TO: Professor McCarthy, Professional Writing Professor

FROM: Madeline Kato, Undergraduate Student

DATE: February 18, 2021

SUBJECT: AICPA Twitter Account

Social media plays an important role in modern society. With social media, companies and
businesses are able to inform and advertise to their customers with a simple tweet, post, or
picture. Today I am going to be analyzing the twitter account @AICPA. This twitter account is
for a professional organization for the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. This
twitter account keeps its followers informed and up to date with new articles and information
about the current tax season and resources.

AICPA’s Tweets
Since Twitter has a word limit of 250 on its tweets, the user must convey their message or
information within that specified word limit. AICPA uses photos and links to help draw their
follower’s attention while also giving useful and important information. For example, on January
28th they tweeted, “If you don’t feel that your personal information is safe from scammers,
you’re not alone. Celebrate #DataPrivacyDay by learning how to protect your ID and finances.”
They included a link to an AICPA article that had more in-depth information about data privacy
and included a visual appealing image that had an interesting fact that “3 in 5 Americans believe
that identify theft is likely to cause them a financial loss next year.”
This tweet, like many of their other tweets, looks professional and includes relevant facts and
details. It also includes a hashtag to allow more people to access their information, not just the
users who are already following them. It allows them to engage with different audiences and
spread their information. The twitter account and tweets reflect the professional organization’s
goals and culture. The list below shows the different types of tweets they have previously posted:

 A link to the AICPA Benevolent Fund to provide temporary aid to members going
through financial difficulty
 An article about the amendment to the FY2021 Budget Resolution passed by the Senate
 A survey for their members about how the 2021 tax season is going to look like
 An article about cyber security awareness during Covid-19

With all of these tweets they have included either a picture or an article to bring attention to their
tweets and the information in them. They are using twitter to bring awareness to different
problems, update their members on new amendments, and to reach out to their members to
provide them the best information and resources.

Rhetorical Analysis in AICPA’s Tweets

While this twitter account does not use humor to appeal to its audience like the Wendy’s twitter
account is known for, it does use different rhetorical strategies to draw in its audience. AICPA’s
logo includes a purple and pink gradient. In a lot of photos that they post with their name on it
incorporates the colors purple and pink. This strategy allows the audience to see their name on
the picture and see the colors to identify the account. The color purple also conveys feelings of
loyalty, wealth, and power. When a follower or member of AICPA sees their logo from their
tweet, they can sense the loyalty, wealth, and power from the tweets even if they don’t realize it.
Another strategy AICPA uses to draw in their attention is by posting an image with almost every
tweet. This strategy will engage their following and draws more attention than just a simple
tweet with text. This can help the audience visualize what the tweet says.

AICPA’S Overall Excellence and Effectiveness on Twitter

I believe AICPA does a good job in conveying their message and information to their targeted
audience with their twitter account. While their targeted audience is mainly for members of the
American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, they have a platform that can reach millions
of people who are curious about accounting. They are able to effectively get their information
across with their use of images, articles, hashtags, and color. The use of social media is very
important, because many organizations and businesses are able to share their knowledge and
information with a wide audience.