Financial Giants Turn Attention To TikTok

As TikTok accounts focused on money grow massive followings, staid financial firms are wedging themselves into youth-oriented social media platforms to take part in the action.

Independent “FinTok” influencers like Erika Kullberg (@erikakullberg, 8.4 million followers), Mark Tilbury (@marktilbury, 7 million followers), Humphrey Yang (@humphreytalks, 3.3 million), and Tori Dunlap (@herfirst100k, 2.1 million) have audiences that billion-dollar asset managers can only wish to have.

For major financial companies, that means learning a new language from the start: speaking in short clips with a high-quality visual style to give lessons in a lively and engaging manner. That is certainly a challenge with investing concepts that are not ‘fun,’ like compound interest, diversification, and retirement.

Boston-based money manager Fidelity is one of the first giants to try out TikTok. Since creating its account @fidelity in June 2021, it has since gathered over 14,000 followers and almost 500,000 likes.

Kelly Lannan, Fidelity’s senior vice president for emerging customers, explained:

“You have a very short period of time to engage people on complex topics, and that is a challenge. But TikTok has been great because we know that’s where the next generation of customers is. So many individuals, especially younger audiences, go there for information – even before they go to their own family members.”

In fact, when Wells Fargo & Co asked kids where they acquired the knowledge to handle money, 35% said social media. That could be bad or good: It can arouse curiosity and interest, but the lessons may not be right.

When investment managers T. Rowe Price asked kids about assets they would invest in, 38% selected traditional stocks, 57% chose cryptocurrency, 22% meme stocks, and 21% NFTs.

That likely mirrors the headlines they are seeing, which may give a skewed reality.

BLACKROCK ENTERS THE TIKTOK FRAY

Money managers can teach young investors rational money behaviors and how to set up long-term portfolios.

BlackRock, the first public money manager to reach $10 trillion in assets, is working on gaining their trust, and @blackrock has gathered around 2,300 followers so far.

“TikTok is the opposite end of spectrum from the 20-page whitepapers that we are very good at producing,” laughed Rich Latour, BlackRock’s global head of content.

“But we need to target that next generation of investors, with the production values they are used to seeing, and help them wade through all the financial misinformation out there.”

Since FinTok is like its own language, Fidelity and BlackRock have commissioned a few personalities who already understand the lingo — younger staffers, some of whom have personal TikTok accounts and are conversant with what content clicks to users.

Typical BlackRock fare includes common issues like “High Inflation,” “Why Pay Taxes?” “3 Tips For Retirement,” and “ETFs Explained.”

Fidelity uses many food metaphors since everyone seems inclined toward that. Among its popular posts, is one with more than 12.6 million views: a description of how fractional investing works, using the visual of a pie.

Because BlackRock and Fidelity are TikTok newbies, both are working on creating partnerships with FinTok influencers with huge built-in audiences. Several other financial institutions seem skeptical about investing their resources into TikTok marketing.

But the eyeballs are powerful: Posts with the hashtag #investing have already gathered 6.5 billion views, according to a TikTok spokesperson.

Even the platform’s youngest users will ultimately become working adults with investment accounts, and the nation’s largest money managers may have no choice but to join the FinTok world.

Fidelity’s Lannan said:

“Not only do I think that more companies will start to get on board, I think we all have a responsibility to be there.”