The Socially Savvy Advisor + Website: Compliant Social Media for the Financial Industry

Chapter 14How Can We Use Twitter?

Twitter is, in many ways, the center of the social media revolution. Simple in nature and forceful in impact, this platform has revitalized the way we, as a culture, communicate. Twitter breaks down barriers of time, space, and media proprietorship to connect real people and real stories in real time. It is freedom of speech and equality at its finest. To merely say it has made an impact wouldn't be enough, for it has shaken the communicative foundations of people, businesses, and establishments all across the globe.

The most important aspect of Twitter is that it's always in the present moment. Other platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn move at a slower pace—conversations and posts can linger for days, whereas on Twitter, tweets will sometimes only last for seconds. Users pump out information in real-time, 24 hours a day and 7 days a week, because the platform is, by its very nature, in the moment. As of January 2014, Twitter had more than 645 million active users, 135,000 people signing up each day, and guess what…9,100 tweets are produced every second. That's a lot of interaction!

Twitter in Financial Services

Why should financial professionals use Twitter? Many advisors, investors, and agents still cast off Twitter as useless. In this chapter, you'll see why that mindset is incorrect, and that Twitter is actually incredibly useful and beneficial from both a business and reputation perspective. If used correctly and strategically, Twitter ...