Budget Sense

Twitter can help you save money, if not make money! That much is known, and it is a good way to get us started with this article.

How? Let us find out.

Twitter is arguably the hottest thing on the web at the moment. Even more so than Facebook for a lot of people (it certainly is for me) It is the collective heartbeat and cyber-trails of the web, all in real time. So it only makes sense that you can use Twitter to gain some advantage, tips and advise for your personal finance budgeting. Here are some of the best ways to use Twitter for financial gains and better savings:

-Twitter Search: The first and most effective way to use Twitter to gain a financial foothold is to use it in an active way through searching. Whether it is to look for discounts on a certain item, offers at your local mall, or advise on a certain product that you are researching, Twitter search is an invaluable tool. Best thing about it, the results are mostly  real time or fairly recent, so the deals are fresh and valid in most cases.

-Expert Advise: find a few finance and budgeting experts and start following them. You will learn a lot from their daily tweets, with as little time spent reading them as you can possibly spare every day.  You never know what tweet you will read that could be so important for your financial literacy. In fact, in my 2+ years of using Twitter, I have learnt a lot of what I know today by reading random expert tweets here and there and applying them to my own situation.

-Observing Twitter Users: as you read the tweets of other friends and people in your list, especially those that have to do with finance and money, you will have a better idea of how others spend and save money, and compare it with yours. You will be amazed how much this ‘mirror’ usage of twitter can help you have a better prospective.

-Follow your favorite companies and Brands: the best and fastest way to find out about special discounts and deals from your favorite brands and companies, is to follow them on Twitter.  You will be able to find out about special deals as soon as they are posted.

-Ask others questions: the beauty of Twitter is that it is a two-way street, with communication flowing back and fourth between the ones you follow and those that follow you.   So if you can’t find answers to what you are looking for, you can simply ask the Twitterverse a question yourself. Not only can you expect an answer from your followers, others who are not following you could also find your question and answer it. This could help in situations where you are researching a certain product, or want to find discounts in a certain store or even city.

These are just some of the hundreds of ways you can use Twitter to your financial advantage. If you don’t have a Twitter account, head to www.Twitter.com and create one. Once you have your account, Twitter will recommend certain people to follow from many different categories (Business, Politics, Technology etc.) And of course, we would appreciate if you can follow us too: @BudgetSense_ca

Given Twitter’s explosive growth in the last few years, a whole literature has been dedicated to it, and we encourage you read and learn more about it.  I just happen to believe that it is generally more useful than Facebook.