Financial advice is exploding on social media, but can you trust it?

Global News is unravelling the many facets of influence these platforms have, including on young people's investment decisions and their relationship with money.

In March of 2020, Ellyce Fulmore found herself without a job and with plenty of time on her hands, like millions of her young millennial and gen-Z peers.

That’s when Fulmore took to TikTok. Though she’d been working as a kinesiologist, she had been setting up a business as a life coach on the side. And she’d also had a stint working at a financial aid office at a recreation centre in Kelowna, B.C. where she helped people low-income individuals and families access recreational opportunities.

After experimenting a bit on the social media platform, Fulmore quickly found her calling.

In whimsical 60-second videos, the then 25-year-old started tackling topics like debt management and budgeting under the handle queerd.co.

The videos would often feature Fulmore lip-syncing to rap music while bite-sized financial tips appeared as brightly coloured text on the screen.

“I realized that a lot of people also obviously got laid off and were struggling with their money and not having emergency funds and things like that,” she says.

Two years later, Fulmore, who is based in Calgary, has amassed a following of more than 400,000 TikTokers. She is also quickly building up her fan base on Instagram, where she now has 12,000 followers. Companies like fintech startup Neo and robo advisor Wealthsimple have partnered with her. Countless others, she says, have asked her to be their brand ambassador.

Welcome to the world of so-called finfluencers, where 20- and 30-somethings talk about finances the way they discuss pop culture, fitness hacks and beauty routines.