Why I Tweet
When I tell people I’m on twitter a lot, they look at me with a quizzical look on their face. It looks like they’re thinking, “what does this old guy have to say that people would view?”
Twitter first came to my attention in the popular press as a teenager message system. “Let’s go to the movies tonight” and things like that were what I envisioned how the medium was being used. I couldn’t be bothered.
Then I met a new client who was using Twitter and tweeting as part of his job. Since he was in the news business he was “tweeting” about stories he was working on to three different audiences. I was intrigued.
My client wanted his colleagues to know what he was doing and how his stories were developing. He also wanted his competitors to know what he was doing and how he was scooping them. Thirdly, he wanted his fans (an I quickly became one) to see what he was working on and also what he was commenting on and what, in some cases, were his opinions. He also asked his “followers” to give him suggestions about stories or feedback.
I was amazed at his use of Twitter for business. Then I got to thinking, “this is a great tool for him, but how could I use it in my business of giving financial advice?” Within a few days, I came up with the answer when I recognized that the research I was doing for one client might be of interest to others.
My research frequently involved reading articles that others published about topics I was interested in as I strove to answer client questions. Also, I was reading many industry periodicals and websites on topics that I needed to know about in the course of my continuing education. Not only articles, but calculators, charts, graphs, comics and videos that helped explain important and sometimes complex concepts in personal finance.
As time passed, I gained a nice amount of followers and realized that half of them seemed to be somewhere in the personal finance industry. I was also following them and reading what they were tweeting. I became a frequent “retweeter” to pass along interesting topics they were posting.
The last and most exciting element came about when I started publishing a monthly summary of my tweets to clients, prospects, friends and allied professionals that we use to assist clients. That email list is now over 1,600 with about 1/3 of them opening the email each month and clicking on an average of two tweets from a list of 20-30 that I’ve posted in the past month.
My Twitter activity increases the impact I have on people’s lives by supplying them with additional ideas or different ways of thinking about financial topics as they focus on their financial well-being. Helping people make good financial decisions by presenting them with ideas and concepts via a different medium is an additional benefit of our relationship.
Thank you for listening.
