The Social Media Information Revolution

Social media marketing has infiltrated the world of Online Trading Online Trading Online trading represents the trading of fiat currencies, digital currencies, commodities, stocks and indices, where traders and investors intend to make a profit, via the purchase or sale of the aforementioned products. This is done through an electronic network, made accessible by brokers in the form of an online trading platform or hub.Online trading continues to see a rapid growth year on year, due to a number of reasons. Firstly, the number of brokers offering their services, with more mone Online trading represents the trading of fiat currencies, digital currencies, commodities, stocks and indices, where traders and investors intend to make a profit, via the purchase or sale of the aforementioned products. This is done through an electronic network, made accessible by brokers in the form of an online trading platform or hub.Online trading continues to see a rapid growth year on year, due to a number of reasons. Firstly, the number of brokers offering their services, with more mone Read this Term and become a somewhat critical tool recently. On this basis, social media sites such as Twitter, with simplified, hard-hitting one-line updates have moved quickly into the business world and caught on as a popular and effective method of creating brand awareness and also conveying news and updates to potential target markets as well as existing client base.

There are several purposes for which Twitter is used within the marketing departments of various Forex Forex Foreign exchange or forex is the act of converting one nation’s currency into another nation’s currency (that possesses a different currency); for example, the converting of British Pounds into US Dollars, and vice versa. The exchange of currencies can be done over a physical counter, such as at a Bureau de Change, or over the internet via broker platforms, where currency speculation takes place, known as forex trading.The foreign exchange market, by its very nature, is the world’s largest tradi Foreign exchange or forex is the act of converting one nation’s currency into another nation’s currency (that possesses a different currency); for example, the converting of British Pounds into US Dollars, and vice versa. The exchange of currencies can be done over a physical counter, such as at a Bureau de Change, or over the internet via broker platforms, where currency speculation takes place, known as forex trading.The foreign exchange market, by its very nature, is the world’s largest tradi Read this Term and binary options firms as an effective tool. A number of such firms have connected their website content management system to Twitter's TweetDeck, enabling news, updates, promotions and other topics to be broadcast automatically via social media.

Quite clearly, there has been a requirement for companies who can provide such a service, and improve upon it, giving a comprehensive social media solution to online trading companies.

One such company is Live Squawk, a London-based financial markets audio news service, which provides up to the second market information to its global client base.

The 24 hour service, broadcast from London and Singapore 5 days a week, covers reports and vital information relating to all of the main asset classes, including equities, fixed income, forex and commodities. In order to facilitate this, a panel of in-house analysts monitor all major events, newswires, television channels, websites, blogs and social media platforms for headlines which could affect the market in any way.

Recognizing the potential reach with Twitter, and the current use of this medium by the forex industry, Live Squawk this week announced an important advancement whereby they have expanded their Twitter monitoring team in order to ensure that this influential source of market-breaking news for financial markets is fully incorporated into their service. With the sheer volume of real-time information that is broadcast over Twitter, Live Squawk’s service frees traders from having to trawl Twitter and other media sources for relevant news, allowing them to focus on their products and markets.

LiveSquawk was established in 2006 initially in London before opening a further office in Singapore in order to concentrate their efforts on region specific events. London serves Europe and the UK, while Singapore serves the APAC region.

"Over the last 3 years, the financial industry has seen quite a leap in the amount of available content. We started noticing the effect of the power of Twitter at the start of the Greek crisis" explains Harry Daniels, Live Squawk's CEO.

"We were getting the heads up on the bad state of finances from news blogs and websites and the market moving effect it had. Since then, the amount of traffic and information available via Twitter for example has been immense."

In terms of gathering the important information and providing this directly to customers, Daniels expands further: "We do our best to try and follow up a story and chase down the origins and give customers the best guide we can to the authenticity of it we can.

As with the conventional news wires traders and brokers use, the level of information available on a site such as Twitter means that it is nearly impossible for an individual to sit there and trade and look for all of the pertinent information they need. This is where we come in."

The speed at which technology develops these days is faster than ever before, and often when a new concept becomes popular and in widespread use, the need for evolution often arises. Harry Daniels looks at the forthcoming challenges in this area: "There will inevitably be algorithms that will start to trawl the social networking sites picking up on key words, but from what I know Twitter are trying to stop this, as it isn’t in tune with the culture they have tried to cultivate."

"StockTwits is an example of how derivative sites have started to focus on particular industries. Furthermore, the issue for institutions to concentrate on is that strict security (firewalls) hampers their ability to access this information; again this is where we come in. As a news aggregator, it's our job to scan the wires and news blogs for information".

"A further aspect to bear in mind regarding technology is that traders at private houses or at the banks are getting buffeted by the algorithms and we give them an edge they can use to get in front of the machines".

This certainly supports the notion that analyzing social media sites is becoming a growing trend, as compounded by the launch of Knowsis and Dataminr, both of which analyze social feeds for trader sentiment.

Knowsis is one particular participant in this field who presented at our Forex Magnates London Summit in 2012, representing themselves in the startup panel. Explaining the added value of monitoring social media in real time, Oli Freeling-Wilkinson, CEO of Knowsis stated ”Social media, when used correctly, is an incredible market color tool. For the first time ever, you can actually get a true gauge of market sentiment, and identify the news and themes that matter to the trading community, all in real time. This is incredibly powerful when looking for additional insight and actionable trading ideas.”

From a completely different perspective, social media can be used by the authorities to identify fraudsters, as reported by Forex Magnates recently. Data is so freely available via these channels that law agencies such as the FBI will use such channels to locate suspects.

Clearly a very interesting subject to follow in 2013 will be the further developments in this field, and how the world of online trading drives these advancements forward.