Nearly three in ten finance-related videos on major social platforms contain misleading claims, and only a tiny fraction of the creators behind them hold recognized financial credentials, according to a new analysis from compliance research firm Legalaes. The firm reviewed 1,764 English-language videos on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and Facebook, which collectively drew 692.6 million views. Of those, 29% qualified as misleading, most often because the creator promoted a paid product, guaranteed a specific return, or recommended a set dollar amount to invest.
Digging deeper, Legalaes found that just 2.2% of the 1,266 unique creators behind those videos had a demonstrable credential such as a CFP, CFA, or CPA designation, and only 11.7% of videos carried any disclaimer. For advisors trying to compete with that content for client attention, the numbers are hard to ignore. Misleading videos in the Legalaes sample outperformed accurate ones, drawing an average of 555,547 views compared with 326,170 for non-misleading content—a reach gap that helps explain why unlicensed voices continue to dominate financial conversations online.
Meanwhile, regulators are moving to set a higher bar for how investment advisers communicate on social platforms, effectively handicapping them in the fight against misinformation and potentially damaging claims. The risk is not evenly distributed across platforms. YouTube posted the highest share of misleading videos in the Legalaes sample, at 41.8%, followed by Instagram at 26.8%, Facebook at 23.3%, and TikTok at 23%. Trading tips and technical-analysis content posed the biggest risk overall, with 40.6% of those videos flagged as misleading and just 9.8% rated accurate—far below the 57.8% accuracy rate Legalaes logged for general financial-literacy content.
Data from the FINRA Investor Education Foundation released in April help explain who is watching this material and what it costs them. A 60% majority of investors age 18 to 34 use social media for investing information, compared with 9% of those 55 and older. Similarly, 61% of that younger group say they've made an investment decision based on a social media personality's recommendation, versus just 6% of older investors. The same research revealed a concerning pattern of false confidence: social media users and finfluencer followers answered an average of only 42% of questions correctly on an objective investment-knowledge quiz, yet 63% rated their own knowledge as high.
That overconfidence appears to carry a cost. Among social media users and finfluencer followers who reported being targeted for fraud, 68% and 69%, respectively, said they lost money, compared with 29% and 26% among non-users. FINRA Foundation president Gerri Walsh said the findings point to a need for "more targeted financial education efforts" to help investors spot red flags. For many Americans, scrolling outpaces planning. A separate LIMRA report released this month found that Americans age 45 and older spend roughly 10 to 14 hours a week on social media—more time than what one-quarter of pre-retirees devoted to retirement planning over an entire year.
Citing DataReportal's Digital 2026 Global Overview, LIMRA said each social media session for Americans in the 45-and-up category lasts an estimated 1.5 to 2 hours a day. Meanwhile, 26% of people nearing retirement spent fewer than five hours in the past year planning for life after work. LIMRA found 59% of pre-retirees said they feel highly prepared for retirement, yet 76% had either no written plan or had spent fewer than five hours building or updating one in the past 12 months. It also pointed to a wide split in outcomes: 77% of pre-retirees working with an advisor or planner said they felt highly prepared, versus 47% of those without one, even though only 40% currently work with a professional.
"When people spend more time on social media in a week than they spend planning for retirement in a year, the barrier clearly isn't awareness—it's action," said LIMRA's Chief Marketing Officer Tina Beckwith. "You can't control the markets or inflation, but you can decide to make a plan—and that single decision changes how prepared people feel and how prepared they actually are." For advisors, the findings underscore the challenge of competing with viral misinformation, but also the opportunity to differentiate through credible, personalized guidance. As younger investors show weaker loyalty to advisors, building trust through transparent communication becomes even more critical. Similarly, affluent clients increasingly value planning over pure portfolio management, a trend that advisors can leverage. And with prediction markets drawing young investors, the line between betting and investing continues to blur, making the need for sound advice more urgent than ever.
