“Money will be worthless!”: The TRUTH about dangerous social media videos

Should you sell all of your investments and buy gold? Probably not.

Social media gives us advice on everything these days. From the clothes we should be wearing, the places we should be visiting, the way we should be dating, and even, what we should be doing with our money.

Although some of these things can be harmless, you might find yourself stopping at some pretty extreme videos.

Like, videos predicting economic crashes, urging people to empty their investments and bank accounts.

Driven by fear

A lot of what drives engagement is based around building fear.

Andrew Woodward, founder of The Investors Way, said it's important people don't rush into making huge financial decisions.

"Yes, you could make a case for why the markets should maybe be falling rather than rising, but not to the extent where you should 'sell everything and put it in bananas', or whatever the latest thing is that people are telling you to invest in," he said.

"The reality is, the world will continue no matter what's happening. Businesses will continue to operate. Will they operate as profitably as before? Maybe not for a period of time, but it doesn't mean they're going to zero."

Investing cautiously

Woodward said there are times when people need to be more cautious, but then it's about investing in less-risky options, like commodities.

This is why investing in gold and silver has been a big talking point lately. Finder research shows that 1 in 5 Australians have already invested in or plan to invest in gold.

Woodward said this can certainly be a worthwhile investment, but not if the only reason you're doing it is because everyone else is.

"You can protect yourself in the stock market. But selling everything triggers a whole host of other problems, like tax. Selling just because somebody on social media said the world is going to end, only to trigger a bunch of tax issues for yourself, is not a wise move," he said.

"Commodities are designed to be a hedge against risk. If you think the world is going 'pear-shaped', yes, you want to be in gold or silver. But doing it just because everybody else is doing it is problematic."

Investing for a long time... and a good time

As with most investments, there's no quick win. Investing is best done when your investments are left for the longer-term, rather than trying to time the market.

"I don't know where the stock market will be in 12 months, but I know in 10 years it'll be higher than it is today," Woodward said.

"If Australians could watch their property prices like they can their stock prices, they wouldn't be as comfortable with the property market as they are. Because they can watch stock prices, they're fearful, because they go up and down all the time.

"Whenever you're investing, just know it's going to go up and down, and sometimes it's going to go down dramatically. But over the long term the stock market has never failed to achieve a new all time high. So you've just got to be in it and understand that yes there is risk. If there was no risk, there'd be no return."

Understand where your advice is coming from

When it comes to working out whether something is worth listening to, you need to do your due diligence.

"You've got to understand who the person is that's dishing out the advice. What is their qualification or skill set to be able to make the comments they are making?," he said.

"Invest in yourself to get the knowledge so you don't have to blindly listen to someone else. No one cares more about your money than you do."