This Is Important: The Power of Social Media Impacted What Wall Street Knew About the #Cyprus Bailout

The financial services industry has struggled to integrate social media into its regulation-laden information ecosystem. In addition to the need to document everything and protect privacy, most financial services professionals still think social media—Twitter specifically—is superfluous.That recently ended.

The Cyprus ‘surprise’ bailout (or bail-in)—including the ‘one-off’ tax on depositors is a case in point. The need for real-time information was critical and hard to get. And as Business Insider noted, “the man everyone is reading is the pseudonymous twitterer @pawelmorski.”

This is important. Why? Because financial services is about business and the flow of money. And because information is (still) power. As Gordon Gekko said in the original Wall Street movie, “Money never sleeps.” Let’s change that now to “Twitter never sleeps.” The power of real-time information is now—literally—golden.

The real-time information river is flowing 24/7 (including weekends!) and it’s finally time for companies to understand that and get on board. The competitive gap is widening. I’m predicting the next disruption in financial services will be in the stock market research and industry analysis business.

During the Cyprus bailout/bail-in, the most powerful information flowed for free—but only to those who were proficient in social media; who had configured their social streams to feed them information that matters to their business; and were savvy enough to use it.

This is not a bubble, it’s a wave. And if you don’t know that, then you’re not on it. Start by following #Cyprus or even $Apple.