In another contrarian move, yesterday Warren Buffett joined a social network of a few hundred million members and followed exactly none of them. As of this writing @warrenbuffet has almost 200,000 followers and two tweets. Does this finally legitimize Twitter in the financial world? I’m thinking that happened a while ago. Does it mean we can all get pearls of Warren’s wisdom on our smartphones day and night? It’s early yet, but I’m going to channel the magic 8-ball and say, outlook not so good.
In other financial twitter news, do you remember the little flash crash (twash crash? flash twash?) we got last week when somebody hacked the AP’s Twitter account? Things snapped back pretty fast but it’s a good reminder that trading on tweeted news is still not a fully-baked investment strategy. I’d keep that one in mind when scanning Twitter for trading tips, even from Warren Buffett.
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Be sure to read the full risk disclosure before trading Forex. Please note that Forex trading involves significant risk of loss. It is not suitable for all investors and you should make sure you understand the risks involved before trading. Performance, strategies and charts shown are not necessarily predictive of any particular result. And, as always, past performance is no indication of future results. Investor returns may vary from Trade Leader returns based on slippage, fees, broker spreads, volatility or other market conditions.
Earlier this week, Sina Corp., the company who provides the Chinese social media service called Weibo, saw a 3.8 percent rise in stock prices. Bloomberg reported that Weibo, a micro blogging platform comparable to that of Twitter, is now offering a premium service for users who are willing to pay a fee of 10 yuan per month. The hope is that they will be able to offer services users will actually really want to use in order for them to oblige to paying a fee.
Recently, Weibo has been appearing in the news due to the role it played in the June 14 Chinese food scandal. It was on this day that Inner Mongolia Yili Industrial Group Co. announced a recall of infant formula that was found to contain mercury. A Wall Street Journal article reports that searches pertaining to the incident were blocked from the social media site. It’s believed that censorship of this sort is done in an effort to control the spread of news on food safety, something that could threaten the stability of that Chinese economic sector.
With the growth of China’s economy currently in question, it makes sense that the Chinese government would want to preserve their strongest industries. Right now, with last years sales reported at $28 billion, one of those industries is dairy. Directly preceding the release of this information, Yili’s shares dropped 10 percent, which is the maximum fall allowed in one session.
This issue gives new perspective to the Chinese internet censorship issue. It is often projected in a negative light, attaching to it a stigmatism of the Chinese government encroaching on the population’s freedom of speech and freedom of access to information. But in situations like this, where negative news spread via social media could potentially wreak serious havoc on an industry integral to economic stability, should regulation be enforced? Also, what about people who might not have otherwise heard about the recall and continued to consume tainted food?
With the sharp rise in popularity of social media services, there very well might be an increasing need for new forms of regulation.
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Be sure to read the full risk disclosure before trading Forex. Please note that Forex trading involves significant risk of loss. It is not suitable for all investors and you should make sure you understand the risks involved before trading. Performance, strategies and charts shown are not necessarily predictive of any particular result. And, as always, past performance is no indication of future results. Investor returns may vary from Trade Leader returns based on slippage, fees, broker spreads, volatility or other market conditions.
One of our interns sent around this article earlier today stating, “there is a shortage of tweets coming from the Boston area.” And quite frankly I was shocked. People talk about Boston for its innovation, education, and history. Bostonians have unparalleled pride over their city and sports teams. And the most ironic thing is that I always thought of Boston as a very social place. We have meetups and tweetups, big ad agencies and small, tech startups and juice startups (you read correctly – juice), and even social networks just for the Forex trader (wonder who that is … ?). Our possessiveness over our city even leads to social media battles for mayorships across town. Yeah, we’re social media nerds. And what?
As the home of so many wonderful, innovative companies, whether they be startups or branding firms, it’s very strange to see that Boston is lacking in the trending topics department. In our building alone we have AMP, Conover Tuttle Pace, and City Sports. All very social teams.
As a social network ourselves we jump at the opportunity to tweet, fan, or comment on anything. We understand the value that comes from an online community and the sheer force that a person can have through the internet. The Internet can give the littlest person, the biggest voice. It lets you connect with a brand, with a cause, with a city.
