idealist.org

Twitter for Good

Several teams at Idealist have started to use the messaging service Twitter for internal communication. Recent "tweets" (messages limited to 140 characters that are broadcast to anyone who is "following" you on the service) include Idealist's Web Guy, Dave, sending a link to an article on web usability; our podcast team announcing that our podcast has moved up in the iTunes nonprofit podcast rankings; and lots of inside jokes.


So far we've just been using it to overcome challenges related to working across nine cities, four countries, and three continents. We're still evaluating, but recommend that other multi-office organizations try it on for size.

In addition to helping with internal communication, it seems some organizations are using Twitter to communicate with a broader audience. Check out January's Net2ThinkTank question to read tech-savvy recommendations about how nonprofits should (or shouldn't) use Twitter.

We also wanted to point out this Social Signal blog entry which makes the great point that Twittering allows us to highlight small, incremental accomplishments. Through Twitter we can collectively provide a timeline of milestones across the nonprofit sector.

Another cool service is Terra Minds, which lets you search public tweets. You can find out what people are saying (tweeting?) about your organization or issue.

If you decide to try it within your organization, let us know how it goes!