Wow, that’s a lot of people who follow my work! I am honored and humbled, especially to be the first individual on Stocktwits to reach that amount second only to my friend and founder of Stocktwits, Howard Lindzon. Thanks to each of you who follow my work and find it useful!

Below are some thoughts about how I believe I reached this milestone.

1- Be yourself, be sincere. I have always liked the phrase “If you don’t know who you are, the market is an expensive place to learn.” If you are smart and not a jerk (editor said not to use the word I wanted to use..) people will listen.

2- Never engage with haters. At the first sign of a negative person, use the block button. It leaves them powerless to fight their imaginary battles and feels great to avoid negative energy.

3- Add value. Some of the most worthless tweets are “wow, XYZ is up a lot today” Tell us something that we can use!

4- Specialize in something. I am a short to intermediate term trader who specializes in technical analysis to seek out what look to be low risk, high probability trades. Knowing who I am and sticking to that approach allows people to know what to expect, seldomly do I deviate.

5- Treat others with respect. You will not be taken seriously and most likely blocked if you approach people with a combative stance. Opinions are good to have but argue with someone’s opinion? Why waste the energy, the market will decide who is right or wrong. Only Price Pays!

6- Don’t let social media take control of your life. A life outside the markets is healthy! Why do you work so hard if not to enjoy the fruits of your labor? I seldomly get on social media on the weekends, I would rather be doing something more fun.

7- Stocktwits is about investing and trading. I use Twitter for fun and posting (possibly) dumb things which do not pertain to the market directly. I like to keep Stocktwits about stocks.

8- With an open mind, you will actually make some great friends on Stocktwits. I found that difficult to believe when I first joined up but I now have good friends throughout the world that I would never have met without being on Stocktwits. That is pricelss!

9- Don’t be too self promotional. Madonna is the Queen of self promo and Trump is the King. Do you want to be them? I don’t. Like anyone else, I like to be appreciated but I am not going to thump my chest and tell you how wonderful I am. The fact that I am writing this post about having 100,000 followers is so amazing to me.

10- If you find value in the work that people do, let them know with a “thumbs up” or a “RT.”

11- Don’t expect too much from the people you follow. I cringe when people tell me they “followed” me into a trade and then ask what they should do next. I have never told people what to do with their money on social media. I try to provide information in an educational way and hope people will consider it to form their own trade ideas. “Make the trade your own!”

12- Be selective in who youm follow. Just like any other form of media, you can only consume so much information until it becomes difficult to separate what is useful and what becomes “noise.” As time goes on, I become more selective in what media I consume. The “news cycle” changes every few days and it is likely that you will not have missed anything that would impact your life. I try to follow people who add value (Stocktwits) or entertainment (Twitter) to my life. I don’t like to waste anyone’s time with every thought I have and I seldom follow anyone who sends more than ~10 messages per day. Maybe it’s just me but, most people just aren’t smart or interesting enough to keep my attention for more than that.

Thank you for being amongst the first 100,000 followers of mine on Stocktwits, I hope I can continue to provide useful information.

Look at all the people in the Michigan stadium, it holds just over 109,000 people. Crazy that close to that many people value my work.

To Stocktwits and Howard Lindzon, thanks for having the vision and doing so much work to make Stocktwits a great community!
~Brian