Why So Many Gen Zers Want to Be Influencers

Originally published at https://www.nealsivadas.com on October 15, 2020

What do you want to be when you grow up? It’s a common question we were all asked when we were young. Some of the classic answers include “astronaut,” “teacher”, “pro athlete”, “firefighter”, or “doctor.”

For younger members of Gen Z, the answer is none of the above. In a 2019 survey of 3000 Gen Z tweens by Harris Poll and Lego, the top choice for career path was “YouTuber.”

For older members of Gen Z, a similar aspiration still exists. In a study by Morning Consult, 54% would become an influencer if the opportunity was presented to them.

As you might expect, there was outrage in response to the survey. What happened to going to college and getting a traditional job?

Plenty of Gen Zers are still pursuing the traditional route, but I guarantee you the thought of becoming a social media influencer has run through all of our minds. In this article, I explore why that’s the case and how Gen Z is approaching their careers.

The Job Ecosystem Has Changed

When our parents were getting out of college in the 90s and early 2000s, job applications were quite different. The Internet was a fairly new thing and only a few job boards like Monster existed. There was likely more of an emphasis on on-campus recruiting and physical job ads.

With the proliferation of Internet over the past 25 years, the job market we enter today is dramatically different. On one hand, with the democratization of information, Gen Zers have access to more information than any generation in history to build their careers. This is why you can find fourteen-year-olds with online businesses generating hundreds of thousands in revenue. And likely why Gen Z is most entrepreneurial generation ever.

On the flip side, it also means that the job market is fiercely competitive. There’s nothing wrong with democratizing access to job applications, but the supply side has not kept up with demand. In 2020, recruiters analyze resumes for an average of six seconds before making a decision to move a candidate on, less than one-third of the time given to the average resume just a decade ago. The average job today also receives 250 applications to fill one role. Companies like Microsoft and Google receive two million job applications annually.

For any college grad, whether you went to Harvard or a local community college, the job market is difficult to navigate. In fact, it’s now joked that knowing “how to apply to jobs and internships” is a skill in itself. The process for new grads today involves supposed ATS systems scanning resumes for keywords, thousands of generic email rejections, and an increase in job requirements, even for new grads.

And there’s the issue of college debt. The cost of a four-year private or public education has increased 163% since 1990. For example, a 1990 Harvard graduate would spend $17,100 on annual tuition. Today, he or she would have to spend $52,000 for the same Harvard education for his or her children. Nearly half of college students today have to take out loans in order to afford the cost of education, and the amount of cumulative student debt has more than skyrocketed in the 21st century, quadrupling from $345 billion in 2004 to nearly $1.6 trillion in 2020.

Watching our Millennial counterparts experience the crushing costs of higher education over the past decade has made us Gen Zers wary. According to a 2020 TDAmeritrade survey on college affordability, we are willing to compromise and get creative to avoid college debt. 46% of Gen Z respondents said they would take online classes, 36% would attend community college before transferring to a four-year college, and 31% would take a gap between high school and college, if it meant that they could earn extra income or save money to better afford college.

And now the heart of Gen Z is going to enter the work force amidst a global pandemic, dire job market, and uncertain future over the next few years.

With all these factors at play, it’s no wonder we would aspire or embrace less traditional career paths such as entrepreneur or influencer.

The Job of a Social Media Influencer

So how do you make a living as an influencer?

You might have your own idea of an influencer, but my personal definition is: someone who creates consistent digital content that provides value to a large number of people. This could include entertainment, education, sex appeal, comedy, advice, emotion, and a variety of other forms of value.

An influencer goes well beyond just the “Instagram model.” From comedy and education YouTubers to Twitch streamers to content bloggers to dancing TikTokers, macro (>50K followers) and micro (<50K followers) influencers are a diverse array of people providing value on a multitude of platforms. Many of them had no prior fame and simply built up an audience and a level of celebrity through their content.

