Voluntwitter

I have begun a process trying something a bit different with our volunteer communication. I am going to try and use twitter to communicate basic and important information.

The Problem: I used icontact to track how many of my volunteers opened emails i sent them and was amazed how many didn’t. I have been looking for a solution to the info gap. So the other day i learned that you don’t need a twitter account to receive updates from twitter. You can follow someone by texting “follow (persons username)” to 40404. It got me thinking. Many teens are not emailaholics  so I have made the move posting our lessons to a volunteer blog and now twitter it seems would would be the perfect complement to that move.

Why I think it will work is even though twitter is still very unknown. Everyone has a cellphone and to avoid anyone getting blitzed with unnecessary info I created multiple accounts. One is for Small group leaders, another for Logistics (the check in security crowd), a large group one for our producers and communicators, and a preschool one. At a campus level I created one for each campus for updates on a broader scale that would be helpful for parents and volunteers.

I used to do email groups -HATE them keeping them up to date is a nightmare. With this system the burden of keeping the group updated lies on the individual to connect via sms or twitter.

Updating multiple accounts is very easy with tweetie on the iphone, twhirl on the desktop and web based via brightkit. Sending an update to each group once a week will be cake.

One bonus i am hoping for is that many of my workers make twitter accounts and we can start a 2-way collabritive diolog about ministry stuff and best practices.

Let me know if you have any ideas. I haven’t fully implamented it yet. I have all the twitter accounts up now just have to get the word out.

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