You finally got the go ahead to set up your Twitter account and are ready to start sending tweets. Great! Twitter is a powerful communications tool that will provide you with an additional means of engaging members and giving your media contacts immediate updates on breaking news.

However, Twitter alone is not nearly as effective as Twitter plus online tools that integrate with Twitter. To help you get the greatest benefit from Twitter, Green Media Toolshed recently created a Step-by-Step Twitter Guide to give you an overview of Twitter and other tools that will improve your ability to send tweets, find your target audience following and track Twitter statistics.

The Twitter website might look simple but there are several features built in that make it a unique and powerful tool. For example, Twitter provides a place for cell phone and online communication to merge, but only if you enable your cell phone to accept SMS messages from Twitter. This guide gives you clear instructions for activating your cell phone.

Once you are comfortable with the general Twitter interface, the guide will then advise you which of these features to integrate into your Twitter strategy. There are tons of tools out there, and our guide reflects the options we think are most beneficial and tells you what you can gain from each tool and how to set it up.

Almost all of the tools in this guide are free and the website address for each tool is included. The appendix also contains a basic list of Twitter definitions. The list is not exhaustive; it’s just the important terms to get you started.

After you read the guide, watch for our upcoming Twitter Skill Building webinar, hosted by our director Martin Kearns, to find out how Twitter is different and why it is such an important tool for nonprofits.