If you don’t use Twitter—or you’ve dipped your toe in only briefly, and run shrieking from the seeming chaos—what I’m about to say next will seem incredible.

But this social media site has become my go-to resource for money news, great personal finance stories and jaw-dropping deals. It’s also helped me connect to an array of smart folks I might never have met otherwise.

The first time I experienced the power of Twitter was Feb. 24, just a few weeks after I started using it regularly.

A Chicago radio station called to interview me about American Express paying some of its customers $300 to close its accounts. Instead, I suggested that they might want to talk to the blogger who had broken the story the day before. I didn’t know the guy’s name, since he blogged anonymously, but we followed each other on Twitter and I shot him a direct message with the station’s contact information. He called and they got their interview.

In my pre-Twitter days, I might never have stumbled across this guy. But I saw some of his tweets and realized he knew his stuff. (Sadly, he finally graduated law school and gave up blogging at CreditMattersBlog.com; the bar’s gain was our loss.)

I’ve since met plenty of other bright, insightful folks. The people I follow point out interesting stuff I might have otherwise missed. The people who follow me give me valuable feedback, story ideas and anecdotes that help me illustrate in my columns how financial developments affect real people.

Oh, and then there are the deals. Many of the airlines tweet special fares, various Web sites highlight short-term bargains and a number of bloggers (such as @FreeSampleMama and @DealsDiva) specialize in tweeting deals (including a recent $159-a-night rate on a 4-star Orange County beach resort—yahoo!).

Twitter feels like e-mail once did—it’s a small, more manageable world of people you can connect with quickly. Since you only get 140 characters to send your message, you have to be concise, which I really like.

If you’re just getting started, I’d recommend downloading TweetDeck or HootSuite to help you manage the deluge. You’ll want to follow different people for different reasons and keep track of what others are saying about and to you—TweetDeck or HootSuite can help.

Then for starters, add these news services to the list of Twitterers you follow:

@USATODAYmoney (money news from the nation’s largest newspaper)

@MSN_Money (the leading financial site that runs my column, among others)

@walletpopper (AOL’s lively consumer money site)

@planetmoney (NPR’s global economy team)

@ConsumerReports (the venerable product-testing site and magazine)

@Consumerist (another great consumer-oriented site, affiliated with CR)

Of course, I’d be delighted if you follow me, @lizweston, and you might enjoy these other writers as well:

@alphaconsumer (columnist Kimberly Palmer)

@DLFreedman (MSN Money columnist and loveable tightwad Donna Freedman)

@GaryForeman (founder of The Dollar Stretcher)

@GetOutOfDebtGuy (blogger and debt expert Steve Rhode)

@Glink (author and columnist at ThinkGlink.com)

@KathyKristof (longtime LA Times columnist now blogging for Money Watch)

If you want to follow some personal finance authors, check out:

@BarbaraStanny (author Barbara Stanny, “Prince Charming Isn’t Coming”)

@BethKobliner (author Beth Kobliner, “Get a Life”)

@thomasjstanley (author Thomas J. Stanley, “Millionaire Next Door”)

Finally, add these top bloggers:

@wisebread

@jdroth

@flexo

@ramit

@trenttsd

These are only a fraction of the people I follow, but Twitter is enough of a firehose—I’d suggest starting out slowly, figuring out who you like, see who they recommend and then build from there.