Finfluencers on TikTok: A Longitudinal Analysis of Content, Engagement, and Disclaimer Practices

2026-07-06

AI Summary

This study addresses the lack of transparency and inadequate risk disclosures by social media financial influencers (finfluencers), which may mislead inexperienced investors. It presents the first large-scale, longitudinal, multidimensional analysis of UK-based finfluencers on TikTok, examining 13,215 videos and over 100,000 user comments through an integrated approach combining topic modeling, sentiment analysis, social network analysis, and statistical methods. The research identifies four dominant content themes, reveals that disclaimers are rarely used and primarily confined to trading-related content, and finds that user sentiment is generally neutral to slightly positive. Furthermore, mid-tier creators emerge as critical bridging nodes within the community network, highlighting collaborative dissemination dynamics and exposing significant regulatory blind spots.

Abstract

The rise of social media financial influencers (finfluencers) has transformed how financial information is disseminated to broad and often inexperienced audiences. While these creators may contribute to financial literacy, concerns remain regarding the reliability of their content and the adequacy of risk disclosures. Using data collected through TikTok's Research API, we analyze UK finfluencer content, engagement dynamics, disclaimer practices, audience sentiment, and network structure. The primary dataset comprises 13,215 videos and 104,097 comments posted by 71 UK-based finfluencers between April and September 2024, while a follow-up dataset covering October 2025 to March 2026 enables longitudinal analysis of disclaimer practices, engagement trends, and hashtag usage. Using topic modeling, we identify four dominant themes: Entrepreneurship \& Side Hustles, Property Investing, Active Trading, and Saving \& Budgeting. Sentiment analysis of audience comments reveals predominantly neutral-to-positive responses, while engagement analysis shows only a negligible association between video duration and engagement rate. Social network analysis indicates a collaborative ecosystem in which mid-tier finfluencers frequently act as bridges between creator groups. Explicit disclaimers and risk-related language remain relatively uncommon overall and are concentrated primarily in trading-related content. The findings highlight challenges related to financial transparency and disclosure practices within short-form financial content ecosystems. We discuss implications for consumer protection and the design of clearer and more standardized financial risk disclosures on social media platforms.

Problem

• finfluencers
• financial disclosure
• social media
• financial transparency
• risk communication

Innovation

• finfluencers
• longitudinal analysis
• topic modeling
• social network analysis
• risk disclosure