The Ripple Effect of The Reddit-Fueled Stock Rally
Written by Courtney Raguso, Social Media Content Creator
The recent drama between Wall Street and the famous Reddit “meme stock” rally proves just how powerful social media can be. Now, more companies plan to start investing in “trending” stocks. How do they plan to do this? Social listening. In order to pick up on these trends, many financial service companies are investing in software that can monitor the internet listening for overall sentiment and attitudes in conversations around these trending stocks. Social listening is a process that involves tracking your social media platforms for mentions and conversations related to your brand and then measuring those emotions and opinions. It adds context to all the @-mentions, comments, and shares to help you figure out where your brand stands on the positive/negative spectrum. Many investment firms are now planning to take advantage of the volatility they’ve been seeing online and use it to get a better sense of the behavior of specific stocks and position themselves in a more favorable way. Members of the Reddit’s WallStreetBets group used the platform to drive up the stock price of troubled companies, including GameStop and AMC, to cause the price per share to go up, forcing many short-sellers to close their positions for massive losses. This was a battle between the public taking on the big Wall Street hedge funds by using Reddit to turbocharge an endless flow of get-rich-quick hype, collecting more buying power and taking control of the stock price. This Reddit-fueled stock rally just goes to show how many businesses undermined the power of social media. Learn more about what’s going on in the stock market here.
Social listening is an important part of marketing because it’s audience research. It offers insight on not just the quantitative data, but also the qualitative data and measures feelings and emotions instead of just focusing on the numbers. When combined, these types of data can be extremely helpful in getting a better idea of your audience and what steps you should take next based on their behavior. Remember, it’s all about getting to know your audience. Take this idea for example: you are analyzing the performance on your Instagram account and you want to gain some insight on your audience. You will look at the metrics to see the rate of engagement, what posts performed better, and so on; but what if you want to measure what their feelings are towards your brand? Numerical data won’t tell you that. The way to do this is through a two-step process. First, you gather and analyze the data for mentions of your brand, competitors, products, and keywords related to your business. Then you analyze the context and sentiment of the information, putting what you learn into action. That’s when you start the process of social listening. There are tools that can help you with this, as we stated earlier, and there are many companies that are starting to turn to software that’s designed to help pick up on social media sentiment. If you aren’t ready to invest in tools, then research is your best bet.
There are many benefits to conducting this type of analysis, aside from just understanding your audience better. It also helps you improve your customer service, tweak brand messaging and product development, understand where you stand in your niche, and spot brand crises in the early stages. The point of social listening is to help guide better decision-making and maximize positive interactions while providing a quick resolution to any negative mentions. More companies are starting to realize the role of brand image and online communities in corporate value creation and the way we do business has changed a lot over time, especially in the last year. The ripple effect of the Reddit ‘meme stock’ episode is just one prime example of this and has caused companies to start rethinking their approach to how they do business and market. This is also happening with big tech brands and other software corporations that are rethinking what tools are necessary for detecting these new trends. The cost-efficiency of these efforts is becoming increasingly difficult to measure and predict and may even drive companies to outsource their social media efforts in even larger numbers. So if you’re not upping your marketing strategy in the aftermath of the whole meme stock affair, you may soon have to. The rules have changed and so must your strategy.
At MSM DesignZ, we put in the time and energy needed for success, so you can ensure you are using every dollar for maximum return. With over 20 years in the business, we have watched marketing evolve from traditional to digital. Whether you need a website refresh, more attractive email, or a quality online presence, we can do it all. When we take on a client, we put in 110% and treat every brand as if it’s our own. We will always continue to place our clients’ needs at the heart of our operations. From web development to social media management, we’ll work directly with you to build a personalized strategy to not only retain but also gain business. We are assisting in all areas for our clients. Visit our contact page at https://www.msmdesignz.com/contact/, and we’ll work with you to devise a custom plan that will keep your brand alive and well. We look forward to working with you!
Sources:
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/27/business/gamestop-wall-street-bets.html?auth=linked-google1tap
https://blog.hootsuite.com/social-listening-business/
https://blog.hootsuite.com/social-media-sentiment-analysis-tools/