Just to attach a number to this: Boston, MA has a total of 118,688 small businesses (small businesses are defined as having 1-49 employees). The average for all large metro areas is 78,289 (Source: CNN-Money, 2009).
So I present this challenge to the small businesses and startups, agencies and cupcake shops, students and professors, grandparents and mommy bloggers, out there in the greater Boston area who consider themselves social. Can we become a trending topic? Can we show our love for our city not only in the Red Sox hats we wear and how many times we can say “wicked” in a sentence? Let’s make #boschallenge a trending topic. Declare your pride today and tweet our city.
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Be sure to read the full risk disclosure before trading Forex. Please note that Forex trading involves significant risk of loss. It is not suitable for all investors and you should make sure you understand the risks involved before trading. Performance, strategies and charts shown are not necessarily predictive of any particular result. And, as always, past performance is no indication of future results.
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Be sure to read the full risk disclosure before trading Forex. Please note that Forex trading involves significant risk of loss. It is not suitable for all investors and you should make sure you understand the risks involved before trading. Performance, strategies and charts shown are not necessarily predictive of any particular result. And, as always, past performance is no indication of future results. Investor returns may vary from Trade Leader returns based on slippage, fees, broker spreads, volatility or other market conditions.
That was my (very) failed attempt to speak like a young person. My mother is cringing; my boss (Dave Lemont) is ordering a book from Amazon to help me with business communication. And is “tweet” really a verb? Maybe I’m too old for this stuff but I digress. This week’s “How can I help?” post takes on the Twittosphere.
For those of you who don’t already know you can set up your Currensee account to automatically “tweet” your trades through your Twitter stream. From time to time members ask why their trades aren’t being posted on Twitter. Let’s see if I can help you solve this fairly simple issue:
First, have you linked your Twitter account to your Currensee account? To do this, please log into your Currensee account and click on your profile. Next, click on the Tweet My Trades link next to Twitter on your profile. Now enter your Twitter username/email address and password then click “Allow” on Twitter’s pop-up. You’ll be directed back to the Currensee platform. Where you’ll automatically begin to tweet your closed positions. If you’d like to tweet all positions (pending, opened, increases, decreases, closes, etc.) then click on the Edit link next to your Twitter username. This can be found on your Profile, and un-check the “Tweet Closed Positions Only” check box.
Once that’s completed we’ll start sending your trades to Twitter and from there Twitter will work some serious magic. Your millions of followers can see all the trades you’re making using the Currensee platform. Remember, this will only tweet your trades to your followers, if you want to follow the trades of your friends check out their Twitter username listed in their Currensee profile and start following them on Twitter (don’t forget to follow us too!).
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Be sure to read the full risk disclosure before trading Forex. Please note that Forex trading involves significant risk of loss. It is not suitable for all investors and you should make sure you understand the risks involved before trading. Performance, strategies and charts shown are not necessarily predictive of any particular result. And, as always, past performance is no indication of future results.
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Be sure to read the full risk disclosure before trading Forex. Please note that Forex trading involves significant risk of loss. It is not suitable for all investors and you should make sure you understand the risks involved before trading. Performance, strategies and charts shown are not necessarily predictive of any particular result. And, as always, past performance is no indication of future results. Investor returns may vary from Trade Leader returns based on slippage, fees, broker spreads, volatility or other market conditions.
Earlier today our VP of Marketing Michelle Heath wrote a nice post about the Old Spice guy. As promised we have created our own rebuttal to his Orli video. Enjoy!
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Be sure to read the full risk disclosure before trading Forex. Please note that Forex trading involves significant risk of loss. It is not suitable for all investors and you should make sure you understand the risks involved before trading. Performance, strategies and charts shown are not necessarily predictive of any particular result. And, as always, past performance is no indication of future results.
If you haven’t heard about the Old Spice video campaigns you must be either living under a rock or rendered speechless by Isaiah Mustafa’s six-pack, towel wearing bod. Some say he’s a god. I say the campaign is brilliant (and happen to concur with the god-like references). Weiden + Kennedy, P&G’s ad agency, pulled together one of the most integrated and truly buzz worthy social media campaigns of 2010. Their timeliness, randomness, and honest-to-goodness humor has put Old Spice on the map in terms of social media. Instead of us gushing about it, feel free to read the great articles by Mashable and Fast Company. But of course our $0.02 anyway.
