The social media influencer marketing craze that has revolutionized the retail, and music industries is now making its way to finance.
Now, some influencers are pulling in as much as the Wall Streeters they cover, regularly making six figures by trading in their social media reach for marketing dollars.
Bloomberg profiled a 25-year-old TikTok star with nearly 500,000 followers who has been driving traffic for finance startups like robo advisor Betterment. The company noticed his contribution and put him on the payroll.
Austin Hankwitz charges anywhere between $4,500 to $8,000 per post on his TikTok, according to Bloomberg. Fundraise, a real estate investment platform, pays him every month to post two videos on his TikTok while also offering him a performance bonus of up to $2,000.
BlockFi, a cryptocurrency trading platform, offers him $25 per person he drives to their platform.
While Hankwitz was too modest to spill how much he makes annually from his business, he did tell Bloomberg that he makes more than $500,000.
Increased Fintech Popularity Driving Market
Hankwitz is taking advantage of an inflection point for fintech.
The year-over-year growth in hours spent on the top investment and trading mobile apps grew 135% in the U.S. in 2020 amid the coronavirus pandemic, according to research firm App Annie Intelligence.
The number of finance apps among the top 100 non-gaming apps by downloads in the U.S. nearly doubled between 2019, when there were just eight, and 2021 when there were 15.
Cash App and Venmo were the top-two in 2019 and 2020, then in 2021 Robinhood jumped up to the second spot, according to App Annie.
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