An interesting (scary) new report from Forbes Advisor details young Americans’ social media use in financial decision-making.
Specifically, 79% of Millennials or Gen Zers have gotten financial advice from social media, 62% feel empowered by their access to financial advice on social media, and 50% have made money as a direct result of the financial advice they received on social media.
Yet only 31% of respondents said they check the experience and qualifications of people who supply financial advice on social media.
While the survey notes that most millennials and Gen Zers say they’ve picked up financial advice from social media, where do they most often obtain financial information? Millennials favor Reddit, while Gen Zers prefer YouTube.
Nearly seven in 10 of those surveyed encounter financial advice on social media at least once a week, and one in four stumbles upon it daily.
Outside social media, those surveyed primarily get financial advice from family (35%) and internet searches (33%). The use of financial advisors is comparatively rare (11%).
However …
Financial professionals urge extreme caution in adopting financial advice from social media. However, 78% of those surveyed believe they have more access to financial advice now than they would have as part of previous generations because of their identities, such as race, gender, or income.
In the survey:
72% of Black respondents think their race would have historically been a barrier to obtaining financial advice.
65% of women feel the same about gender.
57% of people earning less than $35,000 say their economic status would have been a barrier to getting financial advice.
Meanwhile, Forbes concludes that more than three-fourths (76%) of millennials and Gen Zers think financial content on social media has made it less taboo to talk about money, and 62% feel empowered by their access to such information on social media platforms, including 75% of Black respondents.
