Money Making Campaign

Social media is not only a place to post pictures of selfies or friends and family anymore. It is not there merely to update followers on daily happenings or lifestyles. Nowadays, teenagers are turning this platform into an opportunity to market themselves to their followers in order to make money. 

“I think this is a great idea since people can get more notice from thousands of followers instead of starting at nothing,” Alec Blanchard, junior, said.  

The common ways teenagers have been branding themselves is by creating their own products to promote, putting together filters for their followers to buy, and creating accounts to sell old clothes or items that they do not want or need anymore.  

“I think these ideas are genius and have tempted me to do them, as well,” Tessa Liles, sophomore, said.  

These ideas are now trending- across social media platforms. Because so many teens have found financial success, everyone else wants to make money.  

“Recently girls have been styling their pictures with filters and selling them as presets. I think it’s a great idea for girls to put their own tastes on their pictures,” Sydney Runyan, junior, said. 

Instead of social media being a place to air personal insecurities and to promote personal jealousies over the perception that others’ lives are to be envied, it has become a platform that can be beneficial both to share information and to earn income. 

Brands for buck$ 

Ever see those personalized Coke cans sporting people’s first names? Now anyone can personalize products to reach specific people.  

 “I’ve been noticing a lot of people around Woodstock branding their name into a product a lot lately, and it seems like it’s working well,” Sadie Brooks, freshman, said. 

Personalized content is a big social media trend this year. It enables social media influencers to create their own products for their followers, a strategy many teens are using to target their audiences. 

“I get a lot of messages from businesses asking if I want to promote their products to my followers. A common one that seems to have done it to a lot of people is Novashine,” Brittany Miller, sophomore, said. 

In order to get personalized products to grow, the producer will either get people with a high number of followers to shout them out across their platforms for something in return, or set up a giveaway to get their product recognized.  

“I always see people posting on their Instagram story, products that were sent to them, and following it up with a discount code,” Carson Reeder, sophomore, said. 

This process has seemed to work well in the past year and has created a following for many businesses across the social media platform. 

Ca$hing in on your closet 

Scrolling through Instagram, one sees colorful photos that may coordinate with the rest of the photos on someone’s feed. These are known as presets. Presets are a combination of filters and lighting combined to paste onto any photo. Many teenagers are suckers for good presets and will pay the price to have an aesthetic look on all their pictures. So, the most common way teens have been making money from social media is by creating their own presets for their followers to buy from them to use on their own photos. 

“I love how well everything looks together, and they’re super fun to play around with,” Olivia Podstata, senior, said. 

One way sellers will get their presets noticed more is by giving their followers discounts on the presets in exchange for a post about how much they love the filters. The promotion usually pulls people in once they see who their following is using the filters to create an eye-catching feed. 

“Presets bring out all the colors in my photos and make it look like they were taken with a professional camera. I love them,” Erin Aycoth, freshman, said. 

Another common idea teenagers have been starting is creating accounts with the word closet after their name. For example, @AlinaFrederickcloset. After creating the account, they will post pictures of their clothes and accessories they no longer want and present it to their fan base for sale. Since the end of 2018, this concept has become a reoccurring trend in order to gain money.  

“I am selling all kinds of clothes. The styles are more vintage and unique, but sometimes I incorporate modern clothes, so there is something for everyone. All the money I am making goes towards my gap year mission trip to Italy in October,” Emmie Amick, senior, said. 

In the past year, young people have become creative in order to make money to stay out of debt. It will be interesting to see the new money-making ventures teenagers come up with in the future to ease their cash flow situation and avoid having to ask customers, “Would you like fries with that?”