5 Fun and Fabulous Twitter Tools for Nonprofit Organizations and Activists

by Heather Mansfield · 2009-08-04 07:45:00 UTC
Topics:

The number of third-party Twitter Apps has exploded over the last year. Twtbase currently lists over 500 of them, and I have highlighted five of my favorites for nonprofit organizations and activists below:

1) Twitter Mosaic: Twitter Mosaic allows you to generate html code of your Twitter Followers or Friends that you can then embed on a blog or Web site. CarbonFund.org used it to celebrate reaching 1,000 Followers. See their Twitter Mosaic.

2) Twibbon: Twibbon allows your followers to embed ribbons, icons, etc. on their Twitter avatars, and then spread them throughout the Twitterverse. It's an easy and effective first step for launching an awareness campaign on Twitter. Love146 is effectively using Twibbon. See their Twibbon campaign.

3) BubbleTweet: BubbleTweet allows to embed a video directly on your Twitter profile. We all know how annoying it is to go to a website and video starts playing right away, so BubbleTweet can be an effective tool, but I would suggest you use it only on special occasions. If you are a global health organization, then add a BubbleTweet to your profile on World Malaria Day. Or if your organization is doing a special campaign to push to get folks to call Congress, then add a BubbleTweet on that day asking them to call and telling them the phone number. I don't know of any nonprofits using BubbleTweet yet, but click here to view an example of an individual using BubbleTweet on Twitter.

4) TipJoy: TipJoy allows nonprofits to accept micropayments from individuals on Twitter. Both the nonprofit and the individual needs to have a PayPal account. See TipJoy's FAQ for more information. Charity:Water's Twestival is probably the best know TipJoy success story.

5) Twititions: Twitition helps you create, sign, and share petitions on Twitter. I like the idea, and the functionality of the Twititions themselves, but I personally don't sign them because it automatically posts to my Twitter profile that I signed the petition. The idea is a good one, but the agressive marketing component could be annoying to your supporters. Hopefully a service like this will come the nonprofit sector soon!

In my Webinar covering Twitter and Flickr, I cover all five of these tools... as well as 15 more that are useful to the nonprofit sector. Tweeting and ReTweeting is powerful in and of itself (that's been my experience), but using some of these third party tools can really transform your Twitter strategy!

Heather Mansfield

RELATED PETITION

Call on Investors to Stand up for Human Rights in Darfur
SIGN PETITION
25,759 People
PREVIOUS STORY:
10 Insights Gained from Spending 7,280 Hours on Social Media Websites
NEXT STORY:
Top Ten Change.org Best Practices for Nonprofit Admins

COMMENTS (8)

    Comment Policy

    · All fields are required to comment.

    [X]

    Comments on Change.org are meant for further exploration and evaluation of the campaign on Change.org. To that end, we welcome constructive comments. However, we reserve the right to delete comments which, as determined solely in our discretion: (1) are offensive, abusive, or off-topic; (2) include content solely intended to personally attack the campaign creator, (3) are designed to subvert or hijack comment threads rather than contribute to them; and/or (4) violate our terms of service and/or privacy policy. Repeat offenders may be permanently removed from the site at our discretion. Please also be advised that: (A) we do not actively curate and/or monitor in any manner whatsoever the comments made on the Change.org platform, and (B) the creator of each campaign on Change.org may remove any comment at her/his/its discretion.