Academia meets Twitter: The Presentation

Getting a handle on Twitter for communication and professional growth in an educational setting.

I started a series of posts to prepare for a presentation entitled Academia meets Twitter for the eMarketing Techniques for Educators event in Austin. This post will serve as a means to follow along during the presentation as well as for attendees to refer back to for future reference:

Twitter can be a game-changer for online communicators. Education provides countless opportunities for various forms of communication, especially online. This leads to the question: Can Twitter be incorporated into an effective online communication strategy for educational institutions?
 

The short answer is yes and I wanted to explore how educational institutions can and are using/trying Twitter to assist in their communication efforts.

Communication needs
We can all agree with the general assumption that there are many areas within an educational institution that require effective communication in order to help meet objectives:

• News Updates
• Athletics
• Admissions
• Marketing/PR
• Development
• Alumni Relations
• Etc.

So what does this have to do with Twitter? 
Think of Twitter as a tool that could be a worthy addition to communication tools already in use.

Twitter is...

• a free social messaging utility for staying connected in real-time (Twitter)
• a social networking and micro-blogging tool (photo: geishaboy500)
  

Yes, but what is it?

 Let's try connections, conversations, community, and content.

For educational institutions, Twitter can be...

• a cost-effective (free) option to accentuate existing messages;
• a broadcasting tool to announce relevant information to specific audiences; and
• a (brief) conversational tool to appropriately respond to relevant inquiries and follow-up questions or comments. 

Two Twitter Types

Broadcaster

• useful if audience knows what they are getting
• another way to push information
• works best if you have good information to give
• could fill a need from specific area or topic

Conversationalist

• provides a "voice"
• seen as an authority and source
• ROE - return on engagement
• a way to interact with those interested in the institution
• all about building relationships

 Twitter is not... 

• a silver bullet for communication problems

"It won't replace crime alerts, regular campus e-mails or our cooperation with local news outlets to help ensure community awareness of important safety issues, but it's an important addition." (quoted from Univ. Michigan adds voice, text messaging for emergency notification, not specifically about Twitter, I just like the sentiment.)

Let's Explore

Broadcaster

• http://twitter.com/UOregonNews
• http://twitter.com/georgiasouthern
• http://twitter.com/johnmaeda
• http://twitter.com/uwgbtutoring
• http://twitter.com/UofA 

Conversationalist

• http://twitter.com/butleradmission
• http://twitter.com/ECCdistrict509 
• http://twitter.com/SDSU_NewsTeam
• http://twitter.com/ThunderbirdNews 
• http://twitter.com/MarquetteU
• http://twitter.com/UTAustin

Want to see more examples? http://twitter.pbwiki.com/Universities

Twitter and Professional Growth

• Referrals
• Community
• Networking
• Commerce
• Knowledge
• Serendipity

Referrals

Community

Networking

Commerce

Knowledge

Serendipity

Academia meets Twitter

• An Introduction
• Part 1 - TCU
• Part 2 - Butler University
• Part 3 - Thunderbird School of Global Management
• Part 4 - Georgia Southern University
• Part 5 - University of Oregon 
• Part 6 - Hurst Euless Bedford ISD
• Part 7 - Elgin Community College
  

Related articles & presentation sources

• Twitter in the mainstream
• When is Broadcasting OK on Twitter?
• Is Twitter a Tool for Alumni Relations? The Potential of Intentionally Weak Ties 
• Are you listening?
• Twitter, Your Free Text Messaging System
• Using Twitter for Higher Ed
• 10 Reasons to Monitor Twitter
• Question of the day: Should universities tweet?
• How individuals use Twitter
• Activating Alumni Networks with Twitter 

 

For inspiration, thoughts, and discussions, special thanks go out to: @BarbaraNixon, @BradJWard, @PRsarahevans, @morate, @vargasl, @GeoffLiving, @davidnielsen, and a few more not on Twitter. 

Academia meets Twitter: Part 7 - Elgin Community College

This is Part 7 of a series entitled Academia meets Twitter, where professionals took part in a short e-mail Q&A session to discuss Twitter incorporation in an educational setting.

Elgin Community College
Twitter Handle: @elginspartans
Participant: Sarah Evans
Elgin Community College , Director of Communications

From which department does the Twitter profile run?
The Elgin Community College (ECC) Twitter account (@elginspartans ) is “run” by the communications team.

