A lot of people might not see the business value in Jody Padar's tweet asking what AT&T's proposed purchase of T-Mobile could do to the cost basis of AT&T stock. Or they might not find any point to a comment that "Pokémon is dead" after the earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan. But the point of the CPA, whose firm is designed to present a non-traditional image helps in networking.

In fact, one point is that making yourself an interesting person is something that can lead people to want to do business with you. That's not the kind of thing that is easily measured. But Padar, who says she lives on her cell phone, is confident that the tweets she makes, many during evening television viewing, add value to her firm's practice.

Social media has been hot for some time. But the various elements sometimes confound users as to their value in business. However, for every person who is baffled by Twitter, there are those like Padar who find it an important business tool.

That includes Brian Austin, director of public relations for SpeedTax, a Laguna Hills-based company that markets Internet-based sales-and-use tax applications and services. He finds value in the major social media platforms - Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

Austin was a fairly early advocate of Twitter. "For us, it's the ability to put together a really good list of followers," he says. "We follow people who are close to tax and accounting and when I'm sending out twitter messages it's going out to a targeted audience. People who are following us are following other people who are active in tax and accounting."

As to Facebook, "there's such a large tax and accounting community. It's the biggest no brainer to want to participate in that community." He also finds value in LinkedIn where discussion groups appear to be rapidly given that service a face that's more than its reputation as something of an online business card service. He pointed to the group recently established by Barry MacQuarrie, a CPA who is director of technology for Braintree, Mass.-based KAF Financial Group. His CPA Tech Connect Group, started on March 1 and has grown to 373 members.

"The audience is listening. They are waiting for people like Barry to come along and lead them," says Austin. "Those people are coming to the fore."

Not surprisingly, Pannell Kerr Forster of Texas, which has a reputation for strong marketing, is very active with social media and has four professionals running the effort.

"All of our directors are on Linkedin. Most firm employees are on LinkedIn," says Jennifer Lemanski, senior specialist on the Houston-based firm's practice growth team.

The firm has found Twitter and Linkedin to be successful, but it doesn't have a Facebook page. One of its most successful elements has been a blog "From Greg's Head" by Greg Price, who leads the firm's, Consulting Solutions practice."We have gotten a number of clients through the blog. We have gotten a huge return on investment through the blog," says Lemanski. There is an editorial calendar that provides a schedule. For example, Friday is the day the "Entrepreneur's Playbook" is published.

PKF's Twitter site opened three or four months ago, and while the firm hasn't measured a return on the medium, Lemanski says it is producing links back to the firm's website. PKF has also created a social media card to hand out at events that contains the various site addresses and firm members are tweeting from the road, especially at special events.

To ensure the quality of messages made public, the firm has a social media policy. "We have things that you are allowed to say and not allowed to say," says Lemanski. "We want to make sure we cover our bases." It also conducts social media training whose goals include making sure employees, particularly directors, are participating in the essential groups.

New York-based EisnerAmper similarly is seeing results from its efforts, according to Mike Mattia, partner in charge of marketing.

"We have generated new business. We have hired new employees as a result of Linkedin," says Mattia. However, he continues that social media is much like networking in that it's difficult to measure results. Goals of social media use include brand awareness and improving search engine rankings.

Everyone in the firm has access to Linkedin and EisnerAmper has corporate accounts for Linkedin, Facebook and Twitter. Employees are joining groups, including those in service areas such as healthcare. Currently access to Twitter is limited. "John Staffperson can't go on at 2pm on Friday and Tweet" says Mattia.

The firm is also using YouTube, although that is in the early stages. Press releases are being issued on YouTube and seminars and other video that would normally be accessible on EisnerAmper's website are available via that platform.

Tracking and maintaining these sites takes effort and staff. And that's one reason that Stitely & Karstetter, a CPA firm based in Chantilly, Va., doesn't use Twitter. "I'm connected to Twitter, I use it to promote when I have a new blog entry," says Frank Stitely, the firm's managing member.

However, he doesn't use Twitter directly--the posts come from other social media. And he notes, "Twitter is a pretty high maintenance thing. If you live on your cell phone all day, Twitter makes more sense. But I can't do tax returns when I'm on Twitter."

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BDO is tying its social media efforts to its industry groups and in October the firm started with its retail and consumer products group. The first effort was a blog, Consumer Business Compass.

“We are using social media to expand brand awareness and open up a new channel to give practice leaders a new avenue to reach clients and prospects in the industry, says Deneen Akture, national director of business development services.

Partners and guest writers provide blog entries and the content is also centered around firm activities such as the annual retail survey for the outlook for holiday sales. BDO promotes the blog via its website and other marketing efforts. There is also a Twitter page, @BDOConsumer, which covers retail topics.

In measuring results, marketing looks at the composition of subscribers to the blog and Twitter followers. Very quickly, the blog drew “CFOS from several major retailers and national retail media, Akture says.  A significant number of blog subscribers visit the “About Us” section of the website to learn more about partners. While the site initially drove traffic to the blog, the blog is now attracting hits from search engines.

With a large firm, the effort needs structure. Partners were told upfront that there would be a time commitment for the blog and there is an editorial calendar to organize the average two posts a week.  While a core group of partners can Tweet on their own, most of the posts for Twitter are feed through marketing.

The social media effort is likely to expand as the retail initiative “has generated interest internally in other practice areas,” says Akture.