Social media is evolving at a rapid pace. With constant social network changes, Twitter maintains its simplicity. It is still a place to exchange short 140-character messages in real time.

So if it is so easy, why haven't more advisors adopted the social media tool into their marketing plan? The problem is that some folks cannot see past its simplicity to understand its value.

Here are three main reasons every advisor should be using Twitter:

1. Learning
Even if you do not push out messages on Twitter, one can listen and learn. With every news source on Twitter promoting their information, it is easy to stay up to date, just by logging into your account for a couple minutes.

Twitter is essentially a service that allows you to subscribe to the people and organizations you want to hear from, all for free. [If you create an account, I guarantee you will learn something.] Plus, with the simple integration with handheld devices (ie. smart phones and tablets), Twitter can provide news and entertainment anywhere one can get a mobile signal.

A tip for advisors: The tweets the come up on one's 'Home' page, often lead to opportunities to build a dialog, either through traditional methods (email, phone calls, direct mail, etc.), through Twitter direct messages (if both entities follow each other) or through public tweeting that mentions the other entity. [For example, if you write, "@byrnesconsultin great article!" in the 'What's happening?' update section, I will see it in my 'mentions' tab.]

When following journalists, there are often times to learn about potential stories and/or build relationships that can lead to future press coverage and publicity.

2.  Branding
If one chooses to share information, the best part is that there is an amazing amount of free content ready to be forwarded to the world that can help reinforce and shape your brand. Pretty much every large publisher, blogger, etc. now have sharing buttons which allow the website page to be forwarded, so you do not even have to be on Twitter to pass along worthwhile information. [Try clicking the "share this" feature provided by FA-Mag.com to get an idea of how easy it is].

A tip for advisors: When forwarding information out through a work-related account, be sure it fits in your business' brand. Every firm should have a social media policy that provides guidelines of what makes sense to send out and what does not from both a compliance and marketing standpoint.

3. Reaching
Twitter fits in an integrated marketing plan perfectly, because it can give existing material more exposure. Every marketer wants website traffic and this social network can really deliver new visitors and eventually repeat visitors.

Just like with any social network, marketing communications have the chance to go viral, which can be a great thing. Sharing of messages, known as retweeting, allows a message to go beyond the eyes of one's own followers, reaching other networks of individuals and organizations that might not have been reachable before one started using Twitter.

All the tweets are also searchable, so if someone is looking for a particular keyword or phrase on Bing, and your tweet contains those terms, it just might be one more good way to be found.

A tip for advisors: When using Twitter or any social network, strongly consider using a social media archiving and monitoring tool to help stay compliant.

Advisors Should Get In The Game
Those sitting on the sidelines should make Twitter part of their marketing strategy. There are 100 million Twitter users logging in at least monthly, which means there is a lot of great information out there and potential extended exposure for your tweets.

With any marketing tool, try different tactics, evaluate, retest and then reevaluate. It is a constant process of learning and improving. The better you get at Twitter the more likely you will get the results you hope for.

Look for a future article with practical tips on how to use Twitter. Until then follow @ByrnesConsultin and @FAMagazine for examples of how to successfully use the social network.

Note: As always, check with your compliance department for its specific guidelines on what your organization will allow you to do with social networks. It is strongly recommended you hire an archiving service to capture all social media communications.

Mike Byrnes founded Byrnes Consulting to provide consulting services to help advisors become even more successful. His expertise is in business planning, marketing strategy, business development, client service and management effectiveness, along with several other areas. Read more at www.byrnesconsulting.com.