How to use Twitter for advocacy
Twitter connects journalists, opinion makers, politicians and activists, it's a great platform to get your message to the right people to show how big our community is that act for birds!.
Mainstream media and political staffers often track Twitter to see which issues are trending and which are boiling over.
When news breaks, news outlets also often feature eye witness photos and videos people share on twitter.
Getting started
You can sign up for a free account – just create a username (your twitter handle), add a profile pic and write a short bio about who you are or what you're interested in. You don't have to use your real name.
Follow people!
You can follow other people on twitter people you know in real life, organisations you support, journalists and news organisations you like, climate scientists, celebrities etc. This means you see the tweets they post in your feed. You can also find interesting people to follow by clicking on hashtags you're interested in.
BirdLife Australia: @BirdLifeOz
The Guardian Australia @GuardianAus
ABC News @abcnews
NASA @NASAClimate
BirdLife CEO @PaulSullivan
BirdLife President @MartineMaron
BirdLife Head of Conservation @SamanthaVine
Get tweeting!
Once you've set up an account, you can post short 'tweets' (updates of up to 250 characters) –
Add links to the article you just read, or to your website… Just copy-and-paste, add pictures, a screenshot of the chart/image in the thing you’re linking to, or an original pic from your phone…
Embrace the selfie! Particularly if you’re at a special event or with notable people.
Mention people by using their ‘ @andrewhunter (If you’re already following the person, their handle should auto-complete).
Be timely. Tweet as-it-happens. People love to be in the know and up-to-the-minute tweets win.
Use relevant hashtags when you want to be part of a bigger conversation, but don’t go crazy. 1-2 hashtags max per tweet.
Add a comment to your retweets to give them your own spin, or explain why you’re sharing them. All tweets are public but only people who follow you can see them in their feeds.
Like this one from our Conservation Campaigner Andrew Hunter:
Twitter lets you tweet at people using the @ sign beside their usernames: “Hello @twitter!” People will use your @username to mention you in Tweets, send you a message or link to your profile.
You can also click the reply button to publicly respond to a tweet. If you'd like to send a person you a follow a private message, you can direct message them.
See above where Andrew tweets @ScottMorrisonMP
You can also 'like' and 'retweet' tweets from other people to share them on your timeline with people who follow you. You can also retweet news articles, videos, petitions, photos etc.
#Hashtags
Twitter’s great for tracking topics or themes, grouped using the symbol # (hashtag). If you include a hashtag in your tweet, people who follow you can click on it and see all the other tweets using that same hashtag. It makes it easy for users to follow subjects and topics they're interested in.
If enough people use a hashtag or talk about a specific topic at the same time, it can start trending, so millions of people will see it.
Here's an example of an BirdLife tweet featuring three hashtags. Click on each hashtag and you'll see all the other times people have tweeted about it: