By Charles Qi, CEO and Founder of StockPick,
Between online courses, blogs, news articles, and social media feeds, there’s a wide array of content out there to help new investors learn the ropes. However, the majority of these young investors are on social media, watching and engaging with investment experts in between their friends’ posts. While Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok dominate the social media market, not every industry is always well suited to these relatively unmoderated platforms, and investment strategy is one of them.
Charles Qi recognized how the self-directed investing market is an underserved, albeit large and growing, market. He saw a need for retail investors to have access to a community of like-minded individuals, who could share their insights, ask questions, and discuss market trends.. His solution was to develop a social media platform for self-directed investors to share their expertise through digestible short-form videos, called StockPick.
While all users will be welcome to create content, StockPick will verify investors with a proven track record. This makes it easy for users to quickly vet the content they see, and make informed investing decisions. The platform is designed to help people of all ages and investing knowledge levels to learn about the stock market and grow their confidence as investors.Content Creation
Creators will be able to utilize the platform’s streamlined video creation features, which combine intuitive design with features built to serve the investing community. For instance, creators can add “slides” with key financial data, terms, or images to help viewers understand the material.
One of the features that’s particularly unique to StockPick — and convenient for the investing community — is the stock ticker that appears at the top of each video. This allows viewers to immediately see the stock being discussed, as well as vote “bullish” or “bearish” on the stock itself. Voting bullish indicates when a user does not think the stock or asset is worth investing in, and bearish indicates when the user does agrees that the stock or asset is valuable.Live Engagement
Fostering engagement heavily relies on the viewer’s experience, which is why several components were made top priority for StockPick, including a tight vetting process. For example, content creators must first apply to become “StockPick Analysts,” where applicants are thoroughly reviewed before they are approved. StockPick will then show the experience level of the “Analyst” through profile badges. This transparency boosts StockPick’s credibility and the trust its users have in the platform and its creators.
With StockPick, how people measure a community’s sentiment about a specific video — or in this case, stocks — is through likes, shares, and comments. The investment community can now collectively weigh in on any stock or asset in real time by using a voting system designed to help foster community engagement, increasing the accuracy of community consensus and providing live feedback. While browsing through stocks, users can swipe left for “bullish” if they think the stock or crypto asset is not worth investing in, or swipe right to vote “bearish” and affirm the stock or asset is worth investing in.
Depending on what a viewer is most interested in learning about, StockPick’s platform is set up to prioritize content around the stock market, cryptocurrencies, NFTs, and general market updates. Through the power of AI, content feeds are personalized to user’s interests, based on what they specify during onboarding, but also on past likes, shares, and comments. Videos can also be saved to rewatch later for users who want to dive into specific content at a later time.
The Competition
“While there are many companies that service self-directed investors, we are the first one to provide these experts with a video-based platform,” says StockPick’s founder Charles Qi. Currently, investing experts are limited to the types of platforms where they can share their insight. Although some of these platforms like Motley Fool are credible, their content is served up as long articles and complex data. This makes it less desirable for younger investors in particular, who may lose out on the opportunity to learn simply because the information isn’t served in a modern format.
Many industries have embraced the shift to visual content, as consumers around the globe increasingly prefer delivery method. For this reason, the time is ripe for the investment industry to adapt its educational channels to the new generation’s preferred learning style: content creation. Current social platforms like TikTok, Instagram, Youtube, and Discord are widely used for investing education, but they’re not designed to ensure information is credible through research and provide the supporting information new investors require.
“Current social platforms have no standardization or content filtering to validate experts’ legitimacy,” says Qi. “Creators are limited in monetization tools; YouTubers with over 1 million followers must redirect revenue flow to a website or a platform like Patreon, which can result in losing a sale.”
StockPick provides a two-sided platform, designed as a marketplace and social network, for investment experts to create content for new consumers looking to learn about investment strategies and tips. For the first time, a platform is designed for the investment industry to cater to the next generation, where experts can more easily monetize their insight through captivating technology and by leveraging their performance history.
About Author:
Charles Qi is the CEO and Founder of StockPick, a video-based investing social network for retail investors. Charles is a CFA Charter holder and holds a Master’s Degree in computational finance from Carnegie Mellon University. Charles has recently been featured in US News & World Report, NY Weekly, and International Business Times.
