What You Need To Know about...Twitter

For financial advisers who pride themselves on professionalism, it may seem awkward to proclaim, “I tweet!” However, do not dismiss Twitter as child’s play.
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Experts are saying Twitter is the future of advertising, marketing, public relations, customer service—essentially, the future of communication. So, for advisers who are aiming to bring their practice into the 21st century, understanding Twitter is critical.

On Twitter.com, individuals or companies can create an account for free and post messages that are a maximum of 140 characters, including spaces and punctuation. Think of Twitter as a modern water cooler: a place to promote ideas, discuss the latest news, and let people know what you’ve been up to.

Anyone can search on Twitter and read posts, even without having an account. At the top of Twitter.com is a “Search” field. Type in “401(k)” or “retirement” or even “ERISA” and browse the results. You also can search for other companies, your clients, news outlets, celebrities; you’ll be amazed how many people/entities are on Twitter!

Creating Your Account  

If this is a company account, put your company’s full name in the “Name” field. (This also can be your name—though you also can put that in the Bio section in the next step—or you can make it a little shorter or catchier if you so chose.) The username sometimes is referred to as the “handle.” After you set up your account, Twitter will walk you through the process to help you find people or companies you know and may want to “follow.” By following people, their tweets will show up on your homepage whenever you log on.

On your homepage, at the top of the screen, you’ll see a “Profile” tab. By clicking on “Profile,” you’ll be able to write a “bio” that users will see under your name and username. That should say something like, “John Doe, CEO and Founder of ABC Advisers, servicing the greater Boston area since 1992.” (The name would be ABC Advisers and the username could be ABC Advisers.)

Write your first tweet! If you’re stumped on what to say, Twitter says it can be something as casual as, “Excited to start tweeting. Let us know what you want to hear about from our company.”

Enhancing Your Tweets 

1) Include links to an interesting article or Web site. You’ll find that many tweets include an odd-looking link, like “http://bit.ly/fLho6z.” That’s a URL that has been shortened so it can be included more easily in a tweet (remember, tweets are short!). An easy URL shortener is http://bit.ly.

2) Retweets allow you to post someone else’s message that you like under your username, and give them the credit, too. Let’s say a news organization or a client tweeted something interesting. You can retweet this, which shows clients you’re paying attention to what’s going on in the “Twittersphere.” When you see a tweet worth spreading around, scroll over it and a “retweet” option will appear directly underneath the post. Click on it, and your followers will see that you retweeted it and where it originally came from. (The letters RT and a username will show up in front of the tweet.)

3) Mention someone directly in a tweet by first typing in @username (in place of “username,” type in the person’s username). For example, if the HR department at a client company has the username “ClientHR,” and you see that they tweeted, “@YourUsername, thanks for the participant ed session! You cleared up a lot of things!” you can reply by typing “@ClientHR, glad you enjoyed the education session. If anyone has more q’s, give us a call.” The folks at your client will see it directly on their homepage, but anyone else who’s following you can see what you wrote.

4) Hashtags. Many tweets include words preceded by the # symbol. Perhaps, “I am so tired of #winter! We’re having record snow fall: http://bit.ly/nab456.” The link will take you to a story about record snowfall wherever this person lives. The “#winter” will also be highlighted like a link and, by clicking on it, you will see all the other tweets in which someone has made “winter” into a hashtag. Including hashtags is a good way to be found in searches. If you tweet, “Hired a new adviser today, Jane Doe. She specializes in #ETFs,” when someone searches for “ETFs,” your tweet will show up more readily than if you didn’t make ETFs into a hashtag. —Nicole Bliman