Innovations in Trading and Technology (One hundred million investment dollars tells us that Twitter is not just for kids. I’m not talking about Twitter’s ability to sell ads or stage a Linkedin-style IPO, but the presumably informed institutional investors who’ve decided to bet their money on Twitter’s ability to crowd source the direction of the Dow.
If you’re reading this article, you’ve probably already read the stories about the UK hedge fund whose sole strategy is trading based on millions of Tweets. The idea is that by determining the mood of people based on their Tweets, we can gauge the sentiment of the world for the day and hence whether people will buy or sell en masse. Yes – what Lindsey Lohan says on Twitter impacts the stock market.
Time – and investor returns – will tell us soon enough whether or not this idea is a good one. But what I can tell you now is that Twitter is in fact a useful business tool. Some get it – lots don’t. Just last night, in fact, I received strange looks from half the dinner table when I told them how useful Twitter has become for me both as a source of personal branding and knowledge gathering.
But like any tool, Twitter is only useful if you take to the time to learn how to use it. Yes, you can just create a Twitter handle and start entering what you had for lunch. That will get you a lot of followers if you’re like the aforementioned starlet. But for those of us in slightly more professional careers, using Twitter effectively takes a little more planning.
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6 Comments to "You Can Use Twitter Too. Really":
msimon
23 May 2011
Before commenting on any web site or technology, I always make sure to give it a fair trial. I'm having a tough time figuring out why, but Twitter just doesn't seem to be the long-term solution. It seems too unfocused. Others have all replicated their "core strength", but the Twittter brand at this point seems to carry the most weight. I recently heard someone say, "please hold my drink so that I can Tweet." My prediction -- Twitter is the MySpace/Friendster of this decade.
Comments (23)
kmcpartland
23 May 2011
You very well might be right. Twitter hasn't yet figured out how to make all that much money. But liquidity begets liquidity, and that seems to be the place Twitter has put itself in. Maybe Linkedin should buy Twitter.
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sarnuk
23 May 2011
I find Twitter to be invaluable for searches. I have found articles I do not think I would have ever found otherwise. Other than that I never Tweet.
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finn
23 May 2011
Twitter has a place, just not sure if they know where it really is in Capital Markets. But if Linkedin is anything to go by, they don't have to worry anyway. And that took my comment beyond 144 characters...
Comments (11)
kmcpartland
23 May 2011
sarnuk's point is a primary one - finding interesting articles you would have otherwise missed. As for Twitter in capital markets - I'd argue that Facebook is social and Twitter is business. In fact the demographics show that teenagers don't use Twitter. They think its old news. That leaves Twitter for us Gen X types.
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ltabb
23 May 2011
that said, my son stopped using facebook for comments and he twitters them - and he won't give me access. However I am not sure I want it - as he just finished his sophomore year in college and I am not sure I want to know what he is tweeting :-(. But the adage that FB is for kids - may be changing - however my data set is very limited.
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