Most of you are on some kind of social media. It has become a part of our lives and shows no signs of ever going away. The question is how could you invest in social media stocks if you thought there was a bright future for the space? Today I will go over a few stocks you could purchase to participate in the social media generation.
The most obvious one is Facebook (FB ). If you're not on Facebook then you at least have heard of it. The free social media app spans the globe and has been an incredible investment over the last five years. Since its IPO the stock is up over 200% and remains near its highs. The company makes money off selling advertising and does quite well at it. With a net profit margin of 39% Facebook has generated great returns for their investors.
Next we have Twitter (TWTR ) which has not enjoyed quite the same success. Twitter is incredibly popular. Even our President is a constant user of Twitter. The problem is that they haven't been as successful in generating revenue from its advertising business. Now don't give up on them yet. They are working hard and are optimistic about their future efforts but for now the stock has been beaten down over 60% in the same five year period as Facebook.
Now there are a few we didn't mention and for good reason. The first is Linkdin which is a very popular social site for business professionals. They have done an incredible job attracting people to network on the site and share tons of information about their professional careers. This was noticed by Microsoft (MSFT ) which recently acquired them. So to invest in Linkdin you will need to be an owner of Microsoft shares. The other name is Instagram. This massively popular app is owned by Facebook. They are very good at generating revenue from Instagram and have also shown that they can compete with rivals on their offerings.
The social landscape is changing constantly but hopefully these few ideas show how you could invest in the space if you chose.