Comments on: Extracting Personal Finance Advice from the Social Media Wasteland

By: Damilola

Damilola — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 05:02:28 +0000

I have been on Facebook since I started graduate school and I just recently joined Twitter. It is true that these services are huge time sinks especially as your knowledge of the service starts to grow.
However, as a young blogger I am using these media to put out links to new articles that I publish (when I write) and this has been the way in which I wanted to begin building a following.
I believe as time goes on my interaction with these sites will reduce significantly, but for now it’s a necessary evil.

By: Revanche

Revanche — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 01:16:38 +0000

It’s good for real-time responses on issues that really aren’t all that important. And for links to the occasional blog post when I’m not motivated enough (or too busy to) open up Google Reader. For the most part, though, it’s just a social connection to other bloggers and the occasional geek personality – not a source of information. Oh, and it’s good for random financial/travel news links that I would not have encountered on a busy day. In general, I don’t get spam from the tweeters I follow, and I certainly don’t follow spammers back.

By: MasterPo

MasterPo — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 02:54:26 +0000

Twitter is a time sink. Won’t touch it.

By: Writer's Coin

Writer's Coin — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 11:21:30 +0000

I played the Twitter game for a long time and eventually got to feeling like I was just showing up for the sake of showing up.

It’s just not for me.

But there is some value to it…I have to give it credit where credit is due. If you have a question that needs answering, Twitter is great for that.

By: Rick Beagle

Rick Beagle — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 19:53:41 +0000

They are both tools for social networking. With an ungodly amount of people using these tools, perhaps it isn’t these services that are the problem, but your approach or even the product?

Let me give an analogy to provide a bit more insight into my thinking.

1)If I am interested in a night out with the wife, we generally drive down are street and hit up a local business. We probably have less than fifty or so restaurants in our area (couple of miles in either direction). They of course do the usual things to promote their business and get my money – as an example, a person walking outside with a sign proclaiming the daily specials.

2)If I am looking in the yellow pages for a restaurant, then the walking sign out front doesn’t help that business get my business.

Does this mean that the yellow pages are worthless because the tool he is using isn’t effective in that medium? Of course not.

The reason that those bloggers spam twit is because it works. It may offend your sensibilities -and mine- but just because the tools are different doesn’t mean the medium is a failure.

Finally a little tough love for you. Honestly it seems as if you aren’t that interested in putting forth the effort and money that would be required to break through the noise on Twitter and Facebook? But you admit that you are indeed getting more fans while doing pretty much nothing much from these products you deem failures?

Peace.
Rick Beagle

By: My Journey

My Journey — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 18:06:01 +0000

I am with you and I am decades younger! What is Twitter? It seems to be filled with just spam and garbage. I never just follow anyone because they are following me; it should be a mutually beneficial relationship.

By: Todd @ Personal Finance Playbook

Todd @ Personal Finance Playbook — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 16:27:20 +0000

I agree in some ways and disagree in others. There is a lot of noise on Twitter. Something I really enjoy, though, is following journalists that I normally wouldn’t have an opportunity to interact with.

For instance, I’m a big St. Louis Cardinals fan. Journalists following the St. Louis Cardinals often break news on twitter, believe it or not. Sometimes, I’ll say something in reaction to that news – and sometimes those journalists respond. I’m not sure how much value that adds to my life, but I enjoy it.

As a source of personal finance advice, I agree that it’s not terribly valuable. I do see articles and sometimes read them that I wouldn’t have read otherwise. I can’t read every blog. I’m pretty selective about what I put in my RSS feed, but several times a week I’ll see a title that jumps out at me that I think is something useful. Sometimes they aren’t. I read a pretty good article by an entrepreneur (someone with a small following that I’d never heard of) about her reflections on why her business failed. I found it very interesting. I never would have read that without twitter.

I personally thought twitter was dumb before I used it and have since come around a little bit. I don’t know if it’s gained me any readers, but I’d like to think it has (I’m one of the people who posts links to articles – I don’t know how else to use it). We’ll see how much staying power it has when the next big thing comes out. I don’t use facebook for my blog at all, other than putting a link to my site in a personal account. Just my $0.82.