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How to use Facebook and Twitter to promote your nation

NationBuilder’s built-in social media connections help spread the word about your nation and give you the ability to manage multiple accounts yourself or create workflows for sharing duties on a single Twitter or Facebook account. Here are some of the things you can do:

  • Easily share information through both Twitter and Facebook
  • Monitor social network activity that mentions your nation and social media accounts
  • Set up default content to be shared by your supporters and encourage them to post on your behalf
  • Quickly reshare, favorite and reply to mentions on Twitter from your communication dashboard

Website social sharing prompts

Whenever someone takes an action on NationBuilder, they are prompted to share it on Facebook and Twitter. This is called a face tweet. While NationBuilder creates a default face tweet for each page on your website, we recommend editing the default. Creating well crafted messages for these pages will encourage supporters to share the links and will encourage new supporters to visit and join your nation.

 

You can view all default face tweets for a website from Websites > [website name] > Social. Click the edit icon next to an author to edit a default face tweet.

Here are some tips for getting your social media messages shared regularly by your supporters: 

  • People share what they haven’t seen before.
  • Be active. Passive messages don’t get shared.
  • Be clear. Don’t depend on the reader to interpret what you are saying.
  • Leave 30 characters at the end for people to use when re-tweeting.

When creating a new page, you can edit the default face tweet from Settings > Social Media. Here you’ll also be able to upload a thumbnail picture to be used in Facebook and other sites, giving you some control over the visual associated with the page’s content.


The voice of your nation on Twitter and Facebook

We recommend reaching out to people on Twitter and Facebook, as those are the two largest social media networks on the web. If your organization already has an official Twitter account and Facebook page, you can easily connect those to a broadcaster in your nation.

By connecting a Twitter account to a broadcaster, all of the followers of the account will be pulled into your nation as supporters. Anyone who mentions your Twitter account, but is not following you on Twitter, will be pulled in as a prospect. You’ll also be able to keep track of your account’s Klout score and when people begin or stop following you on Twitter. This information will also be stored in the broadcaster’s dashboard.


Connecting a Twitter account to a broadcaster

To add a Twitter account to a broadcaster, open a new browser window and sign in to the Twitter account that you want associated with the broadcaster.

Going back to your control panel window, go to Communications > [Broadcaster name] and click the link “Connect Twitter account” to go to the broadcaster’s Twitter settings. Click the yellow button on the bottom left of the page to connect the Twitter account and follow the prompts.

Each broadcaster can have one Twitter account connected to it. You may want to create additional broadcasters for staffers of your organization and connect their Twitter accounts if people follow your staffers in part because of their association with your organization.

A broadcaster can also be connected to a public Facebook page. The personal Facebook profile of a member of your organization cannot be connected to a Broadcaster, nor can a Facebook group.

In the Websites section of the control panel, your site will have a default broadcaster under Settings. This broadcaster's Twitter and Facebook accounts will be displayed in the supporter navigation sidebar on many of your nation's pages.

Connect a Facebook Page to a broadcaster

To connect a Facebook page to a broadcaster, first open a new browser window and make sure you are signed into Facebook as an administrator for the nation’s Facebook page.

Return to the browser page for the broadcaster. Click either “Connect a Facebook page” or “Please reconnect Facebook page”. A list of the pages you could connect will be shown. Click either the image or the text for the page you want to connect to the broadcaster. 

You'll see all the Facebook pages you personally managed but only the one you select will be connected to the broadcaster in your nation.

Post to Facebook and Twitter from your nation

Now that a Twitter account and Facebook page are connected to your broadcaster, you can face tweet on behalf of those accounts directly from the broadcaster’s dashboard.


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