To Tweet Or Not To Tweet

Professional advisors have been slow to the Twitter party. Serious authors and bloggers are there, but the rest? Not so much.

Is Twitter a good platform for you? Maybe. It’s worth taking a strategic—and practical—look before dismissing it as trivial.

There are some great reasons to tweet—and some equally great reasons not to.

To Tweet
Your clients, prospects or key referral sources are there. A quick test? Look at your favorite connections on LinkedIn to see if they reference a Twitter account. Click and check them out. Could you meet others like them if you were active/more active?

You want to carve out a position for yourself as an expert in your field. Thoughtful, regular, smart updates—links to your blog posts, articles, ideas—attract clients looking for help, meeting planners looking for speakers and journalists looking for sources. And yes, google picks these up also.

You’ve got a good blog—regularly updated posts that position you as a valued resource to your targeted audience. You’d like to capture more regular readers who will turn into clients. Approached correctly (with both pushes and pulls), Twitter can dramatically increase your readership.

Your competitors are on Twitter. Maybe you’re not convinced your clients are tweeting, but you have competitors trolling the waters. Don’t you want to know what they’re up to?

You need to listen to breaking news. Not about who fathered secret children, but who is making news in your sandbox. What conversations are picking up steam? Even if you elect to simply listen, it’s a chance to pull ahead of your competition.

Not To Tweet
You can’t commit to regularly posting a 140 character update a few times a week AND interacting briefly with your audience. It’s better to have no presence than a lackluster one.

You’re going to be snarky. It’s good to be authentic—but snarky doesn’t sell well on Twitter for professionals. Nuance can be tough to convey in 140 characters—which means you can quickly undermine your brand-building efforts. If you are the Joan Rivers of your industry, go for it. Otherwise, stick a sock in it.

You really don’t want to engage with people. Be honest. If your real intent is to solely push content, you won’t get much of a response. You need to do it for the right reasons—in this case expanding the conversation in your field—or not at all.

Want to enter the waters, but no extra time? Call me—it’s a service I offer. Not sure if you’re ready? Do at least reserve your name, a handle related to your brand or your firm name to protect your ability to jump in later: preserve your brand in the twittersphere.