Use Twitter to Save Money: Deals, Coupons, Tips

Most of us think of Twitter as a way to make money, either by helping us find a job or to market a product or service. Turns out, Twitter can save you money too! But the twitter-verse is vast. There’s more to it than just hopping on the site and tweeting. Here’s how you can use Twitter to find great deals of stuff you need to buy anyway.

Why is Twitter So Good for Saving Money?

Twitter is free. Free to you and free to companies that sell goods. This means they can afford to offer discounts through Twitter that would be much less through conventional advertising or coupons.

Advertising can get very expensive. Coupons must be printed and give the grocer back a cash value in exchange for accepting them. But Twitter discounts only cost the money to put up the tweet and the actual cost of the discount. The savings gets passed on to the consumer. 

Twitter is also good for saving money because of social networking too. Being surrounded by a community of frugal tweeters, or “cheepers,” helps you to come up with new money-saving ideas and to find out about deals you might have missed.

How to Find Twitter Deals

To find the Twitter deals, you would search for hash tags, which are essentially search terms preceded by the “#” sign to make them searchable through Twitter. Look for tags like moneysavingtips, bargains or coupons. Another option would be to visit sites like cheaptweet.com and coupontweet.com, sites that keep running lists of money-saving and coupon tweets respectively. You will be amazed at the sheer volume of tweets on the subject, so let’s narrow down the playing field to a few of the best money-saving sources on Twitter.  Results are based on Twitter Grader rankings.

Top Tweeters for Savings

Amazon.com has always been a great way to save money. Through amazondeals on Twitter, you get a boost to your savings with “lightning deals,” deep discounts on individual items offered for a limited time of hour or two. Some tweeters follow these tweets, buy the deals, then turn around and sell them for a profit. Lately there have been big savings on complete sets of televisions series like, “Dead Like Me,” and “Futurama.” You’ll also see myriad deals on electronics, gadgets, books, watches and just about anything else Amazon sells.

Amazonmp3 is a way to get an MP3 album each day for only $2. This is a great one for music lovers to keep an eye on. Recent albums for sale have included “Birds & Cages” by Deas Vail, “The Script” by The Script, and “Broken Bells” by (of course) Broken Bells.

Dealsplus is a socially geared website in which users post deals they find, which are then voted up or down by other users.  You can follow users who are consistently finding great deals that interest you.

slickdeals  has been around for quite some time, since 1999. This site is similar to dealsplus, allowing users to share information on the best deals. Being older, the site is set up as a user forum, rather than a twitter-ish info exchange like dealsplus. The Twitter feed offers savings on foods, video games, electronics and just about anything else you can think of.

Techies will enjoy following tweets from dealnews. They’ll find deals on many different types of electronics. You’ll find deals on the iPad, video games, TVs and other electronics.

CouponCabin is just what it sounds like…a place to find coupons. It is one of the top two most popular coupon tweeters.  You won’t find only coupons, though. The site retweets other money-savings sites and tweets special deals. And while the site itself gives you one of those annoying, “Wait, don’t leave” pop-ups, you won’t get that on the Twitter feed.

SavingGuide — The popular money-saving website, MoneySavingGuide.com, updates its readers through this official Twitter feed. Get all the latest tip, tricks and advice on saving money delivered straight to your own feed!

AlmostFrugal — Kelly Rigotti won’t tell you that she’s a “frugal diva”, although she does know quite a bit about setting some money aside. This busy mother of three finds time to share tips on frugal living with those tuned into her Twitter feed.

And don't forget to keep up with us here at savingtools.com by tuning in to our money saving tweets!