African American Investors and Social Media

By Kent McDill

African American affluent investors have a passionate interest in social media, and use it for a variety of purposes, including keeping an eye on financial matters.

The second report in Spectrem’s Ethnic Segmentation Series tells the story of how affluent investors from 3 different ethnic groups – African American, Asian and Hispanic – use social media and mobile technology in their lives. According to Using Social Media and Mobile Technology in Financial Decisions, African Americans are far more involved in social media than the general population of affluent investors.

Sixty-six percent of African American affluent investors are on Facebook, and 50 percent have LinkedIn accounts. Both of those numbers are higher than any other ethnic group and higher than the general population of affluent investors. They also report a 41 percent involvement in YouTube, again higher than any other segment studied.

It is one thing to have a social media account and it is another to be engaged. Thirty-six percent of African Americans who are on Facebook check their account at least twice a day and 10 percent say they are on the page at least five times a day, the highest rate of constant involvement among affluent investors.

Thirty-eight percent of African American investors say they observe, share, comment and communicate on Facebook. Compare that to 21 percent of Hispanics, 16 percent of Asians and 20 percent of the general population of investors.

African Americans also reported the highest rate of intent to increase their social media usage. For example, 22 percent said they would increase usage of LinkedIn and 18 percent said they would increase their usage of Facebook.

Thirty-six percent of African American investors said they watch videos on financial websites, and 15 percent said they would prefer getting their financial information from videos than from articles. Nineteen percent, again the highest percentage of all the studied segments, said they have contacted their financial advisor via text message.

Kent McDill is a staff writer for Millionaire Corner.