdCenter and MSN and specializes in online advertising. Tim also co-authors the, "Facebook for Social Enterprise" book. Tim writes frequently on SEO, online advertising and not-for-profit technology on the Carbon Outreach blog. Connect professionally with Tim through LinkedIn, follow @sociallytim or e-mail tim@carbonoutreach.com.


Aliza Burns is Marketing Analyst at Carbon Outreach. Prior, she worked with several prominent not-for-profits after graduating from George Washington University in 2009. Find out more on LinkedIn or follow @alizaburns. 

Get Hand-Selected Green Events with Green Around the City

It's Tuesday morning. You're sitting at your desk, scratching your head and looking at your calendar. Are you considering what to do with your week? How about this: make it memorable and change the world! We can help you make it look easy and stylish. 


Green Around the City launches in June 2011 in London and New York City and planning to expand to over a dozen cities by 2012. Green Around the City has numerous types of green events, including corporate social responsibility, green building and even green festivals. 


From parties to networking events, Green Around the City covers your back. Get in-the-know about the latest, greatest green events. 


On Facebook, Twitter and eNewsletters, you get the freshest, most interesting and valuable green events across your city. Want to move forward the green economy and have fun while doing it? Here's all our information below. Follow, Fan and soon--subscribe to our eNewsletter. 

@FindGreenEvents, Green Around the City HQ

Follow @FindGreenLDN for green events across London

@FindGreenLDN for sizzlingly good, green events in London!

On Facebook! 

Visit Green Around the City NYC on Facebook. Get in the know!

Fan Green Around the City London to find out the best green events. You'll be glad you did!

Contributor: Erica Grigg is Partner and Director of Marketing and Digital Marketing at Carbon Outreach. Erica has trained hundreds of social enterprises, not-for-profits and corporate social responsibility executives on social media tools including Twitter. Erica recently co-authored, "Facebook for Social Enterprise" in June 2011. Erica speaks internationally on responsible business and marketing issues, and blogs for Treehugger.  

Facebook for Social Enterprise launch: Get yours free!

Carbon Outreach Graph representing Facebook as the 3rd largest populated 'country' internationally

Social media tools have captured the attention of numerous green businesses, not-for-profits and corporate philanthropy programs since acquiring over 350 million users in 2009. 

Prominent not-for-profits such as the World Wildlife Foundation, Sierra Club or Red Cross International continue to influence social media campaigns today. On the other hand, green businesses like Seventh Generation, Terra Cycle and Timberland have effectively used social media to garner the eyes of customers, media and competitors.

After obtaining over 600 million active users in January 2011, Facebook continues to attract the attention of social enterprises wisely choosing to invest in social media. In February 2011, Facebook continues to grow steadily as the third most populated 'country' internationally, see the graph above. 

We’re excited to see more not-for-profits and social enterprises than ever investing in their online presence. Many have seen great successes in acquiring donors, media attention and an enhanced brand online. For example, the Facebook Causes Application alone has raised $30 million for 500,000 member-created causes since 2007. 

In May 2011, Carbon Outreach has come out with a book particularly around using Facebook for Social Enterprise. Whether you are considering using Facebook for personal or business brand development, Carbon Outreach has recommendations and tools for unsurpassed community management, as well as targeted campaigns. 

Full of 17 case studies such as the World Food Programme, (RED), Timberland, Patagonia, 350.org and California State Parks, and many others, this book reviews ways to make sure executives and community managers are making the most of your social media effort. We also address top recommendations for features such as Facebook Pages, Advertisements, Questions, Groups and numerous others.

We are delighted to offer a complimentary online copy of our upcoming book to Carbon Outreach blog readers. To register, visit here and don’t forget to ‘Like’ Carbon Outreach on Facebook. 

Contributor: Erica Grigg is Chief Marketer at Carbon Outreach. Erica has trained hundreds of social enterprises, including top not-for-profits, green business and corporate philanthropy executives about social media. Erica speaks on cause-based marketing and social media internationally. Learn more and connect professionally at http://linkedin.com/in/ericagrigg or follow Erica on Twitter @ericagrigg.

