Analyzing the 2024 Investor Index Part 1: Social Media Use Among investors

The Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) Investor Education Committee recently commissioned a new Investor Index for 2024, based on a survey conducted by Innovative Research Group. This national survey collected information on Canadians’ investment knowledge, investing behaviour, and the incidence of investment fraud. This was the first investor index since 2020 and seventh overall conducted by the Committee since 2006.

This blog series will look at some standout stats and numbers from the 2024 Index. This will include information related to social media use among investors, the rise in DIY investing, numbers around investment fraud, and results from the investor knowledge quiz portion of the Index.

Part 1 of the series will start by focusing on social media use among Canadian investors. According to information collected through the index survey, Canadians are increasingly using social media for investment information and advice. This is especially true among younger Canadian investors.

Overall, just over half of respondents (54%) said they use at least one social media site or platform to find investing information. This was up from 35% of respondents who claimed to do the same in the 2020 Index. The most popular social media platforms ranked by the 2024 Index were :

When you break down the data by age, not surprisingly the use of social media increases for younger respondents. Among respondents aged 18-24, 82% used at least one social media site to get investing information. That’s much higher than the 54% overall number, which is dragged down a bit by the 65-plus demographic, of which only 26% report using at least one social media site for investing information.

YouTube remains the most commonly used social media site for all age groups on the survey, except the 65-plus demographic which prefers Facebook. You can find investing information from the Nova Scotia Securities Commission on both YouTube and Facebook.

One more quick note on TikTok: among the youngest demographic surveyed, 18-24 years old, TikTok was much more popular than for any other age group. Among 18-24 year olds, just under 40% said they used TikTok for investing information, slightly under Instagram, and about 9% less than YouTube.

If you regularly use TikTok, or any other social media site for investing information, be cautious about who you get your information from. Are they being paid to provide this advice? What is their background, both professional and educational? For more information on the cautious approach you should take when finding investing information online, take a look at our previous blog post on finfluencers.

In two weeks, our series on Investor index stats and numbers will continue when we look at stats around DIY investing and investment fraud.