How to become a ‘know all’ on Twitter – by young people
Our three Young Trainees worked out a plan to help Smart School Councils use Twitter in an engaging and informative way. Here’s what they came up with!
As our world becomes more and more reliant on social media, businesses and charities are also getting in on the game. Whether they use it for promotion or simply as a tool of translucency many charities can be seen to regularly tweet there activities and campaigns. Smart School Councils (@SSCCTY) are one of these such charities. In a recent meeting with my fellow Young Trainees we thought it important to come up with a list of do’s and don’ts when we or anyone is tweeting on behalf of an organisation.
Here’s the list we came up with:
- Include hashtags for example #school council as well as an @ for which school you’re at or anyone interesting you’ve met from events you may be attending.
- One key trend on social media currently is humour, Vines which are a 6 second videos can act as playful and humorous promotion as well as letting people know in an interesting and succinct way what you’re organisation is up too. One example of a vine is 3 word summaries of your day or activities that you’ve taken part in. In regards to Smart School Councils it would be especially important for us to get feedback from the teachers and pupils.
- Also it is important to include interesting blog posts / articles, these may be retweets from other organisations that are on your newsfeed. It is however important to note that keeping retweets relatively low each day is wise otherwise your twitter can become irrelevant to people following you.
- Twitter can be used as a platform for announcements from your organisation.
- Inspirational quotes are often used on Twitter. The Young Trainees decided on the idea of a ‘Quote of the day’ – from the children and teachers we are with during sessions rather than famous people.
- However when using these tools it is important to ‘change it up’ so it’s not the same tool you are using over and over again
- We decided it was especially important to keep an organisations twitter mainly positive and to not get into the habit of berating others. This can be hard in today’s world when twitter fame is largely due to ‘interesting’ arguments or putting down others.
- In order to show value for an organisation’s Twitter it is important to try and keep up with current events however don’t use tragedies or contentious issues to further your own agenda. Try to use phrases such as ‘in my experience’ and ask questions along – side to start a discussion and focus it back your organisation. Try to also stay up to date with what is happening in your sector, by including other organisations, this will show that you are in the loop.
- Planned tweet discussions can be useful in advertising an organisation, by setting a specific time with certain questions and areas of discussion.
- Practical guidelines of how people can get involved and volunteer are also crucial.
- We also decided it was important to note which organisations would be good to include and which were not relevant to the types of followers you would have.
- Lastly don’t let it be completely impersonal, add a personal touch, one way we decided we could this was by taking it turns to take over the Twitter account.
- During our discussion of what we believed the Do’s and Don’ts were for professionally tweeting, we also came up with some examples of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ tweets.
- Have a policy for Twitter to make sure everyone who is tweeting knows what is appropriate – you can see our’s here.
Here was an example of a tweet Nuno found funny, as previously mentioned humour is a tool we all decided was crucial on all social media at the moment.
Looks like he won’t be getting a second date???? https://t.co/1S7RUEcQxd
— Athlete Way Of Life (@AthWayOfLife) September 30, 2015
Another example of a ‘good’ tweet from Pamphil was one by a well-known and inspirational speaker Will Evans titled “How to Find a Heaven You Don’t Deserve”. This highlighted how important the title of a tweet can be in catching your audience’s attention. In this case ‘How to find a Heaven…’ was the catchphrase which caught Pamphil’s attention and lead him to click on the link. As most people are using portable devices to look at twitter and links are not seen until they are clicked on, the title is especially important in drawing people in.
Just as it is important to outline what is a ‘good’ tweet we thought it was also important to look at a selection of what we deemed ‘bad’ tweets. An example of Nuno’s bad tweet illustrated that it is important to try and remain politically unbiased, and that opinions over contentious issues may offend people which are on your newsfeed. This is also an example of how to be personal on twitter but not too personal!
#refugeecrisis #blackhumor #logicisdead pic.twitter.com/Y17dehP13a
— Omar Makram (@Aomar_Makram) September 16, 2015
We hope you find our helpful twitter guide useful, and happy tweeting everyone! Remember to check out the Smart School Council’s Twitter and to give us a follow! (https://twitter.com/SSCCTY)
We’d also love to hear your thoughts in the comments section below 🙂
Leila, Pamphil and Nuno
Leave a Reply