As you saw in my recent post, The Rogue Investor now has a twitter that you can follow. I’ve operated it for a couple days now and have come up with some steps you can take to help improve your investing.

So, here are 5 steps you can take to improve your trading through twitter/StockTwits:

1. Go to StockTwits and see what it’s all about.

Now, they try and make it seem like you have to be on their site for your tweets to be published on StockTwits, but you don’t have to. All you have to do is type a $ and then a ticker or add a $$ at the end of your tweet if you don’t have a specific symbol and your tweet will appear on StockTwits.

2. Download TweetDeck and add the StockTwits panel.

TweetDeck is basically a command station for twitter. It puts all the windows you need to see in one. To start out, you get an All Friends, Replies, and Direct Messages panel. For mine, I have added Facebook Status and StockTwits. To add panels, use the buttons in the top left. StockTwits is the button with a “$” on it. Here is a screen shot of what this all looks like:

Click To Enlarge - The middle is edited for privacy**

3. Watch the conversations and get a feel for what people are talking about.

When I started to watch StockTwits, it was really pretty impressive. So many people were talking about the trades they were making, posting interesting articles on the market, and asking different questions. I started to notice that several stocks kept coming up with a lot of people and was able to get a feel for what people were looking at. This can help you know what some of the mob is thinking.

4. When people talk about buying and selling specific stocks, look up their stock and think if you would do the same and why or why not.

This is actually my favorite part of StockTwits. It provides us with stock picks that we might not find anywhere else. If someone talks about how they just got in $BAC and expect a pop, you can check out the chart for yourself and see if it is worth trying. Most of the time I would advise you to just watch and take little action, but you never know what kind of opportunity lies ahead of you.

5. Engage with people. Start by answering some questions that are out there and then start to ask your own.

Twitter is a great place for you to talk to all sorts of people and build your network. If someone on StockTwits has just asked a genera question and you have a response, don’t be afraid to send it to them. People will appreciate the input and you never know what kind of relationship could be built. Most of all, try to learn from people on StockTwits and share what you have learned with anyone wanting to listen!