Michelle Jackson is an influencer on a mission to help her readers and listeners become financially empowered; However, she recognizes that although she is passionate about the subject, she does not consider herself a financial expert. She warns that you have to be very careful with influencers who call themselves experts without being one, as they can represent a great risk, published Business Insider.
Michelle says that she creates personal finance content, but she will never call herself an expert and recommends that when someone presents themselves in this way, you should ask yourself 4 questions before following her advice :
1. Is the influencer revealing that they are making money from the tools or products they share with their online community? Jackson reminds that legally, they must.
2. Does the “financial expert” follow the Federal Trade Commission guidelines on disclosure of these relationships and are they clear that their content is for entertainment purposes only?
3. Are you emphasizing and making clear that it is important to work with a real professional on your financial problems?
4. Does the personal finance influencer share information on whether they are a certified financial planner on their content ? Because even if it is, you should be aware that its content is not a substitute for individual professional advice.
Michelle Jackson points out that the answers to these questions are very important: “ Personal finance influencers must be honest and encourage people to consult real advisers .
Make sure any personal finance content you are consuming follows legal and ethical guidelines. ”
Michelle runs the “Michelle is Money Hungry” website and podcast , and is the founder of the “Money on the Mountain” retreat focused on financially empowering single women.
“I feel comfortable inspiring someone else to make a change, but I don’t feel comfortable if someone asks me for advice about money that is beyond the scope of my existing financial knowledge,” says the influencer. “I often wonder how many people in the online personal finance space just do it because they can.”
Despite being involved in the subject, Michelle does not like that her followers label her as a “financial expert”, because the adjective implies a great responsibility, especially when influencers with millions of followers worldwide, dare to recommend investments when they are really unaware of the issue and expose the money of their followers.
On some occasion, Kim Kardashian recommended investing her more than 250 million followers in a cryptocurrency that she did not know or did not know if it was legitimate, they paid her a commission to take advantage of its popularity and ended up being investigated by the British government regulators.