How often do you monitor the profile?
The @elginspartans profile is monitored during school hours, typically Monday through Friday 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. This does not mean that people can only interact during this time frame. The great thing about Twitter is that responses do not necessarily have to be instantaneous. There is an asynchronistic style to the conversation flow. While we do our best to reply to “tweets” as quickly as possible, I know that a 12-hour window (before and after work) is acceptable. That said, the account is linked to my work email address (which is linked to my BlackBerry), so if someone sends a direct message I can easily respond anytime.

What Twitter applications do you use to run it?
@elginspartans is a relatively new Twitter account and hasn’t seen a ton of action (yet).  Currently, I use a combination of the actual Twitter page and Search.Twitter (formerly Summize) to interact. When interactions pick up, I may move to Tweetdeck (which is what I use for my personal account).

Have you determined if more, students, alumni, prospective students, staff, or community members are following?
The @elginspartans is still in a growing stage.  Currently we have more community members (which is a great thing!) following and interacting with the account. There are a few of each audience following the account: faculty, students, legislators, alumni and local media. I expect this to grow in 2009 and include more current students. My favorite day on Twitter for ECC was the when one of our students tweeted us. Very cool!

What communication goals do you hope to meet using Twitter for your institution?
Twitter is definitely not our only means of using social media to connect with our community. The ultimate goal is truly about making information easier to access and offering another way to interact with those who are interested with the college. Last week, a current culinary student reached out via Twitter to inquire about her uniform.  I was able to respond back immediately and begin a conversation with her.

--
Vedo's Thoughts: I have found Sarah Evans to be a tremendous resource for communications professionals especially for those of us in education. She is @PRsarahevans on Twitter and is doing some great things for the industry and sharing her ideas. The best takeaway that I'd like to highlight is her quote from the last question:

Twitter is definitely not our only means of using social media to connect with our community. The ultimate goal is truly about making information easier to access and offering another way to interact with those who are interested with the college.

Editor's Note: This post has been updated to include Elgin Community College's renamed Twitter profile, @elginspartans

Academia meets Twitter

• An Introduction
• Part 1 - TCU
• Part 2 - Butler University
• Part 3 - Thunderbird School of Global Management
• Part 4 - Georgia Southern University
• Part 5 - University of Oregon 
• Part 6 - Hurst Euless Bedford ISD
  

Academia meets Twitter: Part 6 - HEBISD

This is Part 6 of a series entitled Academia meets Twitter, where professionals took part in a short e-mail Q&A session to discuss Twitter incorporation in an educational setting.

Hurst Euless Bedford ISD
Twitter Handle: @hebisd
Participant: Dave Nielsen
Hurst Euless Bedford ISD Communications Department, Assistant Webmaster

From which department does the Twitter profile run?
Communications Department

How often do you monitor the profile?
Rarely. I look at the automatic new follower emails that Twitter sends, and I follow the account from my personal account, but I login and double check things less than once a month.

What applications do you use to run Twitter?
Our website uses a custom-built CMS which outputs an RSS feed of headlines, body text, thumbnails, and links. Twitterfeed takes that RSS feed and posts the headline and a TinyURL that points to the link. Right now, it's entirely automatic, although I would reply manually if anyone sent an @Reply or Direct Message.

Have you determined if more, students, alumni, prospective students, staff, or community members are following?
The majority of the followers look to be spam/marketers. Beyond that, it looks like we've got a couple students, and maybe a community member or two. I've never really investigated this.

What communication goals do you hope to meet using Twitter for your institution?
Right now, it's very much a testing the waters thing, and we don't have any specific goals in mind. I wanted to make sure that we had control of @hebisd for possible future use. The way it's setup now, it's mostly just a way to for anyone who's interested to see what's going on in the district.

Additional Comments
Right now, we don't actively promote the Twitter account, nor have we shared the RSS feed url. I've setup a Facebook Page for HEBISD, but it's mostly just to save that space for possible future use. I'm guessing that next time we do a survey on how stakeholders would like to get news and information from the district, we'll include some choices/questions about online tools and social networking, and use that as guidance on how to proceed.
--
Vedo's Thoughts: I wanted to be sure to include an example here of a public school district to show that Twitter can also be useful in a k12 setting as well. Plus, they are being proactive and staking a claim in Facebook for future use. Full disclosure: I run the Mansfield Independent School District's Twitter Profile. At this point it is a broadcast only profile as well with a modest number of followers. Like Dave, we are looking at ways to use this tool effectively and hope to meet some additional communication goals for the district. One other thing, Dave was very forthcoming and had some additional thoughts concerning what is sent using the school district's profile versus what he posts from his personal Twitter profile. He points out that he tries, "to post responsibly in that regard." Well said.

