Your Digital Marketing Coach with Neal Schaffer

My Child Wants to Become an Influencer: What Should I Do?

July 11, 2022 Neal Schaffer Episode 274
Your Digital Marketing Coach with Neal Schaffer
My Child Wants to Become an Influencer: What Should I Do?
Show Notes Transcript

Have you ever heard your child, or a child that you know, say they want to become an influencer? A YouTuber? A TikToker?

You'd be surprised as to how often I hear this.

How should you respond?

While a knee-jerk reaction might be to shield your child from anything and everything social media, I recommend you look at the whole picture.

Here are my thoughts on the subject - and even if you don't have a kid I think you'll find this short and sweet episode interesting!

Key Highlights

[02:10] My Advice I Give to Parents Whose Children Want to Become Influencers

[04:08] Strategize With Your Kids

[04:46] Handling Privacy Issue

[05:26] Core Skills Your Kid Can Learn By Being An Influencer

[06:55] Instilling Sense of Confidence and Achievement

[09:03] Empowering New Generation With Skill Set

Notable Quotes

  • Because I think a lot of parents really freak out about their children wanted to become an influencer, I don't want you to freak out about it, I want you to celebrate it. And I want you to encourage it. And I don't want you to raise a child or foster something that is going to be disingenuous or what have you. But there are a lot of life skills that can be learned from the process of trying to become an influencer. Skills that not only will help children in life, but I also believe they're going to help them in their school.
  • So the advice I always give is, look, there's a lot of things that kids can be involved in, wanting to become an influencer is not a bad thing. Right? I think it requires guidance, some management. But at the end of the day, if they really want to become an influence, well, what do you want to become an influencer in you can actually start this conversation about niches, really, really early on in life with your kids.
  • I think that actually trying to become an influencer gives you the excuse to work with your children to try to find these unique attributes to their personalities, to their experiences.
  • It begins this effective, it doesn't matter if they become an influence or not. They start to acquire literacy in digital marketing. And that is huge. Now later in life before they're in university, when they're still in high school, they can apply to internships, where they can actually help local nonprofits, local businesses.
  • And I believe it instills children with a sense of confidence, a sense of achievement, obviously, for their own brand wanting to become an influence, it's one thing, but leveraging those core skills for others, is where they really learn about themselves. I believe they gain confidence.
  • You should be able to give opportunity to these children, you can help them and they can help you.
  • So the next time you hear your child or someone's child talking about wanting to become an influencer, Don't roll your eyes. Look at the potential positives. I mentioned. There's negatives, the privacy issue, I get it right. There are ways around it, but encourage, let them learn those skills that will really help them and you hopefully, if you play your cards right or if you have that need or a friend's business, I mean it will be helpful. It is an absolute Win, win win.

Learn More:

Neal Schaffer:

