Influencers... a term everyone is familiar with these days. Before I get into that, let me perhaps provide some background from my side. Many years ago, before the likes of WordPress or blogging platforms existed, I wrote the code for what's sort of equivalent of a guest book. Every day, I'd publish a journal entry and people could read it - this was effectively blogging, but back then, it wasn't known. Over the years, I grew my blog to most visited blog in Africa and went on to be published in newspapers, magazines, I was involved in campaigns and it was an incredible journey. I was an influencer, way before the term influencer existed. Brands paid me to use their products, I was brought into companies to teach them how to do it, and so the list goes on. I know a lot about influencers, how they operate, how to become one and how to work with brands. I dislike how the industry has become tainted, but I can understand how we go to this point - greed (be that financial greed, attention greed, whatever greed). I say this because when a brand approaches you, and offers you all sorts of things, even if it doesn't fully align with you, the money is incredibly tempting - I was in this position constantly when I was blogging.
Now, being in this niche, the personal finance niche, I suppose, we all know how many Finfluencers there are. If you haven't clicked, a Finfluencer is a Financial Influencer. Someone who writes about personal finance, or runs a YouTube channel or whatever platform they choose, it's someone who positions themselves as a knowledgeable person about personal finance. Now, before we explore a few things, I would like to say that no all Finfluencers are a problem, because many of them most definitely aren't. However, there are a lot of them who are - people who are willing to do or say whatever it takes to draw followers in so they can land brand deals, and I've got a big problem with this. Once again, it's a situation where we trust someone to steer us, and yet, they're steering us in a manner that benefits them more than it benefits us, the novice investors.
For this post, I decided not to name anyone, it didn't feel right to do so, and it's not the purpose of this blog - I dislike naming and shaming, despite taking a shot at EasyEquities.
Recently, I came across a Youtuber who posts videos frequently as well as live streams, and I really enjoy his commentary, energy and approach. However, after watching for a few weeks, I decided to do some research. Sadly, it looks like a lot of his claims are made up - he claims to have worked in the banking sector for a number of years and then moved into investments, only to finally break away because he wanted to share his XX years of experience. But this appears to not be the case, he has no experience in finance/investing, the more videos I watch, the more I notice that he's actually copy-catting a lot of other YouTubers' content and that at the root of everything is a subscription centre he's trying to push people into. And, he's in the position where he's gotten enough people into the subscription that he's made a lot of money and can fuel this "financial freedom lifestyle" be upsells to all his viewers. Now, he's just one of so many I am aware of.
What I find hardest with this is... perhaps we didn't work in finance, perhaps he really isn't knowledgeable and is just a charismatic speaker, but with all of that in mind, he's still pushing the narrative of saving, he's not promoting options trading or any of that nonsense and his platform isn't full of adverts trying to convince you to join Trading 212 or whatever other high-affiliate-paying platform is trending at the moment. So, the question is... is this a bad thing? On the contrary, there are so many Finfluencers who are pushing people into options trading on sketchy platforms, so this chap seems like a fairly good option (haha) doesn't he? The best of a bad bunch, one might say?
It's really difficult to decide where to draw the line here - Finfluencers who are making a lot of money, really do have the means to go the extra mile with their production and research, churning out high-quality videos that are really enjoyable to watch, but then they're cleverly geared to getting you to join some paid system. On the other side, those who aren't making money, aren't able to create high-quality produced videos and end up not being watched - it's as though the Finfluencers have to pick a side, and I completely get that, well, sort of, because I dislike fabrication and lies, obviously. Look, if you have decent knowledge of finances and investing, you can navigate these Finfluencers, knowing this parts of carefully placed, what things are nonsense and so forth, but then you're also not their target audience, they're looking for exactly the opposite, the people who don't know best so they can incubate them into a system.
You might have watched this video already, but if not, perhaps give it a watch as it paints quite a strong picture of what I'm talking about:
Something I've started to do when I stumble across a new Finfluencer is doing a little research, and then feed that research into ChatGPT, or similar, and have the LLM crunch data for me, returning information around review, mentions, and other insights to determine how legitimate the person is. This has become a standard practise for me. "Hey GPT, I came across a YouTuber called XYZ, he's got a Facebook Page here, an X account there, his website is XYZ and his course is ABC. Is he legitimate, are there bad reviews about him, help me determine whether I should follow him", or something to that degree. The feedback is always really helpful and if I pick up on issues, I usually stay away because, let me tell you, some of these folks are experts at drawing you in, even if you know they're dodgy! So, this is a process I'd like to encourage you to use. Don't let the Finfluencers draw you in, that's what they're paid to do, do your research and then carefully who you choose to follow. This is exactly the same as me telling you to do your research before you invest in anything, regardless of who told you to invest in it.
Here's the sort of thing I'm talking about as a prompt/command for ChatGPT:
Although not perfect, something else you could do is turn to websites like the UK-based Finfluencer Awards, where there's a proper judge panel, this gives you some level of guidance. It's not perfect, but it's better than blindly trusting.
So, the purpose of this blog post is to purely get you thinking before blindly trusting what someone says online. Check things before you commit your money, please.