Academia meets Twitter

• An Introduction
• Part 1 - TCU
• Part 2 - Butler University
• Part 3 - Thunderbird School of Global Management
• Part 4 - Georgia Southern University
• Part 5 - University of Oregon

Academia meets Twitter: Part 5 - University of Oregon

This is Part 5 of a series entitled Academia meets Twitter, where professionals took part in a short e-mail Q&A session to discuss Twitter incorporation in an educational setting.

University of Orgeon
Twitter Handle: @UOregonNews
Participant: Zack Barnett
University of Oregon, Asst. Director Web Communications

From which department does the Twitter profile run?
The Office of Communications supervises the Twitter account, specifically two RSS feeds from our news site, uonews.uoregon.edu. I’ve encouraged writers and PR pros in that office not to let the feeds stand alone, and to use the account to “tweet” informally about university news, as well. We use the media relations site as a clearinghouse of stories. We might not send a release to reporters, but the site might have a sidebar featuring an award. The writers more and more are using their personal twitter accounts to highlight pieces like this, but I’d also like to see them use an informal and conversational voice to communicate more than simple news headlines.

How often do you monitor the profile?
I receive e-mail notices when people like you start to follow us. Once a week I try to check out new followers to see who they are and to make sure they are not promoting inappropriate, spam-like material. Once or twice I have noticed regional journalists who are on twitter and have set the office up to follow them, hoping that the journalists will return the favor. That’s been successful a couple times. Other than that, because we use Twitterfeeds, I do very little maintenance on it other than check out new followers.

What applications do you use to run Twitter?
I believe it is Feedburner, which is not a Twitter app but an open source app that twitter leads you to. I see potential for using Twitpic and other stuff especially for emergency communications. I believe the LA Fire Dept. uses lots of cool things like cell phone video to communicate. Not sure if they use Twitter.

Have you determined if more, students, alumni, prospective students, staff, or community members are following?
For a while it seemed as if everyone was a j-school prof or student. Now we’re getting a solid mix of PR pros like you, journalists, TV stations, but I’d say it really is a younger demographic or students and recent grads.

What communication goals do you hope to meet using Twitter for your institution?
As an international research university, we should be on the leading edge of trends. Our foray into Twitter started as an experimental effort at just that. Now it augments our typical communication efforts. We offer sneak peaks at YouTube videos we use for featured stories on our homepage. For example, we might have a 300-word feature article and 60-sec. Video scheduled to be the centerpiece of the uoregon.edu on, say, Jan. 8. I usually complete the video and post it to YouTube a couple weeks before that, then I embed the video on the Media Relations site. When I embed the video, we have a “Multimedia” RSS feed that sends a note out to our Twitter followers letting them know that a new video is posted. Then, YouTube’s insight feature allows us to track where viewers of the video are coming from. We get a fair amount of referrals from twitter in the days before the video goes live on our actual homepage. As we convince more faculty and staff to start blogging, I’d like to use the UO Twitter presence to call attention to the new posts. I’ve thought of having students Twitter, of having contests on the best tweets, or photos or various things. Lee Aase at the Mayo Clinic offers a lot of insight into Twitter and how organizations can apply it. If you haven’t visited Aase’s Social Media University, Global site, I highly encourage you to do so. I was reluctant to jump into personally, then I did and I really enjoy it.

---

Vedo's Thoughts: This is another example of a broadcast-only profile and it appears to be a very strong information source for the University. They are also making a conscious effort to track and measure effectiveness of their profile on other areas of communication.

Academia meets Twitter

• An Introduction
• Part 1 - TCU
• Part 2 - Butler University
• Part 3 - Thunderbird School of Global Management
• Part 4 -Georgia Southern University

Welcome to history, now change the future

"Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the CHANGE we seek." - Barack Obama

I hope and pray that the people of our country are as good as we think we can be. The future depends on us. My kids depend on us.

http://change.gov/ ===> http://www.whitehouse.gov/

And about that Social Media Presidency, check out the Whitehouse.gov's blog. It will be interesting to following along the administration's level of engagement. What do you think?

(Photo credit: waiting line)

Academia meets Twitter: Part 4 - Georgia Southern University

This is Part 4 of a series entitled Academia meets Twitter, where professionals took part in a short e-mail Q&A session to discuss Twitter incorporation in an educational setting.