WeFeedBack Helps Solve Global Food Crisis

The following is an article we published in Treehugger earlier this week.

Did you know over 1 billion people will be persistently hungry in 2011? For our already overpopulated world, food prices continue to rise due to a variety of reasons, including the raising cost of petroleum. This leaves even more people hungry.


Lots of action has been taken internationally to combat this coming food crisis. In April, the World Bank held the Open Forum about that "pressing issue - raising and volatile food prices." However, nothing seemed to get accomplished besides a very active social media conversation.


Now the questions remain. Which business or not-for-profit will help solve this life or death problem? What are social enterprises doing today to help feed that 'Bottom Billion'? Will communities wait while government stalls?


The short answer is that social enterprises internationally are starting to provide answers, especially around energy and agriculture. One such country is India, a country that knows about hunger; over 40% of children are malnourished according to the World Bank. Recently, the Sankalp Forum was held in Mumbai, India to celebrate social entrepreneurs in four key areas including food and clean energy.


Reading about the winners was inspiring, but I also realized the United Nations case study I was reviewing was part of solving the global food crisis--through social media! In response to our looming global food crisis, the United Nations is taking to the internet like never before, including creating the WeFeedBack social network.


WeFeedBack is simple and resounding idea. Join the social network, Estimate the food you will eat tonight, and donate that amount to feed someone else. Instead of waiting on political action, they are mobilizing to try to feed those who need it most. The site has fed nearly 200,000 so far since starting early April 2011.


Wonder how they did it? Social networking; the organization has been effectively reaching out through Facebook and Twitter, especially using the World Food Programme as a platform. This is the second in a series of successes for the World Food Programme, including their Free Rice Word Game that has helped feed 4.2 million.


That's why this Monday, I'm going to donate my dinner to someone who needs it more, and I suggest that you do, too.


Contributor: Erica Grigg is Partner and Director of Marketing and Digital Marketing at Carbon Outreach. Erica has trained hundreds of social enterprises, not-for-profits and corporate social responsibility executives on social media tools including Twitter. Erica recently co-authored, "Facebook for Social Enterprise" in June 2011. Erica speaks internationally on responsible business and marketing issues, and blogs for Treehugger.  

11 Ways to Make Your Social Enterprise Facebook Group a Success

During our many conversations with social enterprises internationally, we've encountered many questions along the way; for instance, how should I use Facebook for personal development? How can my organization leverage the power of our users to win over more donors?


We hope to answer these and numerous other questions in our thoughtful book on, "Facebook for Social Enterprise," to launch May 16 in New York City; RSVP via Facebook today! You can also get a complimentary copy of our book! Be one of the first 250 by reserving your copy today!


There are many reasons your organization could consider using Facebook groups. Numerous green businesses are using Facebook groups successfully including HUB NYC and Go Green Expo, and numerous collaboratives and co-operatives use Facebook groups, including the Green Design or Ethical Fashion Forum. Facebook groups are increasing opportunity for social enterprise because they are more conversation-oriented.


If you have not considered using Facebook groups, or have questions about how to integrate your next Facebook campaign within your marketing strategy, give us a chat at +1 646.233.3265.


Without ado, below are the top 10 recommendations for using Facebook groups for green business or not-for-profit.


1. Depending on the content of your Group, make sure you enable participants to recommend others to join the group through inviting members. You can do this by making sure yours is an 'Open group'.


Note: There are three privacy settings for your group, including: secret, closed and open. If you’re creating a Facebook group for your business or organization, open groups are recommended.

2. Create a group name including the name of your company if your target message is around your company or not-for-profit. Go Green Expo did this effectively, also while fostering conversation within the American green community.

3. Invite contacts who would be interested in joining the conversation. Don't invite a member you would not think would enjoy the conversation, but if members are uninterested, they can leave the group easily.


4. Provide an e-mail address for the administrator and now you have more opportunities to connect and have conversation with your participants. This was effectively used in the HUB NYC group below.

5. Create a conversation topic to start discussions. The conversation could be about a recent event your organization will speak at, recent or noteworthy news, recommendations from other businesses pages or groups, as well as industry-related content that keeps your community engaged.


