Dummies Guide to becoming a Stock Expert on Twitter

Way back in time, when Yahoo had those Chat rooms, in the finance room, one could see a huge number of stock experts advising others of the virtues of buying / selling a company stock due to reasons that could not be listed on one’s fingers (use of toe fingers was very much recommended). 

In India, I have seen a similar trend on certain websites / forums where experts outnumber the number of investors in India giving advise all through the day (and even night as and when one suffers from periods of insomnia. I haven’t been a active participant in Facebook (nor was on Orkut during those times) and hence am not sure though based on hearsay, I would say that there are plenty of experts out there as well.

But the game changer for the experts has been the arrival of Twitter. Your omnipresence is no longer confined to the small set of persons who like you on Facebook or have stumbled onto your blog / forum. Here, not only can you recommend on your own time line but also tag others (who may or may not even want to know) to ensure that your calls aren’t wasted for the minute problem of not enough followers.

So, here is the dummies guide to becoming a Stock Expert on Twitter.

1. First have a plan – When I say a plan, its not about a plan on what stocks you want to see or what method you want to use. What I suggest is that you first define your end goal. Do you want to boost your ego with XXXX followers or do you really want to become rich by selling SMS plans / Newsletters, etc. If you aren’t sure, not to worry, you can make one up as we go.

2. Create a Twitter Account with a Quirky handle (remember, its always easy to remember small number of characters – We humans have a limit on that).

3. Decide as to how many calls you want to make per day. This is important since we want to track the winners and a very small sample size is not ideally suited to it.

4. Do not make enemies. And if you want to make, make sure that they are big enough to make them ignore you (you do not want people questioning your claims, do you?)

5. Keep a track of all recommendations you give – doesn’t matter if it was given a week or month or even a year back. After all, even a broken clock is right twice

6. Suckers are out there in plenty, unfortunately you need to attract them since there are just too many of your kind out there. One way would be to spend time answering their queries on what should I do. Don’t worry too much, just toss a coin and give a appropriate answer based on your current mood

7. While you are climbing up the ladder of destiny, there will be few who will be hell bent on pulling you down using what they call as quantifiable tests. Arguing with them leads to peril, hence keep a list of quotes which can be helpful in such situations. Do not engage with them unless your fame is being targeted

 8. Always and this is important, Always use a photo that looks appealing. Peoples belief in you is greater when there is a photo compared to a egg and best of all, it doesn’t even have to be your photo to start with (who really knows you, right?)

9. Track (in terms of ability to obtain charts / news) on as many markets as possible. Diversification is the key. Who knows which market follower suddenly find you the most knowledgeable analyst tracking their markets

 10. Finally, activity is the key. Since success is not guaranteed, you need to throw as many dices / darts as possible and hope some of them will stick (and random luck dictates they will). Also a large tweet line will ensure that tracking your calls is as tough as finding the needle in the hay-stick.

So, there you go. I hope these 10 commandments will help you in becoming a twitter expert in due course of time and help you find enough suckers who you can sell whatever you want to sell.