Twitter & The Folk Project

Post date: Sep 17, 2014 11:18:51 AM

From: Jean Scully [mailto:jeangaijin@gmail.com]

Sent: Tuesday, September 16, 2014 5:59 PM

To: Chris Riemer; g_otto@comcast.net; 'Cronin, Joanne'; 'Kugel, Alan'; 'Rowedder, Cecillia'; 'Falco, Lori'; 'Falco, Lori'; 'Schaffer, Mark'

Cc: 'Otto, George'

Subject: Re: Next meeting of the Ad Hoc Technology Awareness Committee

Folks,

I'm sorry, but I'm not going to be able to attend. I've got a job that suddenly became a rush for tomorrow morning.

Here are my recent stats, though: we're following 952 individuals and organizations, and we have 320 followers, which is great! We're getting new followers every day.

I am in the process of going through my program from Falcon Ridge and checking every performer and vendor for a Twitter presence; if they have one, I follow them. So far we've gotten about a dozen new followers from that.

I tweeted a couple of times following UkeFest, and those got retweeted by the folks I mentioned in the tweet, like Cathy & Marcy.

Several board members are now tweeting using our account; Mark & Robin have been very active tweeting about the Getaway, and that has also gotten us a couple of new followers.

I am going to mention this to the Board as a whole: If anyone wants to send out a tweet about an event or performer, take a moment to search on twitter to see if that person has a twitter account, and then include their twitter address (the @TheFolkProject, for example) in the tweet. That they will see it and probably retweet it! For example, no one in Modern Man has a twitter feed, but the upcoming Eco-Fest in Bloomfield is sponsored by Greener Bloomfield, @GreenBloomfield. Someone tweeted about Eco-Fest earlier this week, but they didn't include the @GreenBloomfield or an #Eco-Fest hashtag, so the chances are the sponsors never saw it.

Jean

JEAN'S NOTE TO THE BOARD:

From: Jean Scully [mailto:jeangaijin@gmail.com]

Sent: Tuesday, September 16, 2014 6:22 PM

To: Folk Project

Subject: Making Tweets More Effective for Folk Project

Hi Friends,

Several folks on the board are now using Twitter to promote their events by sending out their own tweets under our @TheFolkProject address.

A tip that will GREATLY enhance your number of retweets and make sure that the folks you want to reach see your tweet: Take a few minutes and search Twitter to see if the person or group or event you're promoting has a Twitter account (the @Whatevertheirname is) ! There's a search box right on the home page of Twitter; just type in the name and see what comes up. If a group doesn't have an account, try using the individual band members' names. When you put their @ address in the tweet, they will see it, and will retweet it to their followers. This will make your tweet a much more targeted marketing tool. Also, as a bonus, some of those followers will see our name and say, "Hmmmm. Folk Project? What's that?" click on the link and find out about us!

Also, many towns in NJ have these hyper-local on-line newsites called "The Patch." There's a Morristown Patch, Bloomfield Patch, etc., and almost all of them have Twitter accounts. so include those in your tweet as well! You can send out multiple tweets with the same basic info, and use different @ addresses each time to reach more folks, or just string them all in one. You can look them up on Twitter as well to get the exact @ address.

For example, the upcoming Eco-Fest in Bloomfield is sponsored by Greener Bloomfield, @GreenBloomfield and @Greener07003 (a new address they just started using). So between those Twitter accounts and the one for Bloomfield Patch, they have almost 1500 followers (with some overlap, no doubt). It's like getting a free ride on someone else's mailing list!

I also have gotten some good retweets and new followers by tweeting about other things; the climate march, food bank stuff, digital life online, etc.

Feel free to ask me if you have any questions or need help with anything regarding Twitter.

Jean