Refugees, tweets and the sceptical intern

Guest post by Jane Macfarlane-Grieve (@janem_g)

Me? I don’t care for Twitter. I’ve tried to get along with it, really. But it’s just not meant to be. The thing is, I can see the torrential rain outside my own window. I don’t need 40 tweeters to point it out to me. And yes, the same goes for your astonishment that it’s FRIIIIDAY.

Naturally, my first big project as an intern would be writing tweets.

Scottish Refugee Council is one of Blackad’s clients, and as part of Refugee Week they wanted to tweet every 15 minutes between 8am and 8pm on Wednesday 20 June. Twitter and I were just going to have to get along for the good of charity.

Refugee Week is all about raising awareness of refugee issues. It’s one big party, filled with events, movies and tasty treats from around the world. All 100% guilt free of course; you’re even allowed an extra helping of Faloodeh.

Shamefully oblivious to all things refugee, I needed to get my study on. Scouring the Scottish Refugee Council website was the first step. Then I read their list of events for Refugee Week, and had to choose from over 100, picking out the most newsworthy ones to tweet about.

Not being used to Twitter, first of all I looked at other charities’ Twitter feeds. I checked out their tone, subject matter and especially how they encourage donations. The Scottish Refugee Council Twitter feed has a casual, chatty tone. And while they will remind you of the facts, it never feels too serious or pressurising.

Thinking about the construction of the tweets was important too. The pearls of tweeting wisdom that came my way are:

• First words count
– I really tried to push the important points to the beginning of each tweet. Why hide the good stuff?

• Stay human
– just like the unified hatred of answering your phone to a robotic voice, no one wants to chat with a soulless corporation on Twitter.

• Share something valuable
 – let’s face it, we’re all a little selfish. If there’s nothing in it for you, why bother?

• Ask questions
– this one applies to most things in life, but it works for Twitter too. People love to feel included.

Finding my inner tweety bird was easier than I’d expected. And suddenly there I was, right into this Twitter business that I’d had such an aversion for. Getting down with the hash tag and the @ symbol, I rattled out tweet after tweet.

Sending the finished tweets into the big wide world wasn’t easy. And the idea of a real client reading my work was unsettling . But I’m pleased to say the speedy response from SRC was far better than I could have anticipated.

I don’t mean to boast but the feedback may have gone something like, “Not a change to be made!”. And I believe the word ‘genius’ might have popped up in there as well. Okay yes, I completely mean to boast – this time in 2,961 characters, not 140.

Visit the new web copywriter blog on the Blackad website

Follow @scotrefcouncil on Twitter

Scottish Refugee Council website