BlackRock is on TikTok.
Yes, the world’s largest asset manager recently released its first post on the short-form, video-sharing app favored by Gen Z that allows users to create and share brief videos on any topic.
In fact, the New York-based financial giant has already gone viral on TikTok—although that was because of a Jan. 18 post from user Txsana, which exposed the company’s 58 East 53rd Street office in Manhattan as being a great (and rare) free “place to pee in NYC.” That TikTok has been viewed more than 1.4 million times.
It’s going to take considerably longer for BlackRock’s own new TikTok content to rack up that many views (three videos with roughly 8,000 views as of Feb. 11 and 1,300 followers) but you have to start somewhere.
Like most of its peer companies, BlackRock already has a solid social media presence, sharing more than 15,000 tweets with its more than 480,000 Twitter followers, and having nearly 50,000 following its Instagram account. While nearly two-thirds of Instagram users are between the ages of 18 and 34, TikTok users tend to be even younger—25% are ages 10-19, nearly half are under the age of 30 and 69% are under 40.
If a financial company wants to begin familiarizing its brand to a younger audience, where else would you go? You want to be where that audience is focusing its time and attention.
“Launching a channel on TikTok is an opportunity to bring our financial and investment expertise to a new generation of investors,” said Frank Cooper III, Senior Managing Director and Global Chief Marketing Officer of BlackRock. “We will focus on delivering educational and accessible content to increase knowledge, skills and foster a sense of community, so investors that use TikTok to consume news and information can begin building a strong financial future.”
While BlackRock’s first TikTok is a simple 10-second video featuring young employees announcing the company’s presence on the platform, the second one, which clocks in at a lengthy 48 seconds, talks about how to spend your first paycheck using the 50/30/20 concept. The newest post features “3 tips for retirement” and is a good example of the kind of messaging to expect from BlackRock on TikTok.
@blackrock Saving for #retirement 💰 #fintok #finance #personalfinance #fyp ♬ feeling – Official Sound Studio
Significantly different than BlackRock’s typical content on other social media platforms? Yes, and that’s by design.
“The TikTok content will focus on financial education content, quite different than what we share on our other channels,” Cooper told 401(k) Specialist. “Examples could include a ‘How to/What is’ series which would feature different BlackRock employees who can provide points of view on topics including how to spend your first paycheck, savings and investing (401k allocation), what is an ETF?, etc.”
As TikTok has proven to be a platform where young people are eager and willing to talk about financial issues important to them, it provides an opportunity for experienced financial professionals to deliver educational content that can help young people begin building a strong financial future.
“As we strive to foster greater financial inclusion, our engagement on TikTok reflects our commitment to help more and more people experience financial well-being,” Cooper said.
Many finance firms exploring TikTok
BlackRock’s not the only financial giant exploring the potential of TikTok. While Empower, State Street, Vanguard and Principal (among others) have yet to establish a TikTok presence, Fidelity Investments has been on TikTok since June 2021, and has built up 11.7K followers.
Posts (like this one viewed more than 48,000 times) seek to explain and simplify often complex financial topics, often in humorous ways in keeping with the platform’s reputation.
Another finance company that has embraced TikTok is Betterment, the independent robo-advisor, which got a big boost in the platform last March when a “finfluencer”—a social media influencer with expertise in finance—mentioned Betterment in a post to his nearly 500,000 followers at the time. That led to 10,000 new TikTok followers for Betterment in a single day, according to a Sept. 2021 article on Financial Review.
Austin Hankwitz, a 25-year-old TikToker from Tennessee who says he makes $500,000 per year from his social media work alone, was posting videos describing how to retire a millionaire by using the Betterment platform.
While Betterment didn’t solicit those original posts from Hankwitz, many robo-advisors now openly disclose that they utilize affiliate marketing: the strategy of tapping paid social media influencers to attract prospective clients.
“Right now we’re seeing great conversion from our influencer program,” Betterment Director of Communications Arielle Sobel told Financial Review at the time. “They often distill very complex financial ideas and make it easy and digestible for their followers.”
The use of “finfluencers” in financial services advertising is just getting started and although there are some compliance hurdles, the trend is expected to build throughout 2022.
Finally, we’d be remiss if we didn’t mention that the Retireholiks are on TikTok, albeit with a modest presence, several followers and just a handful of videos. One of them even shows 401(k) Specialist magazine (our only TikTok presence to date we know of), but our favorite so far is this TikTok of JD Carlson warning people about Pooled Employer Plans.
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