“I am just so excited right now,” blurts a TikTok user going by the name of CryptoBossAndrew. “Alt-coin season has officially begun. It’s up 40pc in the last hour. Woohoohoo!”
It is the world’s fastest growing social media platform, rocketing in popularity around the world especially among teenagers and twentysomethings.
Now TikTok has discovered financial advice, or so-called “fintok”. Day-traders, cryptocurrency enthusiasts and side-hustlers are trying to make money buying shares and detailing their exploits on the Chinese social video app.
Along with dance videos, memes and daily challenges, videos with titles like “retire a millionaire”, “stocks to buy now” and “one stock that could make you rich” populate a growing niche of TikTok dedicated to money. TikTok, which is overwhelmingly used by 16 to 24 year olds, has more than 800 million users worldwide.
Increasingly, a subset of users are turning to it to share financial advice and share tips.
Even Charli D’Amelio, the 16-year-old behind the world’s most popular TikTok account, has dipped into finance, investing in mobile banking app Steps.
On TikTok, the hashtag “stocktok” has nearly 200 million videos, while “fintok” has 80 million. Videos on fintok typically feature young, aspirational users, offering advice on their favourite shares or more traditional financial tips like investing in tracker funds or putting away pennies each month into savings.
Often, these are accompanied by graphics, charts and popular music and cover popular, surging stocks such as Apple and Tesla. Others provide tips on how to pursue “side-hustles”, making money through buying and selling goods online.
One example is so-called “dropshipping” where users buy a product cheaply overseas and quickly resell it at a markup to buyers in the UK or US.
SaraFinance, one of the most popular financial vloggers on TikTok with 600,000 followers, posts a video such as the simply titled: “Tips that helped me make $132,000 at 18.” The 19-year-old American, real name Sara Rosalia, posts videos that cover a mix of dropshipping, investing tips, real estate and renting and long-term saving. “My first video which blew up, and I immediately knew that there was a huge opportunity,” she says.
@sarafinance
update on my stock portfolio 📈🥳 ##stocks ##stockmarket ##stocktok ##teslastock ##stonks ##fintok ##daytrading ##optionstrading ##stockstobuy
♬ original sound — xxtristanxo
Some accounts focused on more traditional personal finance advice, although these still attract a younger audience.
“My previous main channel was Instagram,” says Charlotte Jessop, a Brit who runs the TikTok account LookingAfterYourPennies, which teaches users about savings tips and personal finance. “But on TikTok, I was attracting a younger audience.” Jessop, 33, notes there is content on TikTok that she is wary of.
“I have always recommended sensible routes and I am not there to give financial advice.
“When I look at other accounts talking about day trading, I consider them quite risky, particularly when they are not covering the basics like having enough savings.”
Some videos come across as “get-rich-quick” schemes — showing off fast cars, giant houses or private islands.
One anonymous Twitter user, called TikTok Investors, has been calling out the most bizarre scams or questionable share tips.
The user, who asked to remain anonymous but is a professional financial analyst, said: “There is some absolutely ridiculous stuff. It is insane. There are 17 year olds acting like they are experts. The [TikTok] algorithm knows people like to watch the b******.”
Alt coin szn has officially begun. $XLM pic.twitter.com/PalXDZpAiR
— TikTok Investors (@TikTokInvestors) November 25, 2020
While a number of the users promoting buying stocks and shares are young, others are slick salesfolk with a history of pushing investors towards money-making schemes.
One account with 150,000 followers touts the hashtag “let’s get rich”, promoting a private Discord feed where they provide stock tips “purely for educational purposes”.
One user with 523,000 followers is Kris Krohn, a 41-year-old American “breakthrough mentor” who claims to have retired at the age of 26. Krohn’s TikTok almost entirely consists of him promoting his “real estate training” business, which encourages TikTokers to invest in property. On Krohn’s website, his seminars cost $1,000.
A Krohn video says: “This game of financial freedom… there are totally legitimate shortcuts out there but your parents don’t know what they are… they are going to retire very, very poor.”
Krohn is popular on TikTok, but previously his businesses have caught the attention of regulators. The SEC filed a 2012 complaint against Krohn over a $12m real estate scheme.
The complaint was settled and Krohn’s business offered to repay investors, although Krohn did not admit wrongdoing. Krohn did not reply to a request for comment.
TikTok has no explicit rules against giving financial advice, although its community guidelines note that it will remove content that “promotes fixed betting, get-rich-quick schemes, or any other types of scams”. But that hasn’t stopped financial scammers attempting to invade its advertising space.
TikTok boom Downloads during coronavirus are three times higher than nearest competitor Instagram
In September, security researchers Tenable found adverts promoting apps promising users cash for downloads or playing games. TikTok said at the time it had removed a number of fraudulent adverts.
Meanwhile, TikTokers have also discovered cryptocurrency. Over the summer, the price of one digital coin, the nearly worthless “Dogecoin”, became a meme on TikTok with users calling on followers to push its value up to $1. Trading of the worthless coin increased 2000pc.
With this plethora of content, even some of TikTok’s most popular Gen-Z money makers urge their viewers to proceed with caution. “There are quite a few informative videos,” says Rosalia, known as SaraFinance, “however the app is now filled with gurus posting videos of their ‘luxury’ lifestyle, which can be misleading.”
Jessop, meanwhile, says while she doesn’t expect TikTok to step in over financial advice on the site, the “responsibility is in the hands of content creators”. “I have a moral responsibility to make sure what I say doesn’t harm people,” she says.
Свежие комментарии