Leveraging Twitter for Mass Mobilization and Information
posted by Alex MillerWednesday, November 12th, 2008
One of the greatest challenges facing groups – from companies, to non-profits, to governments, to school clubs – is how to effectively inform and mobilize their members, particularly when they are large. Over the last two years, we have seen the emergence of Twitter as a resource for doing so – and with it, growing adoption by a variety of organizations.
During the recent election, we saw perhaps the most effective use of Twitter, to date, by the Obama campaign. By consistently putting out updates and calling his supporters to action, Barack Obama managed to become the single most followed person on Twitter, with more than 125,000 followers (almost twice the next largest crowd). Obama’s twitter profile is just one piece of his social media outreach, which includes pages on YouTube, MySpace, Facebook, Ustream, and other social networking sites. This presence served him two crucial purposes – to build his following and provide engagement for them. Whenever there was a new rally to be watched online, reminders about important deadlines, or thank you’s to be given, the Obama web team pushed out a twitter update – instantly notifying all of his followers who could then immediately react.
While Twitter is extremely useful for building and mobilizing support, it also is useful for the simple dissemination of information. In Los Angeles County, the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) uses its Twitter profile to let riders know about service interruptions. By signing up with Twitter, riders can be instantly notified whenever the MTA announces a new service disruption – receiving text messages on their cell phones with the updates.
The Los Angeles Fire Department uses Twitter to post announcements about any major alerts and disseminate emergency information. Their use of Twitter also shows off another attractive feature– integration with RSS. Since Twitter uses RSS for its distribution, it can also read existing RSS feeds, which can be used to generate new posts. In the LAFD’s case, they simply linked an account to an existing RSS system, giving Los Angelinos another way to follow them and get updates.
This brings up a crucial question: Why Twitter? There are plenty of ways to disseminate information (for instance, my college campus subscribed to an emergency text messaging service where they could send alerts out to everyone who had signed up for it), so what is the particular appeal of Twitter? I see the answer as being three fold: It has a built in user base, it’s simple to work with and, most importantly, its free! Combined with the universal architecture (it uses RSS Feeds) and customizability (you can brand your page however you like) it provides the simplest, most efficient, and most cost effective solution for almost any organization.
If you haven’t already seen or tried twitter, hop on over to http://www.twitter.com and check it out – I’m sure you can find someone interesting you’d like to follow.
o Search through Twitter’s archives
o A recap of some of the best Twitter tools
o Follow me (@alexlmiller), or other members (@NickMendoza, @AndreaNowack) of the Zeno Group Digital Lifestyle Team, on Twitter
November 13th, 2008 at 5:10 pm
Nice post, Alex. Only a few years ago, Twitter was in it’s infancy, but now as a nearly mainstream form of communication, brands are starting to catch on. This past election is a good case study to look at because we saw virtually every end of the Twitter spectrum from candidates. There was Obama who got the formula just right, but there was also Hillary who messed up royally (ReadWriteWeb’s take: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/twitter_to_hillary_youre_doing_it_wrong.php), and then there was McCain who was so-so, with a good number of followers and tweets, but also very one-sided “Twitter blasts” and virtually no conversation. Before jumping right on the Twitter bandwagon, companies should take a look at the election to help develop just the right strategy.