As I thought about what worked so well in this campaign, I kept thinking about the 4Ps of marketing and how, in this new social media world, we need a new P. Sure, every successful marketing mix has something to do with product, price, placement and promotion. But what they don’t teach you is what we learned this week about a healthy dash of social media and a heaping helping of a hot guy in a towel.
As marketers, we spend most of our time cooking up clever ways to share our brand with the people we think are most interested – a.k.a. our target audience. Whether it’s chocolates, cars, ShamWows or Forex – there’s a buyer for what we’re selling. They just don’t know it yet.
Brands have to work harder than ever to earn our attention. We’ve all heard the urban legend of the viral video that refused to produce the golden YouTube views and its silent death at the hands of its maker. Tragic. We’ve all seen the Facebook pages that vie for us to like them only to disappoint us and the Twitter streams that offer nothing of value in 140 characters or less. Sigh.
The great thing about the Old Spice campaign is that it took something that’s been around for decades (my grandpa wore it for years) and made it new by starting with fans and followers. It is what every good campaign should do – start with the people and let them build it. It’s something they don’t teach you in school but something I admire in practice. IMHO, People should be the 5th P. Think about it. Social media is all about People. It’s about engaging People in conversations, creating new ideas, forming and sharing opinions and connecting. These are People who may or may not like your brand. But, they know other People. And when they see and hear cool stuff in action, they tell them.
Hats off to W+K for focusing on the People and to Old Spice taking a risk and putting a hot guy in a towel (seriously, thank you.) As a social network, we here at Currensee are empowered by great examples like this one and, because we are a little goofy and love social media, we decided to ask (and by ask I mean, make) one of our interns, appropriately named Orli, respond to one of the commercials. Watch the original commercial here. Our response will be posted momentarily. Happy trading, social media lovers.
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Be sure to read the full risk disclosure before trading Forex. Please note that Forex trading involves significant risk of loss. It is not suitable for all investors and you should make sure you understand the risks involved before trading. Performance, strategies and charts shown are not necessarily predictive of any particular result. And, as always, past performance is no indication of future results.
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Be sure to read the full risk disclosure before trading Forex. Please note that Forex trading involves significant risk of loss. It is not suitable for all investors and you should make sure you understand the risks involved before trading. Performance, strategies and charts shown are not necessarily predictive of any particular result. And, as always, past performance is no indication of future results. Investor returns may vary from Trade Leader returns based on slippage, fees, broker spreads, volatility or other market conditions.
In response to demand of traders we’ve just implemented connectivity between Currensee and Twitter allowing traders to automatically Tweet their positions. The way the service works is that once you link your Twitter account you can chose which one of your brokers accounts you’d like to Tweet and we are automatically Tweeting on your behalf whenever you open or close a position. Since Currensee is the only platform that is connected in real time to more than 50 brokers the moment you execute the order we would Tweet on your behalf in real time. For those who are running business via Twitter we’ve also added the ability to Tweet only when positions are closed and thus attract customers.
One great service that can be along side with Currensee’s functionality is StockTwits and since we see the great value for our traders delivering the transparency we strive to into StockTwits we’ve implemented our Tweets using the same format that will be picked by StockTwits allowing traders for the first time to really Tweet what they do in their live accounts.
Currensee members who link their Twitter account are also going to be awarded 5 Currensee Bucks.
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Be sure to read the full risk disclosure before trading Forex. Please note that Forex trading involves significant risk of loss. It is not suitable for all investors and you should make sure you understand the risks involved before trading. Performance, strategies and charts shown are not necessarily predictive of any particular result. And, as always, past performance is no indication of future results.
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Be sure to read the full risk disclosure before trading Forex. Please note that Forex trading involves significant risk of loss. It is not suitable for all investors and you should make sure you understand the risks involved before trading. Performance, strategies and charts shown are not necessarily predictive of any particular result. And, as always, past performance is no indication of future results. Investor returns may vary from Trade Leader returns based on slippage, fees, broker spreads, volatility or other market conditions.
Currensee is the first social network for forex traders. We bring Forex traders from around the world together to make trading decisions in real time using live trading data.
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