More than ever before, Twitter wants your business. Despite Twitter’s successful day on the trading floor yesterday for its Initial Public Offering, the social staple known for sparking both political revolutions and pop culture commentary is aiming to make up for the fact that it is still not making money.
In order to gear up for their IPO, Twitter launched several new features over the course of the last month. Among these new features is “Twitter Alerts for Emergencies,” which allows organizations to alert Twitter users via both their newsfeed and SMS (text message). Although unlikely in the short term, it is possible that in future Twitter will extend these services to your advancement office. (Imagine homecoming alerts to your followers via SMS.) Other updates include design improvements for Android and iOS, personalized recommendations of people to follow (perhaps fellow alumni), and the ability to accept a DM (direct message) regardless of whether a person is following you or not. Since this would be a good way to get alumni feedback, you can learn more about how to turn on this feature here.
Perhaps one of the biggest changes made to Twitter is the ability to make “Scheduled Tweets” from their advertising platform. This enables your team to schedule Tweets for homecoming or the close of the Annual Fund weeks in advance, saving you time. If you have not used Twitter’s advertising tools before, it’s definitely worth a look. Even if you vouch to stay away from launching a campaign to promote Tweets from your alumni account, gain followers, or utilize Twitter’s “Ad Cards” to capture new email addresses, Twitter’s analytical tools can help you recognize timeline activity, the common interests among your followers, as well as followers’ locations, genders, and other accounts they may follow. These insights can be helpful as your team develops relevant content for your alumni.
With their IPO, you can be assured that Twitter will continue to buff up their options for targeted outreach to your constituents and will also provide better analytical tools, giving you time to do what you do best: inspire your community to become involved and support your institution’s mission!