6. @Mention individual users, as @mentioning business pages and other groups is not yet enabled. This can inform other users to join the group and promote conversations to other users; whether promoting conversation about a specific event, campaign or new product, this is a great place to cross-promote.


7. Create questions using the question feature and encourage friends and/or group members to answer by suggesting the question--make sure, though, that it's interesting and relevant to their situation. You can also let others create their own answers by selecting the 'add poll options', and 'allow any user to add options'. The Ethical Fashion Forum helped create an environment that fosters great conversations and posts by members.

8. Create your own content so you are not constantly sharing others’ content. The key to creating and sharing content is about 1) being interesting, 2) creative and 3) relevant within your industry .


Ideas for creating your own content includes blog posts, pictures of your companies’ representatives speaking, or videos to accompany your current campaigns or launches.


9. Get your Twitter community involved in promoting your conversations. Tweet about updates happening on your Facebook group, especially when interesting events or topics are promoted.


Side note: Currently, you cannot connect your updates directly to Twitter. However, you can recommend others join the group with the call to action for potential members to request to join.


10. Tell others to recommend their friends. Again, if you ask individuals to ask their friends, tell them if they want a favor from you, they should feel free to ask you. Being the friend who always asks for favors can be a precarious place to be.

11. Publicize offline. From your promotional material to e-mail signature, you should put links to your social networks (including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and/or your blog) in as many places as possible to advertise your online presence. Ultimately, in the long term, more active users means more opportunities to win their donations or purchase dollars!


Contributor: Erica Grigg is Partner and Director of Marketing & Digital Marketing at Carbon Outreach.  She is co-author of Facebook for Social Enterprise and writes frequently for media outlets such as Treehugger. Follow @EricaGrigg on Twitter or visit Erica Grigg on LinkedIn to connect professionally. She has spoken to hundreds around the world on using social media for green business and not-for-profit, and organizes and chairs the Marketing & PR for Social Enterprise Meetup.

Top 18 Ideas for Using Twitter for Social Enterprise

As you may have heard, Carbon Outreach is very busy on our upcoming Social Media for Social Enterprise book series, starting with Twitter and Facebook for Social Enterprise. Don't worry, we share the love, including 250 complimentary copies to social enterprises internationally via each individual book page. We've also created the [below] QR code to make it simple to learn about our new ebooks series.






We are also having a launch networking event in New York City on May 16. To learn more about our events in New York City, join our Marketing & PR for Social Enterprise Meetup.

The following recommendations include some real and some fictional tweets to show examples. Without ado, below detail 18 top recommendations for making your twitter presence a success:

1.   Start off with your social media strategy document. Over the next weeks, we will talk more about social media strategy, but some recommendations can be found on the Social Media Examiner or this popular SlideShare by Vanina Delobelle. Constantly check your Social Media Strategy to make sure your objectives are being met—monthly and quarterly.


2.    Determine who are influencers in your industry based on leaders of businesses you’ve likely heard of (for example @greenbiz @triplepundit @treehugger. Find out more on green twitter users to follow via http://mashable.com/twitter-environmentalists or visit our top recommended twitter environmentalists). You can also follow and join Twibes groups or Twitter lists for great users.

3.   Follow regularly. Namely of individuals and businesses/organizations that influence in your industry. Questions to ask when reviewing profiles of influencers: How many followers do they have? How many lists do they appear on? How many tweets have they written? Have you seen them retweeted (RT) by others you know and trust?


4.    Use a Twitter client on your desktop or mobile to streamline your interface and easier access. Twitter clients include PeopleBrowsr, Seesmic, Tweetdeck and Tweetie among numerous others.

5.    Create Twitter streams for your events. Don’t ignore the Twitter stream throughout the program, rather, have one employee managing the stream to ensure conversation, and answer any questions or feedback about the event when it happens. Make sure to watch out for negative feedback and address it when it happens.


