Twitter builds a much faster network and clientele base than any other social networking sites. Not only that, Twitter’s capability has expanded beyond only for extending your friend base it is now used to do so much more than just ‘keeping in touch and staying updated’. Twitter is used for advertising campaigns, for promotional and marketing campaigns, for presidential campaigns as well as event campaigns. Here is a breakdown on how you can use Twitter to get people interested in your NGO:

1: Stay Updated and Relevant

No doubt Twitter helps you receive a lot of followers and this is only true if what you have is newsworthy and interesting. If you have a cause, get those who are passionate about your cause to be your followers as well as attract new followers by staying current and updated. Listen and be updated on the current issues that your followers are talking about and you’d be surprised that you can get good networking done and who else can help support your cause either financially or by other means.

2: Customize your page and Link it

Customize your page with relevant Twit pictures and update your Bio with enough information so people know what you are about, what you are doing and what organizations you are representing as well as what campaign are your doing. Brand your Twitter page according to your organization’s logo and theme so that recognition and recall is easy. Link your website to Twitter so that people can have easy access to your organization’s information and resource.

3: Be the Voice for your Organization

Become an active voice on the internet by posting pertinent and open minded questions about the state of things concerning your cause. You may also want to use Twitter to inform your followers regarding the latest updates on your cause, legislation and rules that govern your cause and other newsworthy information that you feel people will be interested in. Make sure whatever you say will keep you organization in a more positive light.

4: Engage with Your Clientele

Newsworthy items posted on your account will get people talking about and this is where you should start a 2-way communication. Be prepared to receive tons of questions and comments and replies. You don’t have to reply to each one of it but pick a few outstanding ones and those worthy for a reply. Other followers will get the update and read about it anyhow. It’s always good to thank everyone for their comments and suggestions by posting a Tweet that mentions your followers in general.

5: Get an App

There are so many apps for Twitter than make posting Tweets and images on your account. Some of the most popular apps for Twitter are TweetDeck which is a desktop tool and there are apps for iPhone and Blackberry amongst others which make posting Tweets through this form of communication easy.

Last but not lease, don’t obsess on Twitter. With each New Year, there’s always a new social networking site that is popular from Friendster to MySpace to Facebook. Study the social networking tool before you use it and see if your clientele uses it too. If your clientele is over or below the age of those that actively use Twitter or any other social networking site, then there is no point opening an account. At the end of the day, a through search on what’s best is always the solution. But then again, opening a Twitter account is free, so why not?

When someone mentions Twitter, what flashes across your mind? The word “Twitter” in blue or the cute blue bird? Which is the official logo for Twitter? This goes again, the word or the bird? Well, the official logo for Twitter is the word “Twitter” (in blue). It is not surprising if you choose the cute little blue bird as this bird has overwhelmed Twitter’s official logo.

So, who designed this blue bird? Is it from one of Twitter’s designers? No. The creator, designer of this little bird is Simon Oxley. Never heard of this person? Not surprising. Twitter never talks about him. Simon Oxley is a talented illustrator. His designs are often simple, without any bombastic colors. Yet, they are very appealing, funny and with a sense of originality. Simon Oxley grew up in England and liked drawing since young. He is 40 years old now. Currently, he is based in Japan with his wife, Noriko. They have 2 boys who are at a very young age; Tyler and Hagen. He used to work for Harajuku. However, he is a freelancer now, still contributing to iStockphoto.

Why the word “still” contributing to iStockphoto is used? Well, iStockphoto was where Twitter purchased Simon’s little bird at a “stunning” price of about $7. This innocent bird is never meant to be Twitter’s logo, not now, not in the future. It flew into Twitter simply as a decorative element on the website. Thus, it is all legal for Twitter to use it. This blue bird is just too cute; it took the spotlight away from Twitter’s official logo accidentally.

Are you still curious about Simon? How and where did he get his inspiration to come up with such a cute bird? According to Simon in an interview, he, himself is not sure. He cannot even remember why he drew the bird. He only remembers he was uploading tones of images to iStockphoto at that moment. Well, guess he is just simply talented.

Now that this blue bird is a worldwide icon, Twitter’s mascot, yet, he is not given any credits from Twitter. Does he hold any grudges or hard feelings towards Twitter? Amazingly, his answer is, no. In fact, Simon is happy that Twitter had chosen his design. He understands that Twitter is not obligated to do so. He is proud of what Twitter is doing, enabling people from all around the world to communicate and to share information in a better way.

