What Accountants Love About Twitter

At just three years of age, Twitter has already swept up politicians and celebrities, techies and geeks, entrepreneurs and casual users alike. Now, finance and accounting professionals are joining the legions of the currently 23-million-strong microblogging service.

Although Twitter has yet to pass from "craze" to "mainstay," the large numbers of serious CPAs joining the social media site show that the service may soon be indispensable to those within the accounting field.

For example, Chad Bordeaux, who shares an accounting practice with his wife, Donna, believes the service is good for online presence. He reports picking up new clients for tax season after they found him on Twitter.

A financial analyst for a Texas manufacturer, CPA David Feil uses Twitter not only for his job but also to keep up with the general field. He signs in under the username "musiccpa" to reflect his interest in music as well as his identity as a CPA.

There are also users like Jeff Elliot and Shane Eloe, who use their Twitters to share their experiences with entering the profession and taking the CPA exam.

Associations and their heads are also joining, with the Maryland Association of CPAs as a pacesetter. The St. Louis chapter of the Association of Government Accountants also uses Twitter to aid in its communication efforts, and CPA and author Diane Kennedy has hit it big on the service with over 5,000 followers.

Some associations maintain more than one Twitter account, to target diverse audiences. The AICPA, for example, runs many popular accounts, among them AICPAnews, Young CPA Network, the Journal of Accountancy, CPA Letter Daily, 360 Degrees of Financial Literacy, and Feed the Pig.

One benefit of Twitter is that it allows you to listen in on what others say about your profession. Joey Brannon, owner of Axiom, CPA in Bradenton, FL, blogged about what Twitter users think of CPAs: "Client service may not be the profession's strong suit. Clients don't like it when we're not proactive. More than a few people are upset with their CPA because they owe taxes. There's a lot of comparing going to the CPA with going to the dentist. Not exactly the frame of mind I want my clients in, when they show up to meet me."

For the moment, there is much learning still to be done about how exactly Twitter can benefit CPAs. Kristy Short, a veteran public relations consultant, believes that CPAs who jump on Twitter must do so with a purpose: "They have to think of Twitter as a professional discussion forum and not a place to update casual, daily activity. No one needs to know when they are getting a snack."

But one thing is for sure. At its current pace, Twitter may soon join Facebook in the ranks of the social networking elite, and one day, it may even become as common as email and faxing in the business world. This is all the more reason for CPAs to jump on board.