We have a Twitter account but haven't figured out how best to use it. Suggestions?
Sounds like I need to get educated on the wonderful world of Twitter.
As you can probably imagine, there are thousands and thousands of pages online that have suggestions and best practises for Twitter. This one seems pretty comprehensive:
http://mashable.com/guidebook/twitter/The charity I work for uses Twitter mostly to increase our online visibility, name recognition and drive users to our website. We don't use it to try and fundraise or gain more donors (which can be done successfully) but to increase our recognition and communicate with other charities and organizations we grant to or have a connection to. How useful it would be to TIGHAR depends on your goals and strategies - are you trying to increase your online name/brand recognition? Are you trying to drive people to your website? Are you trying to educate people about the Earhart Project or other projects? It would definitely be a way to 'connect' with your sponsors, such as Discovery Channel and FedEx.
Given what I've gleaned about your limited resources, you'll need to look at the cost (time more then money ) versus potential benefits. If Facebook and YouTube (don't see a Flickr account) are working then you might not want to spend time on Twitter. My main criticism of Twitter is that tweets tend to get buried very fast and you need to post a few times a day to stay 'active'. That's time consuming, especially when one Facebook post in a day is usually enough to keep people interested. I'm not an 'expert' in social media, I know enough that it can really boost an organization if done properly. It also may help expand TIGHAR's reach to new demographics, maybe a younger generation whose only experience with aviation is being bored in a shiny new aircraft that can basically fly itself.
Also, I did find the Fake TIGHAR twitter stream amusing. But that's probably just my sick, twisted sense of humour. It doesn't look like they've done anything to justify Twitter banning them, especially not in the States where you have such strong free-speech laws and culture (us Canucks have a slightly different perspective). Ignore them and they will probably go away.