By Upasana Kochhar Khosla- Director, Account Planning- Wunderman Thompson
Before we address how to choose the right subject for your child, ‘What kind of job my child will land’ is one of the most common queries that every parent has in their mind. Had you came across to tweets or posts like “I am a BMM graduate looking for a job in Social Media and/or Influencer Marketing, or something similar…I have experience in content curation and creation, and can work with Creators Studio, Youtube Studio, TweetDeck etc”. Let’s address this on a common platform.
According to a recent study in the UK which was conducted with 2,000 parents having at least one child aged between 11 and 16, it has been proved that social media influencer and YouTuber stood second (17 per cent) and third (14 per cent) in the list of most popular professions that children wish to pursue for their careers. Doctors topped the list with 18 per cent.
Social media is filled with vast video content of children influencers from being fashion advisors to reviewing toys and video games. Introducing the subject of influencer marketing since childhood could become a great medium for parents to recognize their kids’ talent. Influencer marketing will also give a kid the space to explore their personalities. Today, kidfluencers are the magic potion to many interesting marketing strategies.
Children these days are extremely tech-savvy and constitute a major chunk of the online audience. With kids spending more time online, a kid tech ecosystem would soon emerge that would enable brands to advertise to them. With easy access to smartphones, tablets and other devices, reaching the kids through child influencers would not only enable brands to target the right audience but would also enable them to understand what their audiences are looking for and work on their marketing strategies accordingly.
For young influencers under 30, Instagram is the most preferred medium and for these alpha stars, on the other hand, YouTube is the main stay. It is not new that young kids are earning money in one month that we earn in a year because of TikTok and YouTube. However, children under 14 are also making one lakh a month via branded partnerships. Whilst traditional jobs are still vital to our society, whether we like it or not there is a place in the modern world for more unconventional jobs such as influencers, YouTubers and bloggers.
The growth of the kid influencer industry is relatively higher in other countries, however, this concept is a relatively new space within India. Parents are still skeptical about exposing their children to the online world at such a young age. However, parents need to understand that social media, if used in the right way, could be a great platform for them to showcase their child’s talent and also help their child explore their personalities.
***
