Marketing your services on social media is a great way to reach a highly targeted audience outside the scope of your average reach. Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter are all mainstays in financial services marketing, but what about the newer upstart platforms? Take TikTok, for example. It might be a relative newcomer, but the platform is massively popular with the younger demographic, making it a great way to reach young investors.
What is TikTok? What Makes it Different?
TikTok is well-known for its viral dance and music trends. During the pandemic, TikTok saw a tsunami-like surge as people lapped up millions of highly entertaining 60-second videos, but if you dig a little deeper, you’ll find that there’s much more to TikTok than getting your dance on.
In the financial realm, TikTok has risen to fame as a platform friendly to cryptocurrency and related investing. Since Facebook and Instagram have so many restrictions on crypto advertising and content, TikTok is where it’s all shifted. And while not all TikTok’s financial content is viable or trustworthy, there are many strong influencers who trade in concise, easy-to-digest investing advice—and the world is eating it up.
And if that sounds dubious, check the numbers. As of this writing, a whopping 5.2 billion people have viewed the hashtag #personalfinance on TikTok, and #financialtips has 37.4 million views. It’s clear that a growing audience is ravenous for advice on managing and growing their money—and that’s where the opportunity lies.
Young financial influencers (known on the platform as “fin-fluencers”) are finding it easy to build strong, engaged followings from the largely gen-z denizens that populate the platform. Many of these individuals watched their parents struggle through the recession and are hungry for easy tips to help them build strong foundations. You’ll find some common threads running through the most popular financial accounts; the advice is geared towards younger investors (often women), it’s non-judgmental and easy to digest.
Their followers are paying attention, too, which opens up exciting opportunities for financial firms just entering the space. Take robo-investment app Betterment, for example. A popular TikTok finfluencer posted about how you could retire using the platform, and they received 10,000 signups in a single day.
Wealthfront is yet another example, having partnered with no less than 15 TikTok fin-fluencers.
And of course, there are plenty more success stories with a similar tone, often from established fintech companies that have leveraged TikTok influencers to tell their story and spread the word.
And yes, there’s still plenty of junk financial advice to be found. What would the world be without that delicate yin-yang balance? The overnight wealth pipedream will always hold some allure for inexperienced investors, and the internet is only too quick to capitalize on that.
What Financial Firms are Leveraging Exposure on TikTok?
Reputable financial services companies have an opportunity to capture a chunk of the gen-z and millennial market they might have been so far challenged to penetrate.
Many global financial and fintech firms are finding success on TikTok. Beyond the examples outlined above…
- UK fintech Plum, an AI-powered app that helps you save money, launched a campaign on TikTok early in the pandemic as people’s thoughts naturally turned to saving money. They partnered with a few top fin-fluencers to launch a 52-week savings challenge during which the app would put away £1 on week one, £2 on week two, and so on, out of the user’s linked account. By the end of the year, participants saved about £1300 without batting an eye. Plum leveraged gen-z’s love of gamified participation and the challenge aspect was both attractive and totally doable, even if a kid was living on an allowance.
- Step is a US-based challenger bank aimed at teens that launched an incredible giveaway campaign on TikTok. They partnered with one of the most-followed TikTok influencers, Charli D’Amelio, in a $100,000 giveaway—a compelling enough chunk of cash to get anybody’s attention—and raised $50 million. They’re currently adding between 7,000 and 10,000 new accounts per day, much of which is coming from word-of-mouth and social link sharing from TikTok users (Step offers a cash-for-referral incentive to do so).
- Dogecoin saw a surge in value by 40% over just two days after the crypto debuted on TikTok. While many TikTokkers had little understanding of what Dogecoin actually was, the meme was memorable enough to pique interest and engage a whole new generation of crypto-curious. As a result, the viral nature of the launch allowed a lot of fin-fluencers and financial firms an opening to educate users about crypto, either through explainers, investment tips, or providing alternative investment options to consider.
- Public.com has invested a great deal in TikTok, partnering with top fin-fluencers and running their own TikTok account, dedicated to investments in stock and crypto. Their target market sits quite comfortably in the TikTok realm, and they are currently one of the top financial firms on the platform.
- And lest you think that TikTok is only for kids, check out Snoop. Snoop is a fintech company aimed at helping families save money and make better financial choices. Snoop leverages TikTok as one of their primary advertising channels, citing an exponentially better ad ROI than Instagram and Facebook combined.
What Financial Marketers Can Do to Get Started on TikTok
If you’re keen to dive into the financial services niche on TikTok, there are a couple of ways to make it happen. You could choose to work with TikTok financial influencers, as many of the above-noted companies have done, or you could create your own content and build an audience by posting educational financial content.
If you choose to go the fin-fluencer route, it’s a great way to gain some traction quickly. These TikTokkers are well-versed with what the audience wants to see, and you’re more likely to get some high-quality content as they’ve already cracked the code, so to speak.
If you choose to create your own content, let your expertise inform the direction. Depending on your niche and the products you have that are suitable for the TikTok generation (think younger millennials and gen-z’s), there are plenty of ways you can offer value:
- Explaining how credit scores work
- What lenders are looking for
- Best accounts for building credit
- Most reliable long-term investments
- Demystifying investments
- Setting up retirement accounts
- Saving to purchase a home
- Real estate investing
- Crypto primers
And those are just a handful of ideas. Think micro-learning, and you’ll be on the right track.
Keep in mind, TikTok content is different from what you’d post on Instagram or Facebook. TikTok videos are short, concise, often humorous, and always helpful. It’s also a good idea to get to know a few TikTok editing techniques so you’ll fit in with other top-performing content.
Be sure to use top hashtags like #personalfinance, #investing, #financialtips so your content can be found.
If you’re still wondering whether TikTok is a good channel for your financial firm, drop us a line or give us a call. We’d love to show you how a TikTok strategy can help you grow—and of course, it never hurts if you can throw down a few good dance moves.
Book a call today, and let’s talk about it.
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About the Author: Sarah McNabb
Sarah McNabb is Chief Marketing Officer at Gate 39 Media, a full-featured marketing agency and technology consulting firm serving the financial, technology, and agricultural industries.
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