A Tasmanian broker is connecting with young Australians on TikTok to educate them about their finances and help them achieve their goal of buying property.
Hobart’s Derwent Finance director Rhianna Farnan (pictured above) said the primary age of the users on the TikTok social media platform was 18 to 24.
“We want to teach young people about finance as we don’t learn about this in school,” Farnan said. “We are finding first-home buyers need financial education to move forward to get a home loan. Many are realising as house prices continue to increase, it is becoming more difficult to get into the property market.”
The Derwent Finance TikTok account has almost 16,000 followers and one of its most recent videos received more than 1.4 million views.
Farnan, 24, said as brokers, she and her team can post videos on TikTok to teach the target demographic about the home loan process.
“If you don’t know how to save, then you don’t know how to buy a house,” she said. “We need to help educate young people by setting up budgeting tools, savings accounts, etc. The more education you have in this area, the less government intervention is needed.”
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Farnan said she started posting educational videos on TikTok as she saw there was a gap in the market.
“There were no other brokers posting on TikTok and I wanted to give it a go,” she said. “I have a media degree that I wasn’t using, so I thought I could incorporate that.”
Farnan said TikTok’s popularity grew very quickly and it can be hard to grow followers the traditional way on social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram.
“You need to grow your organic reach unless your followers are in the market looking for financial advice or wanting to connect with a broker,” she said. “By targeting this age group, we have in turn captured the older generation as their children are watching our videos.”
Farnan said there was a demand for more brokers to be more present on social media.
“If there are more people in our industry giving valuable professional advice to our community, I think that is a win,” she said. “Social media is such a powerful tool and a great place to get business. If you aren’t comfortable or too familiar with it, you can employ a social media manager to help you.”
Farnan said Derwent Finance was not just a typical brokerage and the team members considered themselves relevant and fun.
“We want to eliminate the stigma of brokers and show young people that considering a career as a mortgage broker can be a rewarding one,” she said.
