5 built-in Twitter features charities should know about

15 June 2021  |  Stuart Palmer

Twitter is arguably the best social media platform for spreading charity updates far and wide to reach both existing and new supporters.

Yet some of the blue bird’s feathers are clipped when charities fail to make use of some of the native (i.e. built-in) features that the platform has to offer.

From streaming live events with a single click to ensuring visually impaired supporters are catered for, we have picked out five useful functions that can help your Twitter campaigns take flight.

What’s more, all of these features are now included in the Twitter mobile app so you can take advantage of them while out in the field.

Stream right into your followers’ feeds – no click needed

A lot has changed over the past five years when it comes to live streaming charity content via Twitter. In order to go live, users previously needed to download the Periscope app and connect it to their Twitter account.

When streaming, the charity’s followers would receive a notification Tweet which included a link to the content. This was easy to miss in a busy news feed.

If you have been disappointed with livestream engagement in the past, it could be time to give it another go.

First, you can now go live from the Twitter app itself (via the same camera icon you use for adding a picture or video). Second, your footage will autoplay in your followers’ browser as soon as it arrives in their news feed. By clicking the play button, they can then view the content in full screen.

Keep your best Tweets front and central

Twitter is renowned for its fast news feed which is great for reading and posting the latest news but not so useful if you have a powerful message or valuable content you want to keep front of mind.

One handy solution is Twitter’s ‘Pin to Profile’ feature. This enables you to choose a Tweet you have posted (retweets don’t work) and make sure it is the first item anyone sees when they visit your Twitter profile. Only one pinned Tweet is allowed so choose wisely!

The feature is accessed via the down arrow on your mobile or the three dots menu on laptop or desktop. To remove or replace the highlighted Tweet, simply access in the same way and click the ‘Unpin from Profile’ command.

Tag followers without wasting a single character!

You probably already know that you can have your charity’s Tweets show up in another person’s news feed by adding their Twitter user name (e.g. @eyesdownweb) to the content. This is sometimes called an ‘at mention’. The problem with this method is that each user name is included in your character limit.

The neat solution is Twitter’s new photo tagging feature. Simply add a photo to your Tweet in the normal way and you will now see the option to tag up to ten people – and still have 280 characters left to play with.

Add image descriptions

Another addition to Twitter’s photo editor is the ability to add descriptive text (known as ‘alt text’). This will help you to engage with followers who may be blind or visually impaired as their screen reader devices will be able to read them the description you have entered.

This description can also help with your search engine ranking (SEO) as Google recognises alt text and uses it to match content with search queries.

Freeze out the hecklers

There has been a lot of noise (or rather silence) on social media lately as people have hit back at platforms for failing to protect individuals from online abuse and discrimination.

If your charity has been put off Tweeting by abusive replies to Tweets, you now have some control over who is allowed to post a reply. When composing a Tweet, you will see the default ‘Everyone can reply’ label with a globe icon.

By clicking this label you can choose to either restrict replies to people you follow or people you mention. Your Tweet will still reach as many people as always but only a select few will be able to add their reply.

It would be great to hear how using these features boost your future social media campaigns. Are there any other native Twitter features you use regularly?