Georgia Southern University  
Twitter Handle: @georgiasouthern
Participant: Christian Flathman
Georgia Southern University, Director Marketing & Communications

 
From which department does the Twitter profile run?
Currently, the Twitter profile is set up in the Office of Marketing & Communications

How often do you monitor the profile?
Regularly. We may update the profile multiple times each day depending what is going on.

What applications do you use to run Twitter?
Multiple people monitor so these vary. I am updating using the Google app as we are considering switching to Google Apps for e-mail and other utilities at the University.

Have you determined if more, students, alumni, prospective students, staff, or community members are following?
Our profile is still relatively new, but it looks like the majority of followers are current students.

What communication goals do you hope to meet using Twitter for your institution?
I wanted to primarily use this as a means to provide an additional avenue to communicate with current students. When I arrived just over one year ago, the University's student communication efforts were very limited. I do hope to expand this to alumni, prospective students and staff.  We are still evaluating the tool for long term use, but have seen interest grow quickly.  I came from outside academe (previously worked at GE and Michelin).  When I first arrived here, the University knew they needed to change, but this office was primarily a traditional public affairs operation still using press releases and posters to communicate activities.  University communicators need to embrace these tools and learn that traditional communications activities are becoming low reach/impact. [emphasis added]

---

Vedo's Thoughts: This is an example of a broadcast-only profile in that they have chosen to use Twitter as a tool through which they can send out the relevant information to their audience. I think that as long as they follow some basic rules for broadcast-only profiles, Georgia Southern's Twitter presence will grow and they will ultimately reap the communication benefits. [Thanks to Barbara Nixon for pointing me to her school.]

Academia meets Twitter

• An Introduction
• Part 1 - TCU
• Part 2 - Butler University
  
• Part 3 - Thunderbird School of Global Management
  

Academia meets Twitter: Part 3 - Thunderbird School of Global Management

This is Part 3 of a series entitled Academia meets Twitter, where professionals took part in a short e-mail Q&A session to discuss Twitter incorporation in an educational setting.

Thunderbird School of Global Management
Twitter handle: @ThunderbirdNews

Participant: Brian Camen

Thunderbird School of Global Management, Public Relations Coordinator

From which department does the Twitter profile run?
Communications & Outreach

How often do you monitor the profile?
The profile is monitored a few times per day.

What applications do you use to run Twitter?
The only Twitter applications we use is the basic search function. We have an RSS feed set up to monitor when people tweet @ThunderbirdNews.

Have you determined if more, students, alumni, prospective students, staff, or community members are following?

The Thunderbird Twitter account was rolled out during the last week of the fall trimester So far we have done a soft launch. Students are on break. As of January 5, we have 68 followers without any official communications being sent out to students, alumni and the rest of the Thunderbird community. Once we officially launch the account by notifying our constituents, we expect our number of followers to continuously grow. [Note: This Q&A e-mail interview took place during the Winter break. As of this writing, @ThunderbirdNews has 163 followers.]

What communication goals do you hope to meet using Twitter for your institution?
The primary goal for Thunderbird in using Twitter is to increase our public relations and communications reach to members of the Thunderbird community, prospective students and prospective corporate clients. Thunderbird has more than 38,000 graduates, and our alumni live and work in more than 140 countries. This is a great way for us to help them stay connected and informed about what’s going on at Thunderbird.

We also hope to increase the visibility of our recently launched Thunderbird Knowledge Network, a new Web portal that promotes thought leadership and engages participants in meaningful discussion on global management issues. The interactive site includes a combination of text, audio, video and graphics from Thunderbird faculty, alumni, and students. Twitter allows us to tweet about the latest blog, columns, polls, and forum updates to the Knowledge Network. 

---

Vedo's Thoughts: The most compelling things about @ThunderbirdNews to me is the good choice to engage in appropriate responses to replies and that they are targeting different members of their community - prospective students, current students, and alumni. I think the challenge for this institution will be to maintain a good level of relevancy for the community. They seem to be off to a good start.

Academia meets Twitter

• An Introduction
• Part 1: TCU
• Part 2: Butler University
  

Academia meets Twitter: Part 2 - Butler University

This is Part 2 of a series entitled Academia meets Twitter, where professionals took part in a short e-mail Q&A session to discuss Twitter incorporation in an educational setting.

Butler University
Twitter handle(s): @butleradmission, @butlerbloggers, and @butlersports
Participant: Brad J. Ward
Butler University, Coordinator for Electronic Communication

From which department does the Twitter profile run?
I work in the Admission department and oversee several accounts. There are several for admissions (@butleradmission, @butlerbloggers, then each blogger has their own account that links to @butlerbloggers) and another for Athletics (@butlersports).

