The Rise of Advisor Finfluencers

The term Finfluencer usually brings to mind social media and online influencers like Humphrey Yang and Dave Ramsey.  In fact, there is a whole world of B2B finfluencers focused on advisors.  For financial PR pros, RIA finfluencers should be an important consideration for your PR program.

Who were the first RIA finfluencers?

It wasn’t until after the 2008 financial crisis that the RIA influencer space really began to grow. In 2007, Bob Huebscher launched Advisor Perspectives, a self-funded RIA-focused editorial platform aggregating thought leadership and research in combination with independently written articles and practitioner interviews. In 2008, Michael Kitces launched Nerd’s Eye View, a practitioner-to-practitioner blog, designed to deliver ungated CE-level content for advisors. And in 2009, Brooke Southall launched RIABiz, the first independent website focused on the RIA breakaway movement.

As social media as we know it today—Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn—expanded in the early 2010’s, many of these early RIA finfluencers were able to harness the power of social media to boost their own blogs and websites.  Kitces credited advisor-tech evangelist Bill Winterberg with pushing him onto Twitter and LinkedIn around 2010, calling the resulting "synergy of the blog and social media" transformative for the early success of his blog.

Though they wouldn’t have called themselves “finfluencers” at the time, these early RIA-focused trailblazers set the stage for what is now a booming industry of writers, thinkers and influencers that have built audiences outside of traditional media channels.

What’s driving RIA finfluencing today?

Podcasts – Did you know that, according to Riverside, more than 584 million people listened to podcasts in 2025, with numbers expected to reach 619 million by 2026? The explosion of podcasting as a medium created a perfect environment for RIA-focused influencers to professionalize and scale. For advisors, podcasts remain a trusted learning tool; they provide peer insight and practical, relevant ideas that can be applied quickly.

Effective RIA finfluencers have figured out that podcasting is an ideal way to slot into advisors’ hectic schedules without needing to block off a full hour for a lunch time webinar. Our most recent update to the Lowe Group podcast directory included a number of advisor-facing podcasts, including podcasts by RIA finfluencers like:

• Michael Kitces and Carl Richards, hosts of the Kitces and Carl show, which features candid conversations between two industry professionals on how to communicate more effectively with clients
• Mindy Diamond, host of the Diamond Podcast for Financial Advisors, which focuses on the topics most relevant for broker-dealers considering breaking away
• Craig Iskowitz, host of WealthTech Today, which interviews fintech leaders and unpacks the latest trends in wealth management technology.

Social media – Just as early finfluencers recognized, social media offers an effective solution for advisors looking to grow their audience. LinkedIn is the dominant platform, by far, when it comes to RIA finfluencers. Unlike finfluencers looking to grow a retail audience on social media who turn to Instagram, TikTok or other short-form video platforms, RIA influencers looking to connect with advisors use LinkedIn, where more than two thirds of advisors are already spending their own marketing dollars – and time.

• Joshua Brown – CEO of Ritholtz Wealth Management, podcast host and blogger with 330,000+ followers on LinkedIn – posts about all things advisory--practice management, fiduciary standards, and the changing economics of advice
• Steven Jarvis – CEO of Retirement Tax Services with 22,000+ followers on LinkedIn – focuses content on helping advisors provide tax planning.

And now?

AI is changing much of what we do and how we do it. The same is true for finfluencers.

• LinkedIn is one of the most cited websites—not just social media sites—across AI platforms. As RIA finfluencers grow their audience on LinkedIn, they are increasing their chances of gaining AI credibility.
• Podcasts are effectively invisible to AI as the models do not have the ability to index audio the same way it does text. For RIA finfluencers and podcasters, that means that it’s even more important to include full transcripts of each episode.
• Long-form blog content is currently one of the highest-performing formats for AI citation, if structured correctly. For RIA blogger-influencers, like Kitces’ Nerd's Eye View, this boosts their influence and credibility further.

AI has made the creation of polished, generic financial content easier than ever for advisors to create, which paradoxically has actually raised the value of recognizable, opinionated, human voices. The audiences following RIA finfluencers aren’t turning to them for the general advice that ChatGPT or Claude could spit out, but for the finfluencers specific, distinctive take.

What’s next?  We are starting to see a new crop of RIA finfluencers clamoring to teaching advisors how to embrace AI and build custom agents to scale their content without losing their voice or their credibility.

PR and Finfluencers

What does this mean for financial PR pros? Finfluencers are another audience you need to consider when building awareness for your products or thought leaders. But we cautioned in recent post against treating Finfluencers as just another audience for your generic press releases. We wrote:

PR practitioners are mistaken to ignore finfluencers in favor of traditional media and treat them like journalists. Instead of pitching news releases, it is important to pitch ideas and access. Success requires genuine engagement and understanding both their platform and their audience in order to build long term relationships.

This starts with understanding who they are and who they reach. Engage with them as peers – share their work, comment thoughtfully, offer genuinely useful information or data. Create content appropriate for their platform and get them access to proprietary research or portfolio managers and strategists they can’t get elsewhere. Evaluate success based on whether the right people are responding or sharing, not simply based on clicks.

In an effort to help financial pros better understand Finfluencers, Lowe Group launched our Centers of Finfluence Survey. Please take a few minutes to complete it here. It will take less than 1 minute. If you do, we’ll send you a copy of the survey results.