All about institutional investors?

what exactly do they do ?

how are they different from retail traders ( apart from money aspect ) ?

what exactly does SMART MONEY mean ?

relation between SMART MONEY & INSTITUTIONAL INVESTOR ?

how does one become an institutional investor ?

do institutional investor use their own money or third party funds via any channel ?

Quoting from this link on investopedia. 

Institutional investors are the big guys on the block - the elephants. They're the pension funds, mutual funds, money managers, insurance companies, investment banks, commercial trusts, endowment funds, hedge funds, and some hedge fund investors. Institutional investors account for half of the volume of trades on the New York Stock Exchange. They move large blocks of shares and have tremendous influence on the stock market's movements. Because they're considered to be knowledgeable and, therefore, less likely to make uneducated investments

 

Since this crowd is considered knowledgable, the money they bring in is also called smart money. 

You can't become an institutional investor, unless you work for an institution or create a financial institution like mutual fund, insurance, hedge fund, etc. 

Institutional investor mostly use third party funds, but yeah they might also have their own money at play.