Rohan Hewavisenti suggests why more finance directors should join Twitter.

Jack Dorsey, co-founder of Twitter, explained the origin of the “Twitter” title as follows: “The definition was ‘a short burst of inconsequential information’, and ‘chirps from birds’. And that’s exactly what the product was.”

Inconsequential information is probably not going to inspire too many finance colleagues to engage in Twitter. However, those bursts of information were valued at $31bn when Twitter went public in 2013. That was in spite of losses of $500m that same quarter.

I admit I struggled to understand in the late ’90s how Google, then without ads, would ever be financially viable, and similarly in the late 2000s how Facebook could monetise billions of users. My scepticism continued with Twitter in the 2010s. A Google executive described strategy for tech start-ups as “ubiquity first, revenues later”.

Finance directors need to understand not just how business models are changing, but also how ways of communicating and working are being radically transformed. Finance and, ironically, IT departments are often among the technology laggards. In the ’90s, organisations restricted access to the internet as its value was considered questionable. In the new millennium, there were concerns about time spent on social media.

A tool for charities

Twitter was limited to 140 characters to be in line with text messages. This constraint inspired not just creativity and brevity, but also speed in communication. Increasingly, news is not just broken but also made on Twitter. You can often read newspaper articles via their Twitter accounts, the day before they appear in print.

While unpredictable and notoriously hard to consciously engineer, viral fundraising campaigns have generated significant income and new audiences for charities via social media, including Twitter. #nomakeupselfie raised over £8m for Cancer Research UK. The #icebucketchallenge raised over $130m globally for ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) including over £7m for the Motor Neurone Disease Association.

In a climate of increased regulation, we should remember that there are no restrictions or permissions required to fundraise via Twitter or other social media.

Twitter has also proved an effective medium for campaigning, online activism and getting messages out to supporters. It can be a useful forum for organisations to receive complaints and feedback on performance. However, bear in mind that while organisations have complaints and compliments policies where the standards for responding are set in working days, a complaint or allegation on Twitter will need a far more instant response.

Most charities use Twitter to get their messages out, promote fundraising, and signpost to further information on their websites. I find tweets are a more immediate and digestible format to find out what’s going on in my own organisation than waiting for a well-crafted newsletter or trying to find what’s changed on the website or intranet.

Crowdsourced note-taking

I have also found one of the most useful applications for Twitter is for taking conference notes. With the hashtag for a conference (eg #cfsummit), I can track what is happening at an event and what people think is important. The notes are crowdsourced as they have a number of participants’ contributions, and remain easily accessible on my smartphone, unlike paper notes.

Some sector leaders have got on board. @StephenBubb and @SEtherington have posted 300 and 1,700 tweets respectively. Caron Bradshaw of the Charity Finance Group and Peter Lewis of the Institute of Fundraising are well ahead with well over 5,000 tweets.

And almost finally, all the accountancy institutes are very active on Twitter. Twitter manages to cut across social and business boundaries, unlike Facebook and LinkedIn.

There’s even Boring Tweeter (@b0ringtweets), which appeals to the boring accountant in me. It provides a masterclass in being boring and amusing at the same time.

If you are not on Twitter and wondering whether you should bother, the question you should be answering is: “Can you afford not to be on Twitter?”

Rohan Hewavisenti is group director of resources at RNIB