Influencer or financial specialist? Little big differences
An influencer who is dedicated to entertainment, a celebrity or brand ambassador, a gamer, a foodie, or one who is dedicated to teaching is not the same.
We all have talents, skills, and knowledge. Some have the gift of explaining and speaking in public, others have great charisma, or have mastered a subject in depth, and there are those who are considered gurus thanks to their extensive experience.
We know that you can't have everything or be good at everything. However, we do find people who combine various talents, such as subject matter experts, and who are excellent speakers at the same time.
A few years ago, traditional media such as newspapers, radio and television, were in charge of "filtering or curating content", today they continue to do so, but now we have social networks where it is not a requirement to have authorization to publish an article, a podcast or video. If you connect with people, have charisma, are constant, or have some skill, quality and quality in your content, people will follow you. And it is we, millions of people, who take care of validating your opinion. So the more followers an influencer has, the more we should believe in what they post, right?
Maybe yes, or maybe no. And it is that, an influencer who is dedicated to entertainment, a celebrity or brand ambassador, a gamer, a foodie, or one who is dedicated to teaching is not the same. In this last type of influencer we must be more careful with their opinions, or any information that they want to transmit to us, because just as the number of influencers has increased, so has misinformation, fraud and the famous “fake news” .
Therefore, when we follow someone related to personal finance, we must pay more attention and learn to identify the content that really adds value.
Before putting into practice the financial advice of that person you follow, make sure that:
HAVE HIGH KNOWLEDGE OR PROFESSIONAL STUDIES
It is not essential that you have graduate studies in finance or economics, although it does help a lot. What is required is that that person have experience, training of some kind, or that they demonstrate that they really know the subject.
OFFERS DIFFERENT SOLUTIONS AND ALTERNATIVES
There is no one perfect answer to every personal finance problem. We are all different and our circumstances are also different, because personal finances are just that, personal.
If an influencer is looking to give you the secret formula, it may be a formula that worked for that particular person and will not necessarily work for you.
EXPLAINS THE CONTEXT AND SHOWS YOU THE FULL LANDSCAPE
Everything is connected in personal finance. If I save, I have to stop spending on something; if my income goes down, I will have to go into debt, or adjust my budget; and if I prepay a debt I will have to take out of my savings, or take that extra income that could have been invested. Let's be careful with the extreme tips that try to solve everything, we must take into account that what we do will have repercussions on other aspects of our finances, for better and for worse.
NOTICE WHEN YOUR CONTENT IS PAID OR PROMOTIONAL
Having many followers attracts sellers of a product, not bad, it is part of the compensation that the person receives for their effort to create content. What is wrong is not advising that this content is sponsored by a brand and wanting to take advantage of its followers to buy something like “the best product” when in fact it is not.
As we can see, it is not a topic of many or few followers. There is no rule, but if we evaluate these 4 points, now we will be able to identify the influencers and the true financial specialists.
