How to Build a Trustworthy Public Trading Profile That Attracts Followers

If you want followers, students or paying subscribers, your profile has to do one thing well: earn trust.

Anyone can talk about their trading wins. What earns trust is proof that people can check. Here is how a GIOAT profile works, what to set up, and how to share it.

Start with verification

Before anyone looks at your strategy, your personality or your price, they want to know one thing:

"Are these results real?"

On GIOAT you answer it by connecting your brokerage. The connection goes through SnapTrade and is read-only: GIOAT can read your balances and trades but cannot place orders. GIOAT then calculates your return from what the broker reports. Connecting is currently free for a limited time (regularly $9.99 a month; see pricing).

Know what you're signing up for. Connecting lists you on the public verified leaderboard, with no private mode, and anyone can follow you at the price you set. GIOAT tracks one account at one brokerage, refreshes your numbers about hourly, and shows a "Brokerage Connected" pill on your profile. Disconnecting takes you off the leaderboard; your data is kept.

What everyone sees, and what only followers see

Part of your profile is open to anyone. The detail is what people follow you for.

What	Before following	Followers
Verified return and the return chart (1W to 2Y)	Yes	Yes
Last trade %, number of positions, Crypto/Stock/Mixed tag, "Member since"	Yes	Yes
Win rate, trades this year and your monthly price, on the leaderboard	Yes	Yes
Your holdings, with each one's share of the portfolio	No	Yes
Your latest 10 trades: symbol, side, price and date	No	Yes
Messages you broadcast	No	Yes

Non-followers see "Portfolio locked" where your holdings would be, so they decide from your return, your chart and a few counts. Make the public part tell a clear story and the locked part worth paying for.

Let your return tell a clear story

Your headline number is a time-weighted return. Deposits and withdrawals are removed from the calculation, so it measures your trading only. Say your account is worth $10,000 on December 31. You deposit $1,000 on January 2 and the day closes at $11,200. January 3 closes at $11,000.

January 2: (11,200 − 10,000 − 1,000) ÷ (10,000 + 0.5 × 1,000) = +1.905%
January 3: (11,000 − 11,200) ÷ 11,200 = −1.786%
Combined: 1.019048 × 0.982143 − 1 = +0.085%

The balance grew 10%. Your verified return is +0.085%, because the rest was your own deposit. Deposits are taken out, so topping up doesn't count as a gain.

Careful investors will look at how you perform over time and whether you chase spikes. GIOAT doesn't compute drawdown or risk scores, so they read that from your chart. A steady line is easier to trust than a jagged one with the same ending number.

Why the number restarts each January 1

The leaderboard ranks one period: the current calendar year. On January 1 every trader starts again from their December 31 value. If you were connected on December 31, your new number is a true year-to-date return, and your badge and link preview say "year to date". If you connect mid-year, your number runs from your first snapshot and the preview says "since" that date, for example "since Sep 8".

So a trader who connected in September is ranked on a few weeks, and a hot few weeks can put them near the top. Expect careful investors to discount a short record. A strong year also doesn't carry into the next ranking, though the chart's 1Y and 2Y views keep your earlier history, as far back as your snapshots go. More in how long a verified track record takes to build.

Make your trading style easy to read

Trust grows faster when people know exactly what kind of trader you are: long-term investor or swing trader, crypto, ETFs or stocks. There is no wrong approach, as long as it's clear.

Before anyone follows, your style shows in a few places. The signed-in leaderboard tags you Crypto, Stock or Mixed from the symbols you trade. The public leaderboard shows how many trades you've made this year. Your profile shows how many positions you hold. Followers then see your holdings and recent trades, so make sure they match the strategy you describe. Even an aggressive strategy can earn trust if it is consistent and clearly defined.

Set your follow price

Following and subscribing are the same thing on GIOAT. You set the monthly price anywhere from $0 to $1,000 in Settings → Follow Price, or under My Subscriptions → Manage pricing. New accounts start at $1 a month until you change it, so check yours.

Followers pay from their GIOAT wallet every 30 days.
You get 80% of each payment and GIOAT keeps 20%. At $25 a month with 20 followers: 20 × $25 = $500, and your share is $400.
A follower who unfollows keeps access until the period they paid for ends.
Following happens on the website. The iOS and Android apps don't offer it.

Price with the follower's math in mind. On a $5,000 account, $25 a month is $300 a year, or 6% of the account, before your ideas have made them anything.

Talk to followers with broadcasts

GIOAT doesn't send followers automatic trade alerts. If you want them to know about a trade, you write it. Connected traders have a Broadcast button on the dashboard: a title of up to 100 characters and a message of up to 500, delivered to every follower's GIOAT inbox, by email and by push. Followers can block or report a sender.

Broadcasts are where followers see how you think, which a number can't show. Useful ones say why you entered, what would make you exit, and what happened afterwards, including on the trades that lost.

Switch accounts without losing your record

If you move money to another account at the same brokerage, you can switch which account GIOAT tracks. The switch asks you to choose:

Keep my track record. The old account's record closes at its value that day and the new one starts from the switch. The two are linked, so your verified return continues. Say you were up 8% in the old account and then gain 5% in the new one: 1.08 × 1.05 − 1 = 13.4%. Trades from both accounts stay in your history.
Start fresh. Your public record starts that day from the new account. Earlier accounts are hidden from the public record, not deleted.

Move the money first, and switch once the new account's balance includes it. The move itself doesn't change your number, since deposits and withdrawals never count as returns, but anything you keep trading in the old account afterwards is no longer part of your record. If trust is the goal, keep the record.

Share your verified record

A screenshot asks people to trust you. A link to your GIOAT record lets them check.

Your verified badge

Open Profile in the dashboard sidebar. While you're connected and listed, it shows a "Verified by GIOAT" badge with your alias, your return and the period it covers, plus three buttons:

Copy link: your profile address, for your bio on any platform.
Copy message: a ready line, "My trading record, pulled straight from my brokerage:" followed by your link, made for pinning in a Telegram or WhatsApp group.
Copy website embed: HTML that puts the badge on your own site, linked to your profile.

The badge updates as your numbers do.

Link previews

When you paste your profile link into a post or chat, the preview carries the claim for you. The title reads like "YourAlias: +14.2% verified year to date · GIOAT", or "since" a date if you connected this year, and the image shows your alias, return, period and an as-of date. People see the verified number before they click.

The leaderboard share card

On the signed-in leaderboard (the default tab of your dashboard), click your rank number. A card opens with your rank, alias, tag, verified return and this year's trade count, and buttons for X, Facebook, LinkedIn, Copy Link and Download Image. The link goes to your profile; the image is a PNG.

The same page has a Share Top Traders card. It builds an image of the top five traders (or another number you pick), with Download Image, X, Facebook and Copy Image URL. Use it when you're in it.

When to share

You don't need to share every trade. Good moments are a regular weekly or monthly update, a new rank on the leaderboard, or a stretch of disciplined trading in a tough market. Share on a schedule rather than only after wins. Your number is public either way, so posting in a down month shows you aren't picking your moments.

A checklist for your profile

Connect your brokerage and select the account you actually trade.
Set your follow price. The $1 default applies until you do.
Open Profile and check that your badge shows a number.
Send a broadcast when you open or close a position followers should know about.
If you change accounts, move the money first and choose Keep my track record.

Ready to build a record people can check? Create your GIOAT account and connect your brokerage.