How often do you monitor the profile?
I use several tools such as TweetBeep, TwitterFeed, and RSS to monitor the accounts. This allows me to keep an eye on activity and participate when needed without taking too much time out of my day to utilize Twitter. I check the RSS throughout the day and look at tweets as they are emailed to me via TweetBeep. Some days there is more to monitor than other days, but it's never overwhelming.

What applications do you use to run Twitter?
Other than the ones above, I don't really use any.  I use TweetDeck for my @bradjward account, but generally use the web interface to handle all Butler related twittering.

Have you determined if more, students, alumni, prospective students, staff, or community members are following?
I don't have concrete numbers, but I have found MANY alumni and community members through Twitter Search and RSS, and more current students are beginning to follow.  Recent graduates and senior PR students seem to be very active on Twitter.

What communication goals do you hope to meet using Twitter for your institution?
I just want to be able to connect with people interested in Butler and provide information for them when needed.  More than that though, it's all about building the relationship.  Twitter will be gone some day and we'll all move on to something else, but the relationships we build will continue into the future. Overseeing Twitter is a small portion of my time at this point, but we have built many meaningful relationships over the past few months. 

---

Vedo's Thoughts: What I find as the most important takeaway from this Q&A is that Brad understands and appreciates the value of relationships no matter the tool. There is no magic social media bullet, the magic comes from engagement and fostering meaningful relationships. Is there anything that jumps out to you?

Academia meets Twitter

• An Introduction  
• Part 1: TCU

Academia meets Twitter: Part 1 - TCU

This is Part 1 of a series entitled Academia meets Twitter, where professionals took part in a short e-mail Q&A session to discuss Twitter incorporation in an educational setting.

TCU  

Twitter handle: @tcu
Participant: Amy Peterson
Texas Christian University, New Media Designer

From which department does the Twitter profile run?

TCU’s Office of Marketing and Communication is always monitoring the changes in the communications landscape and saw Twitter and YouTube as powerful tools to reach the growing number of people using social networks. Jess Price with the Media Production branch of Instructional Services, was instrumental in getting Twitter off the ground. He designed the profile, integrated the content, monitored the feed and responded to @Replies. He had been administering the site until I was hired in August and we are now transitioning those responsibilities over to me.

We started an RSS feed 4 or 5 years ago and used the feed to auto-populate to our Twitter profile during the first few months of its launch. The content itself comes from several sources.  We use Twitterfeed to link the main RSS feeds from Marketing & Communication and Athletics (as well as our YouTube feed) to Twitter. That means the bulk of the content is created by either Marketing & Communication or Athletics themselves—and auto-populated on Twitter. For the first several months, though, we were more or less letting our profile run by itself.

We recently decided to manually add content to Twitter (in addition to the auto-generated RSS feeds).  So far, this has included daily updates on campus happenings. We are also planning on doing some "live" tweets for big events. Our first attempt at this was done when Jess tweeted about the Christmas tree lighting while it was happening and I later tweeted about the uploaded video of the lighting. We also try to engage our followers (and non-followers who have questions) where appropriate.

As we move forward to a new semester, we're waiting to see what new features Twitter unveils next year that might shift how and to whom we share content.

How often do you monitor the profile?
I monitor the site continuously while at work and check it a few times during the evening while at home.

What applications do you use to run Twitter?
 At work I use TweetDeck and on my iPhone I use Tweetie.

Have you determined if more, students, alumni, prospective students, staff, or community members are following?
By examining the tweets, it appears we have students, alumni, sports fans, and students’ parents following us. News organizations, other colleges, and some businesses are following us as well. We decided to follow the news organizations and colleges, but do not follow any businesses that are simply trying to advertise. Our site is new and we are still trying to determine what category the bulk of our followers are in.

---

Vedo's Thoughts: Aside from TCU being in my hometown, I wanted to start with them as a feature to highlight the fact that they started as a broadcast-only Twitter user and have transitioned to engagement through appropriate responses.

Academia meets Twitter

• An Introduction
  

Academia meets Twitter: An Introduction

I am presenting at a conference at the end of January a breakout session entitled Academia meets Twitter: Get a handle on Twitter for communication and professional growth in an educational setting.

This is the first in a series of posts dedicated to this topic...

