Earlier this year, I launched a crusade to advance “evidence-based investing” as a replacement for “passive investing.” So many of us are chafing against the limp, ill-fitting nature of the latter term, it seemed high time to rally around something better.

What better place to rally than on Twitter? Please join me in embracing an important new hashtag handcrafted for our community: #EvidenceInvesting.

You In? Your Next Simple Steps

• Use It — If you’ve already got a Twitter account, simply begin adding #EvidenceInvesting to the end of your investment-oriented Tweets. Then, anyone who searches on #EvidenceInvesting, will see your post along with other helpful insights about evidence-based investing. If you’re not yet using Twitter, consider this a great reason to start. Need help getting started? Lynda.com offers a good, cost-effective intro course: Twitter for Business. (You can join for $25, and then cancel after the first month if you only need the one course. Or you may find other helpful resources that warrant retaining your membership.)
• Favorite and Retweet It. Navigate regularly over to #EvidenceInvesting (by typing the tag into the search field in your Twitter account). Click on the “Favorite” star and Retweet the posts you find most meaningful. Democracy in action — this is a simple and powerful way to have a say in what you find of interest about evidence-based investing. Also, Retweeting your favorite #EvidenceInvesting posts is a great way to build quality content on your own Twitter feed without having to break a sweat.
• Share It. Notify your clients and prospective clients about #EvidenceInvesting and encourage them to visit it too. Handy tip: You may even want to include the hashtag in your e-mail signature block, to help spread the word.
• Follow It. Take note of colleagues who are posting particularly good content and Follow them to build stronger connections. If you’d like, you can start by following me,@wendyjcook.

Why Twitter? Why Now?

Participating in the #EvidenceInvesting hashtag has the potential to be among the best returns you’ll ever see on your marketing time and dollars. You can spend a few minutes a day or a fraction of an hour each week to promote yourself, your firm, and your evidence-based investment approach all at the same time, reaping the sort of promotional benefits that would easily have required a $20,000 ad campaign in days past.

Beyond the direct, self-promotional benefits to you and your firm, there are some indirect ones to be gained by advancing wider familiarity with evidence-based investing. For all its shortcomings, “passive” was at least short and sweet. To make our preferred term stick we must succeed in:

• Explaining it. A handy collection of thoughtful tweets on evidence-based investing should go far in clarifying what we’re about, such as how we: (1) heed peer-reviewed academic evidence, (2) apply it to efficiently capture market returns through disciplined exposure to persistent return factors, and (3) avoid debilitating behaviors and costs.
• Owning  it. Having a dedicated hashtag will help us differentiate our strategy from that which may seem similar at a glance, but that reveals itself on closer inspection as speculative, hyperactive tactics that fly in the face of robust evidence.

Taking Flight with #EvidenceInvesting 

I hope you’ll join me in embracing #EvidenceInvesting today. By combining our singular stanzas into a resounding chorus of understanding and insight, I’m imagining something like what happens just after the 15th second in this uplifting video. Let’s take flight, together.