A report shows that a majority of young adults get their money advice on social media. Kendall Meade, financial planner at SoFi, joined Cheddar News to explain how to vet economic tips on social media.

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How to Vet Money Tips on Social Media

Well, there's a plethora of content available on platforms like Tiktok, Youtube and Reddit nowadays, including advice on what to do with your money now. A recent survey by Forbes Advisor, finding that 79% of members of the millennial and gen z generations, they have gotten financial advice on social media, with over 60% of respondents saying that it makes them feel empowered, but how safe is it to get money advice on social media? Well, joining me now is Kendall meet a financial planner at the lending company so far, Kendall, it's great to have you on the show here. This is such an important topic. And so should users really trust personal finance advice that they receive on social media? Yeah, I think there can be great advice on social media, so sometimes it gets a bad rep um but it's actually, like you said, it's expanded a lot of knowledge and we have a lot more younger adults, millennials gen z that are interested in the topic now, so that's the positive. Um but just like anything else, there can be good and bad advice on there. So the important thing is that people know where to look um and that they also know what is and is incredible advice on there. Okay, so let's talk about the vetting process. What are some things that people should look out for to decide whether or not they can trust the advice that they're seeing. Yeah, I think one thing to look for is what is the credibility of this person, so what kind of education or licensing do they have that makes them an expert on that topic? I think that's really important to look at. And then it's just important to also take everything in context. So remember, there's never a one size fits all answer to anything. So listen to the advice, but make sure you're looking at your own situation and just knowing um, to keep that in the back of your mind and always do your own research. So social media can be a great place to start or get introduced to a topic, but you always want to take that advice, um, do more research into it on your own and then look at it from there in your own lens, more than one source. Yeah, I think that's good advice there kind of maybe run by a few people as well when it comes to topics in particular, are there certain topics within the personal finance realm that you find to be perhaps more problematic than others, or less trustworthy on social that our viewers should know about? Yeah, I think one to look out for is gonna be specific investment advice, so, you know, kind of selling you on one specific investment. Um, that's really hard because without knowing your specific circumstances, again, there's no one size fits all. So rather, I think that it's really helpful to focus on more general things, financial education topics or um, one thing that I find is actually really good advice that you can get from social media is actually budgeting advice or ways to cut back expenses. There can actually be some really helpful tips on there that you can implement yourself. I want to keep this full screen up, this is data from Forbes Advisor, It looks like most people get money advice from Reddit 37% followed by Youtube and 34%. Tiktok at 14% and then facebook goes down to just 2%. So that is some pretty interesting data there, Kendall, any topics on the flip side, we talked about, you know what you should avoid basically investment advice, but any topics that you think are fairly safe, that might be more common for people to look at social media. Yeah, again, I think more of that general financial education topic, learning about topics to begin with and then it's gonna be that budgeting side of things. That's something where it can be helpful to look at other people's experiences, what worked for them and try that for yourself. So that might be one of those safer topics to listen to on social media. Okay, lastly, let's talk about goal setting, how people should go about making goals and then using social media to inform themselves about reaching those financial goals. Yeah, I think it's really important to determine what are those goals and what's important for you at that time and then figuring out how to fix that, so social media can have great ideas, but I think it's really important for people to actually work one on one with a financial professional. Um, so look at the institution you use, do they have anybody available to you for exam? Sophie members can have one on one complimentary access with financial planners such as myself, so they can talk and find out their specific situation, their specific goals and get that more specific advice that just isn't available on social media. Alright, Kendall need a financial planner at the lending platform. Sophie Kendall, thank you so much.