According to Simon, on 21st June, an article about him and the Twitter bird will be published on Washington Post. Wired.com had also mentioned about him. All these are great promotions. He is satisfied, chirping like a bird. His dream is not to be a millionaire but simply to be able to fund his family to travel around, to many places, to broaden theirs and his mind. He wants to buy a house too, whereby they can grow their own vegetables. These are such simple, achievable dreams. Guess these promotions will give him a helping hand to realize his dreams.

In conclusion, let’s give this talented, down to earth illustrator a big round of applause. Now that you know the bird is just a decorative bird, please remember Twitter’s official logo, “Twitter” in blue words and not any animals.

Twitter is the phenomenon in town. Britney Spears is on Twitter, Lady Gaga is on Twitter, Al Gore and Arnold Schwarzenegger are on Twitter. Even Barack Obama is on Twitter. So, what milestone? What is new? Well, another President! The President from Russia, the 44 years old, Dmitry Medvedev. President Medvedev visited the headquarters of Twitter this June and posted his first tweet.

You may ask, so what is the big deal? It is just another visit from some high profile individual. Well, it is more than that. It was the day, the day where Twitter has proven its international presence and importance. Twitter has gained its worldwide recognition and reputation with only about 200 talented employees. Biz Stone, one of Twitter’s founders was glad and honored. He stated, “We are small but we have a global mindset. With such a busy schedule, it was astonishingly generous for the President to stop by.” You may visit Biz’s side, under the subject “From Russia with Love” to read it yourself.

So, what happened on that significant day? According to a blogger, MG Siegler, he had to go through a security check much more compelling than any other airports in the world. Snipers were in sight. Any silly move and it will cost you your life. No joke. Evan Williams, Twitter’s co-founder got the ball rolling by acknowledging it was indeed a historic day for Twitter. The President then took the stage and sent his very first tweet in Russian. It said “”Hello everyone! I’m on Twitter, and this is my first tweet.” Within minutes, President Medvedev had 1,500 followers and the numbers kept growing. Fast but as expected. The crowd was humongous to the extend Williams soon noticed no one was working! Everyone was excited. Well, they should be. It was not only an honor but an acknowledgement to their hard work.

President Medvedev sent not only 1, but a total of 14 tweets. Guess who responded to Medvedev’s first tweet? President Obama himself. He welcomed the Russian president in his tweet. Besides President Obama, “The Terminator”, current Californian Governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger responded to President Medvedev’s tweet as well. According to news on Channel 4 on 24 June, the Russian president had 24,000 followers in Tweeter’s Russian version while 18,000 in the English version to date. It is a good sign indeed. In his tweets, President Medvedev recognizes Silicon Valley’s value and its greatest asset. This type of environment would be great for Russia. He even took some time to meet up with native Russians who are currently working in Silicon Valley. According to President Medvedev, Russia has the money but does not have a Silicon Valley.

Twitter going global or in other words, internalization, kicked off by Matt Sanford, Yoshi Niwa and Sean Bell. Matt Sanford is the lead engineer, responsible in both international strategy and engineering. He used to work for Disney, AOL and Summize. So far, Twitter has localized its interface, catering to 5 markets. Unicode supports Twitter with its translation service. This remarkable event had indeed made everyone’s effort worthwhile.

Do you know if Twitter were a country, it would be the world 12th largest country in terms of population? According to Wikipedia, as a start, Twitter had 500,000 tweets per quarter. In 2008, the tweets grew to 100 million per quarter. This carried on to 2 billion tweets, mind you; it is billion, not million anymore, by 2009. In March 2010, there was a 1,500% increase in the number of registered Twitter users. By now, 65 million tweets are hitting the web each day, meaning there are a number of 750 tweets sent per second! Just imagine the number of fingers typing per second. It will surely make you giddy.

So, what makes Twitter grow so fast and remain strong? It is hard to pin point down to 1 reason as there are many and most of the time, interlinked. Simplicity is 1 reason for sure. Try Google “How to use Twitter”. You will be amazed how helpful people are today, the bright side of humanity, to the extent you might yell “Enough! Information overload!” Yes, joining Twitter and start tweeting is really as easy as a piece of cake. Go to Twitter’s website and click “Join for Free”. Follow the steps and you are done. In fact, some call it a complete no-brainer. You do not have to be tech-savvy to use it.

