With a multitude of social media options at your fingertips, it might be hard to find the tool that works best for a particular situation. And even if you find the correct tool, how do you use it?

During the 2011 National Catholic Development Conference (NCDC) in Orlando Fla., Eric Streiff senior vice president, and Mark Loux, vice president at Douglas Shaw & Associates in Naperville, Ill., offered four tips on how to use the micro-blogging service Twitter.

• Engage — Twitter can be great to gather information about what donors believe. Use the services to cultivate donors, prospects and friends.
• Pay Attention — Spend time looking at what other people are talking about. Twitter is a place to create online buzz and tweets and re-tweets can help garner more supporters.
• Utilize Hashtags — Use hashtags to try to get your cause to trend, or capitalize on other popular hashtags if they pertain to your organization. This is a very noisy, limited platform. Getting your organization noticed takes a lot of time and energy.
• SPAM — Do not just send people endless tweets. As easy as it can be to cultivate and advocate, it is just as easy to turn someone off to your causes.