Despite “influencers” existing for over a decade, most people still do not understand how being an influencer can be a career. How do you make money? Is it sustainable?

Here are a few main ways to make money as an influencer: pay per view by advertisers, creator funds, sponsored posts and partnerships, and virtual currency.

1. Pay Per View by Advertisers

On platforms like YouTube, you can get paid by advertisers who place pre-roll ads on your videos. Advertisers will pay YouTube and YouTube will in turn pay creators a cut of the ad revenue. Historically, YouTube returns 68% of the ad revenue they generate to the creators. The money you can make as a creator is based on the number of ad views on your videos. According to projections from Influencer Marketing Hub, if you can generate 100K views per day on YouTube, you can make up to 112K annually directly from ad revenue only on your videos. This does not include any other source of income or partnerships that would result from a large following.

2. Creator Funds

Sometimes, social media platforms will pay you to create content. The more content and views you generate, the more you get paid directly by the content platform. In the past year, TikTok unveiled a $1 Billion creator fund and YouTube pledged a $100 million fund towards Black creators. While it’s not the most lucrative method, it certainly motivates content creators to post more.

3. Sponsored Posts and Partnerships

This is the most lucrative and most complex method of making money. When you have a certain numbers of eyeballs on your content, advertisers will want to gain exposure, whether a product promotion on Instagram, sponsored gear for a Twitch streamer, or a free giveaway partnership. These partnerships often are complex to execute and require back and forth negotiation and ideation to create the most effective partnership possible. However, if you become highly skilled at sponsored posts and partnerships, it could potentially provide an extremely reliable and lucrative source of income. YouTuber David Dobrik is an icon in this space.

4. Virtual Currency

You know how you pay to see your favorite musician in concert or your favorite athletes at a professional sporting event? You’re indirectly compensating them for their work. Virtual currency, or sending money to your favorite creators to support them, is the influencer version. You can essentially help sustain the career of your favorite creators, and virtual currency transactions, especially through social media livestreams, are the fastest growing aspect of influencer compensation. Some TikTokers have even claimed to reel in thousands of dollars from one livestream.

Through these avenues, influencers of all backgrounds and niches have been able to generate income. While not a salaried job, if you build a large enough following and know how to earn money through brand partnerships, ad revenue, or virtual currency, you can certainly generate enough money to make a living. Many have even dropped out of school or quit their job to pursue it full-time.

It’s kind of like a one-person startup, where the brand and product is you. Like a brand, you amass an audience, provide value to your followers, drive consistent performance, and build loyalty. However, your longevity is not built on virality; It’s built on consistency, quality, and passion. Even influencers who are considered to have “less talent” still have to live by these to succeed. If you take the foot off the gas pedal, there’s a queue of creators behind them, eager to take your place.

Some creators have even noticed a drop in following or engagement after taking just a week or month off from posting. But sometimes, it’s not even about calculating risk; it could be that you want to pursue a passion and share it with the world. Being an influencer is naturally tied to creativity, sharing, and developing a niche in something you care about.

Take Gen Z YouTuber “Mr. Beast” as an example of that persistence. He posted 300 videos on YouTube in his first 5 years and gained 3000 subscribers. In the next 4 years, he gained 40 million subscribers and is one of the most financially successful YouTubers on the planet.

How LinkedIn Can Be More Friendly to Gen Z

On the topic of Gen Z and social media, I want to talk about the world’s largest professional social media platform and how it can better cater to Gen Z. Gen Z knows that it’s a core platform for our professional careers, which is why 16% of the LinkedIn population is Gen Z. However, the number one question I get from other Gen Zers is a simple one: how do I use LinkedIn?

This is ironic given that Gen Z has probably never had to ask that question about any other “social media” platforms they use on a day-to-day base.

As an avid user of LinkedIn, I see great potential for Gen Z on LinkedIn. As a networking ecosystem with an increasing priority on content creation and sharing, it could potentially be a natural platform for Gen Z to create, engage with others, and make the future of work community-based.