Twitter can be a game-changer for online communicators. Education provides countless opportunities for various forms of communication, especially online. This leads to the question: Can Twitter be incorporated into an effective online communication strategy for educational institutions?
 

The short answer is yes and I wanted to explore a few educational institutions who are using/trying Twitter as part of a variety of communication needs. In the coming posts, I will present some very gracious participants who provided answers to questions regarding their institution's Twitter usage.

(Photo credit: Mullenkedheim)

Dumping Friends for the Despot

Image by flow14 via FlickrYou have probably already heard of the Burger King's latest ploy to dump sell burgers. The Whopper Sacrifice rules are simple: cast off 10 Facebook friends and get a coupon for a free burger.  The tag lie, I mean tag line, "Friendship is Strong, but the Whopper is Stronger," says something about the company: they don't care about you.

At first I didn't think too much of this campaign, but then I started thinking about it in terms of social media and it started to bug me a bit. As just an ad campaign to sell burger I think it may be a pretty good hit for the burger chain. But here's what bothers me; they will likely try to call this some sort of social media integrated campaign by virtue of its call to action running through Facebook.

Anti-Social Media
To me, this is the antithesis of social media as a branding effort. Why? Because it tells you that your friends don't matter as much as their mass-produced burger.  

Translation: Burger King says, "people don't matter, it's about the sell. "

But they are giving a coupon for free burger, not selling anything. That's true, but they know you will probably also get fries and a drink, so there is a cost involved. (Disclaimer: I don't like the BK Whopper as a fast-food burger option, so we can move passed that for the purposes of this post.)


They just don't get it, we should be lauding efforts that build community, not those that try to tear it down.


But they are just trying to be funny and build awareness for their target audience just like their faux king character. That's also true, but maybe they should spend less time on faking their way through a adver-social campaign and more time on improving on the taste of their food instead of peddling garbage to the peons.


Am I taking this too seriously? Should we be bothered by or bitter about this strange BK campaign? Should we take action against this campaign or embrace it as a creative use of the interwebs? Maybe I'm being too hard on BK, I mean afterall it couldn't be worse than the Whopper Virgins failure of a campaign.  

Maybe the king should just get an "E" for effort and an incomplete for understanding community.

Related articles by Zemanta and Richie Escovedo

• Remove 10 Facebook Friends and Gain 670 Calories With Whopper
• BK Offers Facebook 'Sacrifice'
• When You Love Whoppers More Than Your Friends
• Does Burger King’s Facebook ‘Whopper Sacrifice’ Go Too Far?

Social Media can be Good (and Fast)

Tonight we witnessed something pretty amazing.

Those of us tuned into a handful of social media tools saw a good (and fast) example of community, caring, and giving.

A request on Twitter by David Armano (author of the Logic + Emotion blog) was simple:

 In part, here is how the blog post read: 

Daniela recently divorced her husband after years of physical abuse. In recent years her mortgage went unpaid and she's lost her house. As of this moment, Daniela's family is staying at our house and we are trying to help her find a one bedroom apartment for her family to live in.  With Evelyn, her youngest having Down's Syndrome and Daniela herself being a Romanian immigrant with very little family support she literally has no one to turn to. Except us (all of us).

Daniela cleans houses when she can leave her family. I'm not even going to tell you what she gets paid—it's obscene. Right now her options are pretty limited, aside from an apartment, there is only a group shelter. Not very pretty. 

Here's what we are asking. Right now, Belinda and I are opening our home, but it's tight as we have no basement. We've committed to giving as much as we can spare, diverting funds from other places.  I'm asking if you could think about doing the same. Or at the very least, helping get the word out about this. We are looking to raise 5k for Daniela and her family. Enough so that she doesn't have to worry about a deposit or rent for a while.

The Community Responds
In about two hours the original tweet had been Retweeted many times and the request spread on Twitter, it went to Digg, it started trending on search.twitter, and no doubt there will be multiple blog posts that spread or cover this phenomenon, and most importantly, they exceeded the $5K goal (as of this writing, over $9,000 had been rasied with more on the way.)

It is very hard to argue with results like this. We saw something very special tonight.
And it was just a Tuesday night.

Here's David Armano's Thank You video in response:

Related articles and links by Zemanta and Richie Escovedo

• Please Help Us Help Daniela's Family
• Blogger David Armano Uses His Network To Raise over $8,000 to help an out of luck family   
• Using Social Media for Good Causes
  
• Clive Thompson on How Twitter Creates a Social Sixth Sense
• Safe Haven of Tarrant County