In January 2012, The Miles of Hope Breast Cancer Foundation joined one of the fastest-growing social media systems, Twitter. More and more non-profits are using Twitter to “tweet” (send) messages up to 140 characters long. Twitter has nearly 300 million users.  Its popularity continues to expand, making it a social media tool with extensive reach.  Twitter is an easy and efficient method for delivering messages to the masses.

Miles of Hope recently appointed Marist College senior Public Relations/Advertising student, Lindsey Sacco, to work as their Social Media Intern. One of Lindsey’s first assignments was to create a Twitter account for Miles of Hope Breast Cancer Foundation. By using Twitter, Miles of Hope will be able to “tweet” about upcoming fundraising events and organizational news.

Miles of Hope's profile on Twitter

Through this online interaction, Miles of Hope will be creating greater awareness of the organization. It provides funding to non-profit organizations for support services and outreach for people affected by breast cancer in New York’s Hudson Valley, including Columbia, Dutchess, Putnam, Westchester, Rockland, and Orange, Ulster and Greene counties. The Miles of Hope Breast Cancer Foundation is a non-profit, 501-c-3 public charity established in March of 2004.

Using Twitter will allow the foundation to stimulate curiosity among the Twitter community and encourage their audience to learn more about Miles of Hope’s mission.  Twitter will help Miles of Hope build and strengthen their relationship with the public and inspire increased discussion, action, knowledge and fundraising event attendance among their Twitter “followers” and Twitter users who monitor Hudson Valley event-related and breast cancer-related “hash tags” (topics).

The symbol for Miles of Hope on Twitter is @milesofhopebcf and the link is: twitter.com/milesofhopebcf

Lindsey will also help maintain the Miles of Hope Breast Cancer Foundation Facebook page, which already has more than one thousand fans.