Besides simplicity, you get to “follow” your favorite celebrities on Twitter! Not as a paparazzi, of course. How often do you get to text your favorite celebrities? How often do you get to hear from them, themselves, and not from any reliable, non-reliable sources? How often do you get to know what is playing on their minds at a particular moment? Well, Twitter offers you this opportunity, to get close, to get to know, to connect with your favorites. You do not even have to pay a cent for these! According to The Sunday Times, the top 50 celebrities are Stephen Fry, a comedian; Britney Spears, John Cleese, MC Hammer, Demi Moore, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Kevin Smith, Lady Gaga and the list goes on. Thus, you actually have a whole “gallery” of celebrities to choose from. In fact, it was said that Jennifer Anniston dumped John Mayer because he paid more attention to Twitter and not to her. What a poor guy…

Thirst for the latest news updates? Was in a rush, not in time to grab the papers? Well, you always have Twitter. Twitter can be accessed via computers and mobile phones. Unless you are still living in the Stone Age, everyone has a mobile phone nowadays. So, how does Twitter, a microblogging, social networking platform could act as a news channel for you? Well, BBC, CNN and some other News providers have joined Twitter. They tweet news bulletins. Besides News providers, you can also skip all traditional news reporting by getting ground breaking news from primary sources, example, eyewitnesses themselves.

Besides all above, to remain popular, you have to be at the top of mind of your users all the time. Twitter does have a cute and simple icon which is easy to remember – the blue bird. In fact, some Twitterholics got so attracted to this bird, they started creating their own galleries of blue birds, free for all to download. The Overload Shark icon is cute too! It will appear when the server gets congested, saying “Too many tweets! Please wait a moment and try again.” It somehow has a funny effect, getting you less frustrated. No matter how old you are, everyone has an inner child. Guess, Twitter has managed to capture the little kid in us.

You may be wondering what this got to do with Twitter? Well, Twitter just created a new account for itself, @EarlyBird. Seems like bird, birds are associated with Twitter. Thanks to the cute little blue bird created by Simon Oxley.

So, what does this account do? Selling birds? Selling, promoting, yes. Birds, no! Followers of @EarlyBird will be able to enjoy sneak peaks, events, exclusive deals and special promotions by Twitter’s partners and other businesses. Twitter is not the boss here. Its advertising partners and businesses are the ones who will determine the terms and conditions, amount, prices and availability of the promotions @EarlyBird. No worries, Twitterholics. Twitter promises to have the best of your interests in mind. According to Twitter, this new account is well received. Within days, even before the bird starts singing, @EarlyBird already has thousands of little birdies following it.

The poor victim of Twitter’s @EarlyBird’s overwhelming response is Twitter’s help desk itself. It actually started a Q&A page, answering frequently asked questions. According to the help desk, this account is alike all other accounts. It is solely up to you to follow or unfollow. Retweets of this account will also look like any other retweets. So, what is the catch? It is simple. As the saying goes, early birds, get the worm! In other words, the deals or offers are supply-sensitive and time-sensitive.

Where and how did Twitter get the idea to create this account? Well, Twitter is well aware of the many businesses using it as a platform to communicate with their potential or existing consumers by providing timely information about product launches and deals. In fact, Dell was reported to have achieved $6.5million in sales via its Twitter account. If Dell can do so, why not Twitter?

Now, which was the very first song sang by the bird? It sang a song from Walt Disney Studios, “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice”. Followers were entitled to get 2 tickets of the movie at the price of one. Not a bad start, targeting at one of the many summer movies. So, you only get movie deals from @EarlyBird? Of course not, dear Twitterholics. According to Matt Graves, Twitter’s PR guy, the face of Twitter, “This is just a start. Our bird had just taken its virgin flight. Advertisers are interested in our little bird, providing us the luxury to be picky and nosey. As promised, we keep our users’ interests in mind. We are selecting offers with products many love and dream to have, but seldom enjoy great deals from them. We have great deals lining up and this is for sure.”

By end of July, Twitter will unveil more about @EarlyBird. According to Carolyn Penner, Twitter’s spokesperson, “@EarlyBird is not an overnight bird. To find out what are in store, keep waking up early and be the first to know!” Exactly how early do you need to wake up? Well, too bad, the answer is not available. However, you can choose to stay glued to your computer all night long. Good luck, Twitterholics!