According to my unofficial and very unscientific survey, my blog audience … for the most part … have not adopted Twitter.

You need to.

In fact, failing to adopt Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, etc., is having a profound effect on the fundraising industry’s ability to build relationships with younger Boomers, Gen X and Millennials. Imagine that back in the late 1980s you would have refused to use a personal computer … “Too hard to learn!” And of course there was that new computer application called email … novel at first … then indispensable.

Honestly, for senior level people in all sectors, Twitter is the fastest growing social communication technology. I hesitate to call Twitter social “media” because the word media implies something you consume. And, again, according to my unscientific survey of  blog readers who have a Twitter or even a Facebook account, they tend to be passive readers rather than participants.

This IS the future of communications and nothing says “old (fill-in-the-blank)” more than a senior level fundraiser that DOES NOT USE Twitter or Facebook. I ought to know, my daughters were all over my case. They still tell their friends that their dad prints out his email … low blow … cause it has been years.

Besides, Twitter is kind of  fun!

During the Super Bowl, the lights went out. I ran upstairs, got my iPad, and hopped on Twitter. It was abuzz. Everyone … at least in the U.S. … was having their say. And to say it was way more entertaining than watching Super Bowl ads for the next twenty minutes is an understatement.

A couple of weeks later, I turned on the Grammys where the host LL Cool J (don’t ask me who he is, but I figured out his name by reading the Tweets) was imploring everyone watching to tweet up a storm . . . but there was a problem. Apparently, the Grammys’ social networking idea never got to Les Moonves, the president of CBS, who had ordered the Grammys broadcast delayed on the West coast so it would run in prime time. The Grammys were hosted on the West coast. Talk about some angry Tweeters!

See, that’s the thing. Les Moonves is us (assuming you are an older Boomer) and, obviously, Les doesn’t Tweet. He doesn’t get it. I mean, seriously, would Les have delayed the Super Bowl?

Before your fundraising group even thinks about using Twitter, its senior leadership better be using it.


-Mike

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