Sample tweet: Great point! RT @honeyberk Always make sure you have a strategy in place when encouraging employees to engage on #Twitter or FB #sm4socent


6.    Create specific sales for your social media followers. While you don’t want to constantly sell yourself, this is a great way to get out information about your sales. You can also create a Sales Coupon on http://twtqpon.com/. You can also create free trackable QR codes with a number of websites including using QReatebuzz, linking followers to your own website or microsite for social media specials.


Sample tweet: We're offering a complimentary copy of Facebook for Social Enterprise! Click this QR code to get your book today! http://bit.ly/hjGQHT #sm4socent


7.   Update consistently; around 1 or 2 times (or more) daily is a good number for regular updates. Don’t worry, you can schedule tweets via Hootsuite and other twitter clients.


8.    Taut about your fundraising efforts. Provide the opportunity for potential donors to contribute (financially & in retweets). Whether followers will be directed toward your Facebook page, website, blog or otherwise, if you’re considering a fundraising campaign, update your followers regularly via Twitter about your campaign (and measure your results: see below).


Sample tweet: Have you checked out our donation tool on Facebook? http://bit.ly/findoutnow #nonprofit

@Tweetsgiving Has made some great successes, See Beth Kanter's article on their fundraising efforts 

9.  Let LinkedIn know you're tweeting. Connect your LinkedIn company page to your Twitter account with the Twitter application to see your most recent tweets.

10. While your at it, encourage your company's LinkedIn users to add their company and/or individual Twitter accounts to their profiles. When adding Twitter accounts to personal profiles, individuals can choose to have their own instead of their company tweets appearing by editing "Which Twitter account would you like to share from?"

11.    To automate or not to automate? There has been intense debate on whether or not you should automate your blog posts to feed into Twitter & Facebook or not. Depending on the amount of content, I'd recommend using automated feeds to direct your blog posts into Twitter & Facebook. This promotes your blog and also that you're connected. 


Connect your blog to your Twitter accounts (and Facebook through NetworkedBlogs). Also, create a Twitter widget on your blog (this can include either a ‘Follow Us’ button) on your latest tweets or a hashtag stream for an upcoming event/ advertising campaign on your blog page.

12.    Syndicate and publicize. If you let others publish your blog posts, this can magnify your reach, for instance on green media outlets like Ecorazzi, Elephant Journal, etc.).


Sample tweet: Our Founder, Erica Grigg, recommends on @TreeHugger: "Dare to be a Social Enterprise!" http://fb.me/EvGC7HVJ


13.    Let your website users know you're on Twitter. Connect your Twitter account to your website, along with your other social networks (Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube, too!).


14.    Have a tweet-up. Meet your fellow Twitter users together at a bar near your headquarters—throughout the country for an even bigger launch party or other event (like Triple Pundit did at their Sustainable Media Happy Hour at SXSW [on the top ten of social media gatherings in the world]).

15.    Have a sponsored Twitter chat like #agchat #csrchat. Learn who are influencers in your industry, learn from your participants and use those chats like a focus group. Make sure you monitor these conversations well and have personal conversations with numerous influencers before moving forward. Having a great group interacting is pivotal for the success of a chat.

16.    Connect your eNewsletter to Twitter. This is very straightforward when using Constant Contact for example.


17.    Use http://bit.ly, Google's Goo.gl, or HootSuite's http://ow.ly to measure the success of each tweet. Then, you’ll be able to determine how successful each tweet was, which will help you determine ways to write tweets that will get more clicks. 3BL Media started a link sharing service in 2009, too, however cannot track click through rates, which is a shame.

18.    Measure your success. See how many Twitter followers you have with applications like http://www.twittercounter.com. There are many ways to judge the success of your Twitter campaign, including Klout or HootSuite/ PeopleBrowsr social media analytics reports.

Contributors: Erica Grigg is Founder & Chief Marketer at Carbon Outreach. She's trained hundreds of social enterprises on social media, and co-authoring several books on Social Media for Social Enterprise launching May 2011 reserve your complimentary copy today. Find out more about Erica on her LinkedIn page and follow her @ericagrigg and @carbonoutreach on Twitter.


Tim Watson is CTO and co-Founder at Carbon Outreach. He's worked in the online advertising and technology space for 15 years. Find out more about Tim on his LinkedIn page or follow him on Twitter.