However, I think LinkedIn is still incredibly limited in terms of addressing Gen Z’s core problems and needs. Here’s how I think LinkedIn can better cater to the next generation of professionals.

1. Enable a Better Content Creation Experience

Gen Z is creating content every second of every day. From Snapchatting friends to taking photos to posting stories of their day to editing Instagram posts, it’s engrained in what we do. LinkedIn can be that platform for the professional stuff and anything that straddles the line. With a solid algorithm, it could even help thousands of people find jobs or run into people who can drastically improve careers for the better.

I’m really excited to see where Stories go because I think it’ll help encourage more people to post and interact authentically. However, it stills deals with same fundamental issues among Gen Z. How do I use this? Where does this fit in the larger picture?

Personally, I think LinkedIn can better enable this by 1) educating more people on what to post about 2) building out better link, image, and video integration and 3) dedicating a section of the profile to content creation. The Featured section is a step in the right direction, but I think it needs to a better visual representation that encompasses stories, recent posts, and best-performing posts.

Will every Gen Zer, or professional, want to post about their professional side? Absolutely not. However, it won’t feel unnatural for a generation built by social media and where 41% want to pursue entrepreneurship and need to build a personal professional brand around themselves

2. Build Groups and Professional Communities

I think LinkedIn had a missed opportunity with LinkedIn Groups. As a member of a LinkedIn Group, you are no longer notified when someone posts in that group. As a result, you will notice that most posts in Groups nowadays get only a few likes and comments, even those with 20K members.

This change was made because of the high volume of sales pitches and spam, but I think LinkedIn should reconsider this, particular for Gen Z. One way our generation develops an interest in something is by joining a community in that discipline. Joining Discord servers and chats is super common nowadays for gaming communities and even professional communities on topics such as investing or coding. It’s not unheard of to join these virtual groups with complete strangers who have the same interest as you and start messaging them.

I think LinkedIn Groups could be an effective function to enable those professional groups instead, whether it’s for people in the same profession (i.e. Product Marketing Manager), field (i.e. marketing agency), or topic of interest (i.e. investing), while providing the added layer of credibility with your profile.

And there is a need. As you may have seen through communities like Wonsulting or Product Buds, there is a market for professional groups and communities. However, right now, they are forced to move to Slack or Discord or an alternative platform. LinkedIn Groups fails to fit their needs.

3. Offer a Student Discount on LinkedIn Premium

Spotify for music. Prime Student for shopping. Some student discounts are so good that you simply will not have any plans to not give it up post-grad. I think a discounted LinkedIn Premium for students could potentially be another worthwhile investment. As one of the most ambitious generations in history with a savvy for online interaction, we would utilize the premium features such as InMail, who viewed your profiles, applicant insights, certification courses, and more to jumpstart our careers, especially amidst entering a dire job market. As students, we have the least amount of experience, connections, and qualifications to apply for jobs. Job boards could be significantly more helpful if we had more information and support in the process.

The job ecosystem that Gen Z enters is drastically different than the ones that previous generations entered. There’s a whole new section of people making money online or through social media, increased competition for jobs, and greater lack of affordability of education. This has caused a larger desire to pursue unconventional paths. Modern problems require modern solutions, and I think LinkedIn can be part of that change.

Now, as Gen Z enters the working world through a global pandemic and a remote working future, I believe these unconventional paths will only continue to be more normalized.

This is part 11/12 of the “Find Gen Z Series”, a monthly blog where I detail one social or digital media platform and how to best reach Gen Z on the platform. I am no expert. All my knowledge and perspective is based on my own experience as a member of Gen Z and extensive research. My only goal is to help brands who really care about my generation and anyone else willing to listen by giving them the inside scoop on my generation. To learn about other platforms in the series, go to https://www.nealsivadas.com/find-gen-z and please reach out if you want to talk Gen Z further.