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How To Be A Better Tweeter In The World of Finance

Posted by TheArmoTrader
on February 16th, 2012

In the era of social media, it is important to understand how to be a value-added tweeter. I see so many mistakes when it comes to tweeting in the world of finance. A lot of this is just ignorance (no offense). Being a better tweeter isn’t about being me being anal-retentive, it is about you being efficient and adding to the community in a proper, productive way.


5 Mistakes Commonly Made by The Average Tweeter

1) Using Incorrect tags

It is very important to use the correct tags and tickers. Here is a good blog post on this. The $DOW isn’t down 50 points, the $DJIA is. The $USD is not at the US Dollar, the $USDX is. The $ES is not up 5 handles, the $ES_F is. $CNBC is the symbol for Center Bancorp Inc, and NOT CNBC the bussiness news channel. I can bring up endless examples of this, but it might be better if you just read the aforementioned blog post (also check my comment at the bottom of that page).

The HFT machines probably could use this advice, as today CVR Energy ($CVI) popped on news of a tender offer, but the machines also popped $CVR with it. Guess this piece of advice will come in handy next time.

Also, the “$$” tag should go at the very end or very beginning of tweets. If they do not, your tweet will not make the “All” stream.

Lastly, do not tag tickers along in your tweet if they have nothing to do with the tweet. Tweeting out “Had an OK day trading today $SPX $SPY $AAPL” is completely nonsensical and foolish. The 3 symbols have nothing to do with your trading day.

2) Retweeting

-When Retweeting (RT) someone , do it properly. For example, when you RT a user, make sure it is in the following format: “RT @TheArmoTrader: ….”

If you are going to add your thoughts to the tweet, it is best to add them before the RT and not after. This way it is easier for the reader to distinguish between your and the original author’s thoughts.

-Also, if you are going to change a tweet in any way (to make it shorter or whatnot), do not use “RT”. Instead, use the more appropriate ”MT”, which stands for “Modified (Re)Tweet”. This lets other users know that the tweet is not in the original format. But when modifying a retweet, make sure not to selectively edit the tweet or leave out the main idea/gist of the tweet.

-There are two ways you should cite links and information.

The first way is to use “h/t” (Stands for Hat Tip or Heard Through) when citing information to give credit to the person who tweeted out or found the information or link.So lets say I tweet out specific information, like

“We are less than 1% away from the 2011 $SPX high”,

but you do not retweet me (but still want to give credit), then just add “h/t @TheArmoTrader” at the end of your tweet. For example, your tweet would read something like this, “Wow, I can’t believe we are less than 1% away from the 2011 $SPX high (h/t @TheArmoTrader)”. The same goes for links in this scenario.

The second way you should cite links is by using “via”. When tweeting out links from someones own blog, add a “via @Handle” at the end. For example, if you were to tweet out my latest blog post, it would look like this: ” ‘Precious Metals Ready For a Move?’ http://bit.ly/w0jUR1 via @TheArmoTrader”. This is an easy way to cite whose blog post you are tweeting out (which is useful for other readers to know). That is the one difference of “via” and “h/t”. “Via” specifically states whose post it is, while with “h/t” that condition is not necessary.

3) One word or symbol tweets

Do not tweet out just symbols or one word tweets! Tweeting out “$AAPL” does nothing. I see this way too often. Also, tweeting out “Boom” or “Damn” does zip as well. I don’t mind the “Boom” tweet, but as long as it is followed by something more, like “Boom! That was some heavy volume that came into the $SPY on that breakout”.

4) Joking

Joking should be kept to a minimum during trading hours, and especially if it involves specific assets (stocks, futures, currencies). This is not because I am a “Debbie-downer”. But to be blunt, money is on the line. Being serious (on the stream) during trading hours is a must 95% of the time.

5) Other Twitter efficiency tips

If you are going to start a tweet with someone’s handle (but are not addressing them directly per say), add a “.” before the handle, so anybody not following them will be able to see the tweet as well. For instance, your tweet would look something like this:

A) “.@TheArmoTrader says precious metals are ready for a move. I would disagree http://bit.ly/w0jUR1”

B) Also, try to use URL shorteners as much as possible. It just helps keep the tweets clean and easy to copy for RTs (compared to the weird automatic default link shortener on twitter).

C) Do not tweet too much, do not tweet too little. I don’t like following people who tweet every 5 minutes. Usually they are just adding noise to my stream. Also, I do not like following people who tweet once a day. If the account isn’t going to be active, what’s the point in following it? Try to get a good medium in.

D) Make sure your Twitter and Stocktwits account are linked