3 reasons your Mpowerment Project needs twitter.

"But our guys don't use twitter!" and that may (or may not) be true, yet think about the 'big picture'. You'll be engaging and connecting with other HIV prevention leaders nationally and globally who need to know about the communities you are creating and the HIV prevention efforts going on in your city. 

Tweets via The Q Austin (TX) / M Factor (TX) / Mpowerment (national) and U-BE (TX)

1) Your voice is important. Share it. HIV prevention leaders and decision-makers need to hear the experience of Mpowerment Coordinators successfully working in community-level interventions. For example, HIV related twitter-chats occur regularly every month, often without fair representation of young gay and bisexual men. This can change. When your project attends a national HIV prevention conference there are conversations occurring during the plenaries and sessions.  Your voice can be there!  Don't miss an opportunity to extend your Project reach and boost your presence in the national HIV prevention public square. Participate!

2)  There is already an established Mpowerment (MP) twitter presence to support you. There are approximately 40 active Mpowerment Projects using twitter. Connect with other social-media-savvy-coordinators. First step?  Follow and retweet us at @mpcaps.  You'll soon be 'included in the MP twitter family. Check out our list of twitter projects.

3) Stay up-to-date and informed. HIV prevention information about the latest HIV biomedical and behavioral sciences are regularly tweeted out. There is no better newsfeed than twitter. We regularly check in on these favorite public health advocates:
@UCSFCAPS, @AHP_SF, @CDCNPIN, @YGBLI, @BlackAIDS, @HIVEqual,  @RectalMicro, @NMACCommunity, @Out2Enroll, @talkHIV, @PozMagazine, @c4tips, @caliPTC, @Project_Inform, @NASTAD, @TheTaskForce 

It doesn't take a lot of time. This is not about adding one more responsibility to your social media publicity strategy. The secret is: no one minds if you don't post for awhile. We suggest that you use your twitter account strategically; like participating in monthly twitter-chats and/or to participate in conversations at national and international HIV prevention conferences. Of course, if you are able to add twitter to a sustained social- media-publicity-strategy, DO IT. 

Top Mpowerment Tweeters (by followers) 2015

Where do I begin? Beginner Twitter pro-tips: 

• Read up on twitter first:  CDC NPIN in the know: Twitter for Public Health. Webcast 2013.
  CDC NPIN on twitter.  What is twitter? The story of a tweet. 
• Be sure to practice on twitter a little bit every day. Start small.  Begin by like and Re-Tweet (RT) others. 
• Use the hashtag #Mpowerment on both your twitter and Facebook posts.
• Follow and learn from other Mpowerment Projects pick out your favorite posts. 
• Keep tweets short. Tweets around 100 characters get the most replies and RTs.
• Tweet photos of your participants and Social Outreach Events. Visual content always receive more engagement.
• Tweet your advocates, like @mpcaps, other MPs, your host agency and funder. They love you. We love you. Reach out and say 'hi' or ask about something they've tweeted earlier in the week. Keep your advocates happy. 
• Be your happy gay self and experiment.  It's okay to be fun on twitter. We encourage projects to be gay-affirming and sex positive, per our Guiding Principles. 
• Begin managing your social media by using tweetdeck or hoot suite. Using tweet deck you can schedule tweets for the week ahead.
• How the Q Austin uses twitter. The Q Austin on twitter.

Read more about how to publicize your Project in Module 10 Publicizing the Mpowerment Project a free download when you register at mpowerment.org 

Module 10: Publicizing the Mpowerment Project. Objectives:

To explain how to develop and implement a publicity plan that effectively reaches young adult Gay and Bisexual men and promotes the Project and its activities. 

For the Mpowerment Project to be truly a community wide HIV prevention program, as many young gay/bisexual men as possible must learn about the Project and its activities. Thus, effective publicity is an important Core Element to help the Project achieve its mission of increasing condom use and HIV testing among young gay/bisexual men in the community.  The most effective publicity campaigns: 

1) use multiple strategies
2) have clear goals
3) reach all segments of the target audience
4) are timely and ongoing, and 
5) place a Publicity Coordinator or volunteer(s) in charge of implementation. 

In order to publicize the Project successfully, it is important to select the most appropriate messages to send out and decide how best to convey them. We encourage being as creative and thorough as possible in publicizing the Project. The best suggestions will likely come from the Core Group and other volunteers who are most familiar with their own community. 

UCSF Capacity Building Assistance Partnership.