Five Fun and Fabulous Twitter Tools for Nonprofit Organizations and Activists
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) TwitPay: TwitPay allows nonprofits to accept micropayments from individuals on Twitter. Both the nonprofit and the individual needs to have a PayPal account.
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!
Nonprofit Tech 2.0 Blog :: A Social Media Guide for Nonprofits 
Thanks for the non-profit tips, any help is great!
Seems like tiptoy and twititions are the most useful apps. Tanks for pointing them out. I need to check em out now.
http://twitter.com/franswaat
Hi Frank…. TipJoy actually just shut down. Will be adding a replacement soon!
http://act.ly is a much better solution for Petitions, especially for non-profits.
If you want to “sign” something without it showing up on your Twitter stream, then that would just be a regular online petition instead of a “Twitter app” for petitions.
Excellent suggestions! I am continually looking to expand my knowledge regarding non-profits and their sustainability! Thank you for adding this to my perspective!
I agree, http://act.ly is really the way to go for Twitter petitions.
Act.ly is very good… I created a petition on there to target @aplusk :: http://act.ly/f8 Ashton rose to Twitter fame helping @malarianomore, but no longer follows them or any nonprofit.
I featured Twititions though because not everyone will be comfortable with targeting a particular Twitter user like you have to do on Act.ly. My petition didn’t take off at all, but I would love to see some corporate accountability organizations use Act.ly to target unethical corporations that have Twitter accounts!
Hi Ivan… good to see you on my blog! Thanks.
Thanks for the great tips. I’m going to try some out to help “Get A Kidney 4 #Vicky” and #Evie’s Hope. Not being very technical, I had some problems with setting up a Twibbon, but they volunteered to turn a picture into one for me.Here’s the tricky part coming up with a unique small symbol.