Hashtag Investing Review: An Investing Social Community
Hashtag Investing is an exclusive social media network offering a community and tools for DIY investors. In this review of Hashtag Investing, we’ll take you inside the platform and let you know the pros and cons.
What Is Hashtag Investing?
Hashtag Investing is a social media tool specifically designed for do-it-yourself (DIY) investors. Like other social media tools, it helps to connect people all over the country and even internationally. But what differentiates this social media network is that its sole focus is on investing.
The point is to connect DIY investors and stock traders with other people who are interested in investing. The community is diverse and made up of people at all levels, from beginner investors with little to no experience to advanced, highly skilled day traders.
The platform offers a number of different features, including the following:
- A real-time group chat
- Message board posts
- User polls
- Direct/private messaging
- Investing tools.
You may be wondering if you really need another social media platform. After all, you’re already on Facebook and Reddit. And maybe Twitter and Instagram. But isn’t it time to have a great social media platform just for investing?
In the next section, we’ll look at some of the reasons Hashtag Investing is awesome, and why you may prefer it to other social platforms for discussing finance and investing.
Why Hashtag Investing?
Sometimes I experience digital media overload. With news sites, social channels, promotional emails and more, there’s so much to get through. Do we really need another social media platform to add to this noise?
The answer – if you are interested in investing – is yes. After all, at Investment U, we believe that investing knowledge is investing power. And one of the best ways to learn about investing is through sharing your experiences with a community.
Of course, it is possible to build an investing community for yourself on a platform like Facebook or Reddit. However, we don’t really recommend it. So what advantages does Hashtag Investing have over these other platforms? Here are some of the pros.
It’s in Real Time
Facebook and Reddit are not real-time platforms. Generally, they are post-event and thread-based platforms. Hashtag Investing now has a message board for posts as well.
But its greatest strength is its real-time chat. You can chat with other investors all day long and get instant feedback on your ideas, trading strategies and anything else that comes to mind about investing.
And while a platform like Twitter moves quickly, even that doesn’t offer you live, real-time chatting action like this. So if you’re looking for an investing conversation that keeps flowing, this is it.
It’s Semi-Anonymous
Facebook, Twitter and Instagram are hardly anonymous. In fact, for someone to find your tweets, all someone really has to do is Google you.
And although Facebook posts don’t show up in a Google search, most posts show up for anyone who searches for you on the platform itself.
Not to mention, Facebook now has more than 2.6 billion active monthly users. So it’s not exactly a private, exclusive club.
Hashtag Investing content, on the other hand, is available to its members and its members only. Which means that unless your spouse or your boss is also an investor on the platform, they aren’t going to find out anything about what you’ve been up to with your investing money.
It’s Private
Not only is Hashtag Investing semi-anonymous, it’s also private. In fact, you need to be approved for membership. The approval process isn’t extremely rigorous, but the main point is to keep only qualified people on the platform.
And by qualified, I mean people who are truly interested in investing and are likely to remain engaged in the conversations on the platform. Generally, they will have important things to share and contribute to others.
Best of all, you won’t need to be worried about getting spammed by trolls, like I am all day, every day, on Twitter.
It’s Focused on Investing
Much of the time, social media is itself a distraction. Generally, we use it to pass time when we’re bored or procrastinating on projects we don’t want to work on.
But what if social media wasn’t a distraction at all? What if it helped you focus on the project at hand – your investments? Suddenly, your use of social media would become intentional rather than distracting.
Of course, you could try to use Facebook or Reddit in this way. But let’s be honest. You will likely get distracted by posts on a million non-related topics.
Hashtag Investing allows you to dive deep and focus your attention where it needs to be when working on your investing strategy.
Another Perk of Hashtag Investing: Partner Discounts
In addition to all of the cool features outlined above, Hashtag Investing offers another perk: discounts on other financial and investing tools and services.
You can find some of the currently available partnerships right on the website. Current discount offers are being offered by companies like Benzinga, Sure Dividend and Webull.
The discounts offered range from 15%, 20% and 25% to even more off tools and services from these company partners.
Cons of Hashtag Investing
Of course, no platform is perfect. And that’s especially true when it comes to social media tools. So what are the negatives of Hashtag Investing?
Well, the interface of the platform could definitely use a design upgrade. And it’s occasionally a bit hard to find what you are looking for. It actually took me a few minutes to find the link to the chatrooms, which is the main feature of the platform.
Another issue is that sometimes the speed of the chat slows down. This can occur particularly during stock market after-hours. During these times, it may take a bit longer to see responses roll in.
But as the platform increases its membership – and it is assuredly increasing it – that will also improve the consistency of the speed of the conversation, and there will likely be more specialized chat channels as well.
But the positives of the tool far outweigh the negatives. The biggest positive is being able to truly connect with a community of warm, insightful and enthusiastic traders with much constructive advice to offer.
Final Thoughts on Hashtag Investing
In general, I think anyone who has a serious interest in investing and trading – or who is a novice who really wants to learn more and engage – will really like Hashtag Investing.
In addition to the fantastic chatroom and discussion boards, it gives you plenty of tools, charts and polls right at your fingertips.
If you are interested in learning more about this exciting new social media platform for investors, Hashtag Investing, I highly recommend you go check it out on its website now.
About Brian M. Reiser
Brian M. Reiser has a Bachelor of Science degree in Management with a concentration in finance from the School of Management at Binghamton University.
He also holds a B.A. in philosophy from Columbia University and an M.A. in philosophy from the University of South Florida.
His primary interests at Investment U include personal finance, debt, tech stocks and more.