The Rise of Finfluencers Highlights Emerging Shift for IROs

Retail Advice Now Comes With a Hashtag

More than one-third of Canadian retail investors say they’ve acted on advice from financial influencers, or “finfluencers”, on platforms like YouTube, Instagram, Reddit, Facebook and TikTok¹. In a trading experiment, investors exposed to a single finance-related social post were nearly five times more likely to buy the featured asset compared to those who weren’t.

Retail capital is no longer passively waiting for a press release. It’s already in motion: on mobile screens, short-form video, in social feeds, in comments sections, and around algorithmically elevated content.

The question for IR leaders is no longer whether retail investors matter. It's how you reach them on their terms, with credibility, consistency, and care.

Why Retail Matters in 2025

In today’s fragmented market landscape, traditional institutional coverage is thinning. 33% of Russell 2000 companies have three or fewer analysts; 7% have no coverage at all². This means budget-constrained small-cap teams are increasingly invisible to legacy channels.

Meanwhile, retail is rising:

• Retail investors accounted for 19.5%³ of all trading activity in 2025, with spikes reaching 36% on high-volume days⁴, according to Bloomberg.
  

• App-based investing platforms continue to grow⁵, making markets more accessible but also more emotionally reactive.
  

• Meme-stock era aftershocks, from GameStop to crypto spikes, have proven that sentiment-driven buying can move prices rapidly.

Retail investors aren't waiting for your earnings call. They're already online, watching a short-form explainer from someone they follow and trust. And increasingly, they’re steering the market, sometimes in direct contradiction to institutional models.

Recent market behavior has shown that retail investors are confounding Wall Street⁶, repeatedly buying dips and driving rebounds even when traditional indicators suggest caution. Analysts are finding that historical trading patterns no longer hold, in large part because of how retail sentiment now shapes momentum.

If IR teams aren't present and proactive, they're not just missing discovery moments; they're ceding narrative power in a market where retail conviction is moving prices.

A modern retail investor engagement strategy demands more than disclosure; it requires ongoing storytelling, platform fluency, and trust-building at scale.

The OSC’s Finfluencer Research: What IR Needs to Know

The Ontario Securities Commission's landmark study, Social Media and Retail Investing: The Rise of Finfluencers⁷, offers a data-backed window into how digital influence is shaping investor behaviour. Here’s what IR leaders need to know:

• 91% of Canadian retail investors use social media, with YouTube, Reddit, and Instagram as the top platforms for financial content.
  

• 35% have made investment decisions based on a finfluencer’s post.
  

• Those who do are:
  

• 12.2x more likely to be scammed on social media⁷
  

• 3.1x less likely to consult a financial advisor⁷
  

• 2.2x more likely to use mobile trading apps⁷

The OSC also conducted an online randomized controlled trial, in which 24% of participants exposed to promotional finance content bought the featured asset, compared to just 7% in a control group⁷. The content was often persuasive not because it was correct, but because it was emotional, concrete, and delivered in the formats social media favours: video, short-form, and rapid-fire.

This means:

• Even low-quality content can drive real transactions.
  

• Exposure alone, not necessarily accuracy, can tip behaviour.
  

• Official IR silence doesn’t neutralize influence; it just cedes the space to others.

The Content Vacuum & Credibility Gap

When companies avoid social channels out of fear of regulatory missteps, they leave investors to fend for themselves. In this vacuum, finfluencers may fill the gap, some credible, many not.

Some finfluencers offer real value, but many trade on hype. This is where IR can step in to balance the narrative with facts, clarity, and context.

Misinformation thrives when trusted corporate voices are absent. The OSC found that investors generally distrust finfluencers overall, but will act on advice from the few they trust. In other words, trust is scarce, but sticky. Companies that build it early can become a credible anchor in a volatile content landscape.

By remaining passive, IR risks:

• Missing key discovery moments
  

• Allowing misinformation to go unchallenged
  

• Leaving retail investors vulnerable to scams

Your Modern Retail IR Playbook

1. Cadence: Establish a Consistent Editorial Rhythm

• Weekly content is no longer ambitious—it’s baseline.
  

• Align messaging with results cycles, but also create thematic content series (e.g., ESG deep dives, company progress, capital allocation in focus, supply chain insights, market outlooks). Don’t overthink it, your business is packed with insights and angles ready to engage investors.
  

• Build an editorial calendar to plan around events, trends, and community questions.
  

2. Channels: Go Where the Investors Are

• Prioritize YouTube, Instagram, Facebook and TikTok for reach and engagement.
  

• Use LinkedIn for institutional crossover and credibility boosts.
  

• Understand each platform’s algorithm: engagement drives discovery, and native video performs best.
  

• Social media investor relations isn’t just about presence; it’s about strategy, tone, and timing tailored to fast-moving platforms.

3. Creative: Prioritize Video, Authenticity, and Accessibility

• Video IR brings transparency to life. It’s the most engaging format for explaining complex ideas and building executive trust.
  

• Short-form video (under 2 minutes) outperforms static posts.
  

• Use CEO Q&As, explainers, and behind-the-scenes clips to humanize the brand.
  

• Add captions, use plain language, and repurpose across formats (e.g., turn one video into clips, a blog post, and an email segment).

Consistency beats perfection. The goal isn’t to go viral, it’s to become discoverable, trustworthy, and present. Effective retail shareholder communications blend accessibility, consistency, and credibility across every touchpoint, ensuring retail investors can learn your story and follow your progress.

Results You Can Replicate: Digitonic in Action

A small-cap healthcare company with little social presence partnered with Digitonic to pilot a short retail IR strategy. With a professionally produced rich media content and short videos, social amplification and advertising helped drive:

• +248k investors engaged

• +56% average daily volume

• +64.5% increase in company value

Even modest programs, when sustained, show measurable ROI.