140 Characters to Follow on Twitter


Twitter ended up receiving a six-year reprieve from said tax in April of 2011, but, in return, the company had to sign a "Community Benefit Agreement" with San Francisco that stipulated a series of 12 different activities that Twitter had to accomplish as a "payment" of-sorts for receiving its tax exclusion.

One such point, calling for Twitter to "support nonprofit capacity building in social media," has come under a bit of fire, given that Twitter's basically gone out and shown a few nonprofits how to – you guessed it – use Twitter. According to Buzzfeed's Justine Sharrock, Twitter has announced that it has Twitter-trained 27 organizations in total, and seven of these received promoted Twitter campaigns. In total, Twitter dished our promoted tweets worth approximately $55,000, the company says.

So, what exactly does that purchase? The raw numbers are a lot less than what you might expect. For example, Twitter advertising for the organization Great NonProfits scored a total of 319 followers, 27 replies, and just over 7,000 clicks – a campaign worth $5,000. Compass Family Services? Seventeen tweets and a gain of around 50 followers for the $4,000 campaign. WritersCorps? Two tweets, 30 new followers, and just over 1,600 clicks for a total campaign cost of $2,500.

For what it's worth, it's a bit unclear how Sharrock arrives at her campaign costs — as well, why her $45,000 total is a wee off from Twitter's reported $55,000 total. So, take these figures as estimates, rather than concrete fact of exactly what these nonprofits are receiving as part of their arrangement with Twitter.

"Would these same groups rather taken a few thousand dollars worth of Twitter advertising, or just a few thousand dollars? It costs Twitter a hell of a lot less to get everyone high on its own supply instead of cutting a check," writes Valleywag's Sam Biddle.

Here's the kicker, though. Either said nonprofits really don't understand what they're receiving (nor its actual value), or Twitter's campaigns are actually doing exactly what they're intended to do, which is to generate interest in these nonprofits in general or particular programs they're looking to highlight.

Consider the feedback from the companies themselves that Sharrock talks to: WritersCorps called Twitter's help "pretty useful to get tips and techniques for building better tweets and Twitter strategies in general." Great NonProfits described the promoted tweets as "incredibly valuable." Walk SF? "The tweets did help increase awareness for Walk to Work Day and boosted Walk SF's followers significantly."

While Twitter's program might be easy fodder for snark from those who might otherwise expect a promoted campaign to, well, do a bit more than generate a handful of followers and a thousand eyeballs or so, is it that raw of a deal if the very organizations that Twitter is supporting appreciate the results?

"This program has become a career development tool for our sales team and is one of our most powerful resources in our community outreach toolbox," describes Twitter in its Community Benefit Agreement quarterly report.