How do social media influencers make money? | CBC Kids News

♪ [upbeat] Saara:<i> How do influencers make money? . .

. </i> ♪ ♪ <i> . .

in three minutes or less. </i> ♪ ♪ The biggest stars on social media seem to be posting constantly. What you do for fun is their full time job, and you can bet they aren't working for free.

So how do they turn their content into cash? You're being nudged in a particular direction to like things. And what I find upsetting about that, especially if you're, you know, a young kid or a teenager, you're exploring the world, you're finding out who you are, you're finding out what you like.

And I'd be much more comfortable if you were able to do that freely. Yep, it isn't always obvious at first, but lots of influencers make money by promoting brands. That means when they unbox, review, or recommend a product, they're usually getting paid.

OMG, you guys. You won't believe we just arrived in the mail. Sometimes influencers can also make money by selling their own merchandise or subscriptions.

And on some platforms, fans can even donate to them using some kind of virtual currency. But the big money comes from ads. Buy, buy, buy.

Sometimes those ads are obvious, like the commercials that pop up when a video starts. But other times, influencers might be influencing you to buy something without you even realizing it. When you're watching a video by an influencer, that person is being paid by all sorts of people to have a particular piece of art in the background, to be wearing particular clothes, to drop the name of particular products, and it can be very, very subtle.

In theory, influencers are supposed to be really upfront about it when they're being paid to promote. They're supposed to include certain hashtags in their post and mention sponsorships right away in their videos and video descriptions. Thank you so much to shiny jewelry company for sponsoring and collaborating with me on this video.

Of course, that doesn't always happen, so you have to pay attention. Remember, influencers are being paid to do just that, influence, whether or not they truly believe in a product. For cbckidsnews.

ca, I'm Saara Chaudry.