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Forex Basics

Read This Before Turning to Facebook for Your Forex Education

Facebook is huge, it has been around for many years now and is the most popular social network in the world right now. Due to its size, it is not a surprise that a trading community has been created around it. In fact, if you simply search for forex, there are hundreds and thousands of groups that come up, from all sorts of things, country specific forex groups, currency specific groups, educational groups, affiliate groups, and pretty much anything else that you can think of. With all of these groups and pages available, is Facebook actually useful when it comes to your trading education? That is what we are going to be looking at today.

The simple answer to this question is yes and no. Facebook has a whole wealth of information that is posted from its various members, but there is also a lot of false information being posted too. We are sure that you have heard of fake news, a phrase made famous by Donald Trump, the saying, unfortunately, has a lot of merits when it comes to Facebook too. While there is a lot of information there, we need to be careful as to what we decide to believe and what we don’t.

With so many different groups it can be hard to find the right ones, a lot of the groups are made up of people simply spamming their own services, with very little discussion about actual trading, or when someone does ask for help their post is simply drowned in the flood of otherwise useless posts from automated profiles and bots.

If however, you do manage to find a group that is good at weeding out the spam, and has an active user base, then you may have stumbled into a goldmine for things like feedback and trading ideas. When you have a group of people who have a similar mindset to yourself, then it is a fantastic opportunity to get some feedback on your own trading ideas, it also allows you to throw ideas about to get some pretty quick feedback from people who are in the same boat. These sorts of groups can help you to get confirmations of your ideas and also counter ideas, which could potentially help you avoid making some bad trades.

A problem with Facebook is that it has become the breeding ground for scams. Pretty much every group that you look at you see people advertising their mentorships, their trading signals, their huge returns on investments, and other various things. You need to remember that if something seems too good to be true, it most likely is, if someone is advertising that they can get you 0 a day for an investment of $10 then there’s probably something just a little fishy about that. The same goes for signals, if they are advertising 100% accurate signals, but you need to join their group or telegram channel in order to get them, then there are two things wrong, firstly no one has 100% accurate signals, and if someone is asking you to join their personal things especially off of Facebook then this should be a warning flag too.

If you do join a group, and you see people advertising their trading software, then this is actually not allowed anymore. Facebook classes all forex software as a “get rich quick” scheme which is now against their rules to advertise. So while there may be some legitimate software out there, it is best not to take the word of anyone on Facebook and certainly not to purchase something that was advertised within one of the groups.

Along with the groups, there are also Facebook pages, which are often from companies, some legitimate and some not but they also include a number of different trading education sites and companies. While they may not actually be offering their services on Facebook, it is a good opportunity for you to work out what different offerings out there are. But again, you need to be wary of the ones that are simply there to try and take your money rather than offering a true service.

So ultimately, Facebook does have a lot of useful information. The problem is that it is very hard to find the groups that are actually useful, with so many bots and scammers about it is a minefield for those that are not up to date on what they need to look out for. If You can find the right groups then it can certainly be helpful at getting feedback and replies from other real traders, but if you cannot, then it is probably best to look for your trading advice and education outside of Facebook on a more dedicated forum or website.

Categories
Forex Basics

What’s the Deal With Forex Influencers?

If you have been around on social media for more than a few minutes you have probably seen the vast numbers of people who are showing off their expensive houses, their flash cars, and more often than not, piles of money. So how have they got these things, how long did it take them, and more importantly, are they even real?

An influencer is classed as someone who has a large following and is able to make movements within a market by recommending a product or asking people to perform certain tasks. There are some very legitimate influencers out there, who have worked hard and have made themselves a success. However, three or a lot of people who have seen this and tried to fake it, the old phrase of fake it till you make it is relevant here. So we are now going to have a look at ways that you may be able to work out whether someone is a real influencer or a faker.

Their Age

One thing you need to look at is their age, would you believe an 18-year-old (or sometimes even younger) that they have made millions trading, considering that you are required to be 18 to actually trade, we find it hard to believe that they have already managed to make millions. While there are of course those that are 18 who are millionaires, either through inheritance or businesses, it is far less likely that those posting on social media about their fortunes, especially showing them off in the form of piles of cash are real.

Duplicate Photos

It is absolutely fine to post the same picture on your account several times, what you do need to look out for though is those that are posting pictures from other accounts. If someone has millions of pounds, why would they need to be taking photos from other accounts instead of taking it themselves? What is even worse, is that a lot of these so-called influencers may have been taking photos from places like Google. If you are ever feeling like something could be fake, simply download the photo, go to google images and do a reverse search. If it is real there may be only one photo (or a few if others have copied it), but when you have a fake, there may be hundreds of them and it may well have been taken from another site completely.

Ridiculous Claims

I am sure you have seen some of the claims that they are making, send us $500 and within 7 days you will have $5,000 or for just 0.0001 BTC you will get 1 BTC in 2 weeks. That would be fantastic wouldn’t it, well this simply means that they are not real and are just looking to take your money. Please never ever send money to anyone on social media, there is never a need for it, even a professional account manager will not ask you to send them money directly or to a random crypto wallet, so if it looks too good to be true, it most certainly is.

Follower/Like ratios

This can be an obvious one, does someone have 10,000 followers but only 1 or 2 likes? Or do they have 10,000 likes and only a few hundred followers? Often those that are trying to fake it till purchase followers or likes, they do it to make it look like they are popular and that they have a following, mainly because if a lot of people follow you, it makes you seem a lot more relevant and genuine. Simply take a look at their profiles, their posts and their likes and you will certainly see some discrepancies if they aren’t the real deal.

The Fake Hours and Cars

There are some beautiful houses out there, and a lot of people on Instagram and Facebook seem to own them. In fact, we are pretty sure that a lot of them live in the same house. Those that are faking it aren’t buying these houses, they are simply renting them for the day and taking photos, it’s the reason why they often have the same weather and lighting in every photo. Just be wary of those posting huge houses with very little evidence of how they got it.

Some are Real

Of course, there are some people that have made this money or the popular ones that aren’t throwing their cash about, they do exist. If people are posting genuine content along with their fortunes, they could be more real than the rest. Those posting courses that they run are often quite knowledgeable, however not all. Often those offering genuine services will have a business with reviews online, be sure to check them out before ever departing with any of your own money. A lot of the legitimately rich people would have made their money through MLM schemes, recruiting others, so this is another thing to look out for.

So those are just a few of the ways to work out whether an influencer is real or fake, it is important to note that the vast majority of the people on social media are simply trying to make money off you, so stay alert and keep your wits in order to avoid falling into their traps. There are the real ones, but they are far and few between, so be careful when looking for people to follow.