So your kid or maybe another kid that you know, one day says they want to become an influencer. They want to become a YouTuber at tick tock her. What do you as a parent, or as a concerned guardian or friend? What do you say? What do you recommend? I have a lot of thoughts on this subject. And I think it's really going to help you better understand all the potential that all this has on so many different levels for lots of people, including yourselves. So listen in, it's all going to unfold on this next episode of The your digital marketing coach, podcast. Digital social media content, influencer marketing, blogging, podcasting, blogging, tick talking LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, SEO, SEM, PPC, email marketing, who there's a lot to cover, whether you're a marketing professional entrepreneur, or business owner, you need someone you can rely on for expert advice. Good thing you've got, Neil, on your side, because Neal Schaffer is your digital digital marketing marketing coach, helping you grow your business with digital first marketing one episode at a time. This is your digital marketing coach. And this is Neal Schaffer. Hey, everybody, this is Neal Schaffer, your digital marketing coach, and welcome to my podcast, I try to provide actionable advice, whether it's an interview or a solo episode, like this one, with every iteration, every time I hit that record button, and this episode is going to be equal. Now, it may not sound like it because the topic is going to be about your children, or someone else's children that you know, but I guarantee you listen to the end. And I think you'll see how this can help you and your business as well. So this is something that I get asked a lot, I meet people, you know, I go to an event for my kids or I'm at a networking event. And, you know, what do you do for a living? And I do this and that, and oh, you know, my kid or someone I know, they? That's what they want to do they want to become a YouTuber, they're obsessed with it. You know, how old is your child? Well, they're only eight, or they're 12. Or they're 13. And I want to give you the advice that I give them. Because I think a lot of parents really freak out about their children wanted to become an influencer, I don't want you to freak out about it, I want you to celebrate it. And I want you to encourage it. And I don't want you to raise a child or foster something that is going to be disingenuous or what have you. But there are a lot of life skills that can be learned from the process of trying to become an influencer skill skills that not only will help children in life, but I also believe they're going to help them in their school, and when if they should decide to apply to university to that as well. It's something I'm seeing with my own children who are of the high school age. And it's something that is not really talked a lot about. So I just want to clear the air and offer you some advice. And also, even if you don't have a child, there's going to be advice in here for you. So make sure you're listening to the end, there's there's no pitch just genuinely want to let you know that I think you're gonna find this episode. Interesting. So the advice I always give is, look, there's a lot of things that kids can be involved in, wanting to become an influencer is not a bad thing. Right? I think it requires guidance, some management. But at the end of the day, if they really want to become an influence, well, what do you want to become an influencer in you can actually start this conversation about niches, really, really early on in life with your kids. And obviously people change their minds, they change niches, that's not the thing, but but the idea is, you begin to strategize with them on what it is they could do, that they love doing that plays to their strengths to their passions. You know, a lot of kids don't know this stuff. And I think that actually trying to become an influencer gives you the excuse to work with your children to try to find these unique attributes to their personalities, to their experiences. And let's say they decide, yes, I want to become an influencer in such and such. Well, okay, well, what social network you're going to be on. You know, for a lot of kids, it's probably going to be YouTube, or Tik Tok, I assume, and that's fine. But today, either one of those is going to require video. So does your child feel comfortable being on video they don't necessarily have to be on video and I know their privacy issues. So there are ways of doing videos without Showing faces, or blurring faces, or wearing a mask, right? If you don't want to, or you can have a pseudonym for them, they don't have to use their real name. And they can just use a handle that they feel they can hide behind from a privacy perspective. But by starting to record a video, well, how are you going to record the video? How you're going to edit the video, right? They're already learning about business strategy, marketing strategy, now they're learning about video creation and video editing. Right? These are core skills that are going to serve them very well in life, even if they don't go into marketing per se. These are skills that are really helped them because there's still this huge demand for them. But guess what, if they can start doing YouTube videos, or Tik Tok videos, and you teach them sort of, you know, with YouTube, keyword research and thumbnails, and now they have to create graphics as well, well, maybe they need to learn how to use Canva. It begins this effective, it doesn't matter if they become an influence or not. They start to acquire literacy in digital marketing. And that is huge. Now later in life before they're in university, when they're still in high school, they can apply to internships, where they can actually help local nonprofits, local businesses. My daughter right now is part of a team of high school interns, that are making Tik Tok videos that are making videos that are being put on this company's Amazon product page. And my kid is having a blast doing it. And I know it is invaluable experience. That is something that she can take anywhere. But it's also showing her that what she can do is worthy of being used by a company on Amazon, of being used by a company on tick tock. And I believe it instills children with a sense of confidence, a sense of achievement, obviously, for their own brand wanting to become an influence, it's one thing, but leveraging those core skills for others, is where they really learn about themselves. I believe they gain confidence. And it's going to be great material, I don't care, you know where they're applying to university, but it's going to be great experience for them to talk about as one of the many things that will help differentiate them. But I guarantee you any high school project or college project, they are going to be the ones that people want to be together with because they have the graphic skills, the video skills. And as a parent or as a friend of a parent, when you love to have help with your marketing, your website, your social media, right, you can also teach them and they can also teach you at this point, I would have high schoolers teach me about tick tock because they you know, my daughter showed me this video and it's like, with this latest trend, you may not get it but this is really trendy on on tick tock. These are things that unless you're really in it all day, every day, you don't know what those trends are. And the heaviest users of the apps, the younger generation know what they are. And that can really help your business if you want to leapfrog that but outside of that it's additional core skill set that your business should be able to leverage as well. You should be able to give opportunity to these children, you can help them and they can help you. You know out of all the things you can do in digital marketing. There are certain things that require more resources, more specialization. I do believe that video is definitely one of them. And a unique social network that's just driven by video like Tik Tok is another one right? Now I'm actually going to have my daughter start to do influencer marketing for one of my clients. And I think it's going to further expand her skills that she understands. She's applied to brand ambassador programs she's always wanted to be an influencer for other brands not become this mega charted a Maliau. But you know, wants to be involved. And I think that yeah, you know, looking at the demographic we want to reach out to I think she's going to do really well. And once again, it's really empowering a new generation with a skill set that is going to help them it could potentially help you. And I do believe it's going to help society at the end of the day and help a lot of businesses and help them in their future career. So the next time you hear your child or someone's child talking about wanting to become an influencer, Don't roll your eyes. Look at the potential positives. I mentioned. There's negatives, the privacy issue, I get it right. There are ways around it, but encourage, let them learn those skills that will really help them and you hopefully, if you play your cards right or if you have that need or a friend's business, I mean it will be helpful. It is an absolute Win, win win. All right, I know this was a little different of an episode, but I hope it really gets you thinking differently about leveraging the resources around you is especially if you are engaged with a younger generation school, in your family at work, wherever it is, you know, there are certain things that we are good at. And there's certain things that different generations are good at, depending on their uses of digital and social media. So think about that, as you plan ahead for the remainder of the year, and maybe you'll find a way to bring on an intern or maybe to encourage your children, should they have the interest to do more of what I'm talking about here? All right, everybody, I so appreciate your tuning in. I mentioned this every now and then. But you know, part of what fuels this podcast and it's discoverability. In various podcast apps, obviously, it's you're listening, and you're subscribing to the show and downloading episodes. But it's also those ratings and reviews. There's some sites like Spotify, you can just do a, an easy five star rating. I suppose you could do that with Apple podcasts as well. But obviously, when you write the review, it just carries out much more weight with it. So hey, if you don't mind, and you have a minute or two, I would really appreciate any ratings or reviews that you can spare. It really does help more people listen to this podcast. And if you have any feedback, like meal, this was a really great episode. I've always wondered about, you know, X and Y, why haven't you covered that before? I would love to serve you and to cover those topics that for some reason I haven't covered and maybe I should be covering. So feel free to reach out to me go to Neal schaffer.com/contact. And you can fill out the form and I will try to respond back to you as soon as possible. All right, everybody. This is your digital marketing coach Neal Schaffer signing off, reminding you to always keep your eyes on the goal. You've been listening to your digital marketing coach, questions, comments, requests, links, go to podcast dot Neal schaffer.com. Get the show notes to this and 200 plus podcast episodes, and Neal schaffer.com to tap into the 400 Plus blog post that Neil has published to support your business. While you're there, check out Neil's Digital First group coaching membership community if you or your business needs a little helping hand. See you next time on your digital marketing coach.