Blossom Social Investing App: Review

Understanding The Blossom Social Investing App

The Blossom Social app is a specialized mobile-only application designed specifically for Canadians who are interested in investing. It’s a space where these individuals can come together, communicate, and exchange ideas about investing. Unlike regular social media sites, Blossom Social focuses solely on financial matters, creating a unique environment for learning and sharing insights among Canadians who want to grow their investment knowledge.

As of 2024, the Blossom Social Investing App is now available in the US! 

Unlike other social media outlets, Blossom Social is purpose-built for investors. Its foundation lies in transparency, where users’ investment details are openly shared. This fosters authentic conversations around money, investment strategies, and financial goals.

How Blossom Social Works

Signing up on Blossom enables users to link their self-directed investment portfolios through Wealthsimple, Questrade and other brokerages, offering additional benefits. While optional, this link allows users to share trades and portfolio information with others on the platform. Furthermore, it grants access to insightful portfolio analytics beyond what brokerage tools typically provide.

The app offers a social feed where users can share topics, discuss their investment choices, and connect with one another.

Who Is The Blossom Social App For?

Blossom Social caters to Canadians who are eager to dive deeper into investing topics, connect with like-minded individuals, and gain enhanced insights into their portfolios.

The platform hosts members across various age groups, from Gen Z to retirees. It also has a wide range of experiences, including absolute beginner investors who are ready to learn more and improve to long-term seasoned pros who have been investing for decades.

Key Features of the Blossom Social Investing App

• Build Community: Users engage through the social feed, post threads, and exchange information with the community on investing topics. When users make a trade, they are encouraged to share what prompted that decision, sparking further discussion.
• Connect: Follow other users to view their portfolios, posts, and trades and get ideas or learn about different investment options.
• Learn: Access weekly updated interactive video lessons. The Weekly Buzz Newsletter is also sent to users to recap the markets and top news. 
• Monitor the Market: Track stocks, receive market updates, and stay informed with news.
• Track Dividends: Keep a tab on dividend earnings in a way your brokerage probably doesn’t track.
• Portfolio Analytics: Gain additional insights beyond traditional brokerage tools.

Blossom’s Portfolio Analytics Tools

Pros

• Breakdown of individual holding percentages.
• Portfolio mix by sector – also allows you to compare against the wider Blossom audience average
• Portfolio makeup weighting of stocks vs ETF holdings
• Breakdown of dividend vs non-dividend issuing investments
• Dividend forecasts for the year
• Overall portfolio performance

Cons

• The tools in Blossom are best utilized by self-directed investors.
• Those with robo-advisor portfolios or a mix of DIY and Robo accounts won’t reap the full benefits of analytics on their whole portfolio (just the DIY portion).
• The Analytics related to your account performance, such as your “All-time return” may not exactly replicate your brokerage’s measurements. If you utilize a DRIP, or have made trades in your account, that profit/loss is not factored in. So take the All-Time gain measurements with a grain of salt, and it’s just another way to look at things.

Blossom is a young startup that constantly adds more features as the community grows. I look forward to seeing more rolled out as the app develops more! They offer a freemium model access to the app. Basic access is free, and they have a paid tier called Blossom Pro, which offers additional analytics for your account. The Blossom Pro cost is minimal, in my opinion, for what you are getting. You are also helping support a small Canadian startup. The Blossom Pro cost was $59.99 CAD with an annual plan.

What is included in Blossom Pro

Additional widgets are added to your app that provide further analysis of your portfolio: 

• Sector Breakdown
• Performance Index
• Dividend Contributions
• Monthly Dividends
• Asset Allocation

Investor Due Diligence 

Blossom offers supplemental analytics that are not always available through our brokerage platforms, helping investors visualize their portfolios further. It also serves as a platform for Canadian investors to discuss financial matters. However, it’s crucial to exercise due diligence.

While Blossom encourages sharing and learning from others, it emphasizes the importance of personal research. The Blossom Social app is built on investing transparency. However, new users may be tempted to copy what others are doing. Blindly replicating someone else’s portfolio or strategy without considering your own risk tolerance, goals, and investing horizon is extremely risky. Always conduct thorough research before making investment decisions.

Blossom Addresses My Concerns 

In speaking with Blossom’s co-founder, Brandon Beavis, I asked him to address my concerns about new investors making potentially misguided investing decisions based on seeing others’ trades on the Blossom App.

He emphasizes that Blossom aims to showcase investment styles and provide insights into users’ strategies rather than encouraging direct copying. The platform enables users to share rationales behind their investment choices, sparking informative discussions among participants.

Brandon highlights that one of Blossom’s goals is to enhance information gathering and learning from thousands of users who voluntarily share their portfolios and decisions, enriching the landscape for all users.

Blossom’s Community and Impact

I set up my account last month to check it out, and from my involvement in the Blossom Social investing app, the platform boasts an overwhelmingly positive and supportive community, fostering an environment conducive to new and experienced investors alike.

As Blossom continues to grow, the hope is to sustain this encouraging community experience. Many users share research, news articles, blogs, YouTube videos, and podcasts on investing subjects to help the community learn. 

Blossom has recently announced their expansion into the American market, so it is really exciting to see their growth so quickly!

Blossom’s Role Beyond Influencer Collaboration

Blossom Social is a young Canadian startup company. It has grown quickly due to a strategy of partnering with finfluencers who invited their audiences to the Blossom Social investing app with the promise to pop the hood on their portfolios, so users can see what they invest in. This strategy helped them to grow quickly to 75,000+ users today. 

While Blossom initially collaborated with leading Finfluencers to generate interest, I personally believe its true essence lies in community building and the extra analytics I can’t get through my brokerage account. Blossom Social offers a unique space in the social media landscape, supplementing brokerage analytics with visual breakdowns and invaluable information. Blossom is a platform to generate and exchange ideas among like-minded individuals interested in investing.

If you got some value from this Blossom Social review and it sounds interesting, why don’t you join me on Blossom Social!