Influence is the currency of our generation. It has been for years, and the mainstream – both early and late adopters – have begun to realize this. What’s more, they’re doing something about it! As consumers and professionals flock to influencer marketing in droves, it will become more and more important for each individual to build their own presence, to have influence. Influence is becoming something to put on resumes, and a place to point people to instead of creating a resume! Moving forward, influence is what will determine someone’s success.
When Gary Vaynerchuk and clan talk about day-trading attention, they’re talking about finding where people spend their time and about making an impact in those places. They’re looking for where they can have the most influence. Why? Because influence is powerful, and it helps you succeed. Celebrity endorsements are older than the United States for a reason. People listen to those with celebrity status, and brands desperately want people paying attention to their message. Having that level of influence, on top of becoming really good at whatever you’ve done to gain that influence, provides opportunity. Isn’t opportunity the one thing everybody wants for their children?
With the rise of all things digital, constant connection, and a million-and-one social networking platforms, it’s increasingly easier to build a following, grow a presence, and obtain that precious influence. New people are reaching celebrity status every day! They’re finding it through Vine or YouTube or Medium or their own site or anywhere online! These people grow their profiles, grow their level of influence, and then they monetize. Why? Because after you reach enough followers, after enough people pay attention to you on a regular basis, you reach celebrity status. People care what you have to say, and brands are willing to continually pay bigger and bigger bucks as you continue increasing your influence (and prove your worth). With influence, opportunities are endless. But there’s a catch.
It’s so easy to start gaining influence, and more people are realizing this every day. Influence is the currency of our generation, which means that it’s subject to inflation just like any other currency. Our parents tell stories of how summer jobs paid for their college tuition and fees. Now it takes summer jobs and twenty years of paying back loans. It takes more than it once did. The same is true for influence. 10,000 followers used to mean a lot. Now you need 100,000 before anyone bats an eye.
Why would anyone start a savings account for their kids? So that their kids can buy a car when the time comes, or to help pay for college, or to have a nest egg already built up when they enter the real world, or for any number of specific reasons! The bottom line is that you want to help them. You love them. You care about their futures. You want to make it easier for your children to excel and succeed. You want to provide them with opportunity.
It’s the same reason why kids are encouraged to go to college, and to get other advanced degrees. More education theoretically makes it easier to get a job, to earn a higher income, to excel faster, and generally have more opportunity than those with less education. So you start on day one trying to get your kids into the best school zones, and work to provide the best education available all along the way, to increase their chances of success. The same goes for the savings account. The same goes for building influence.
Forget the savings account! Those dollars will be spent and gone. Give your kids social media instead! By creating profiles and blogs (savings account), contributing to them regularly (monthly payments), growing their presence (accumulation), monetizing their profiles and blogs (interest rates), and teaching your children how to professionally and responsiblyhandle social media (personal finance), you can set them up to have all the influence they could ever dream of!
That means they would have all the opportunity in the world to be successful, to have a great income, to have a positive effect on the world, and to enact real change wherever change will inevitably be needed. By treating influence like the currency it is, you will have provided every opportunity in the world for your child! How great would that feel?
Influence is the currency of our generation. It’s importance in our increasingly connected, digital world will only continue to grow. Like tangible currency, more influence will be needed over time to have the same impact. By building that influence for your children just like you normally would with a savings account, you can provide every opportunity in the world for your children to make a difference and succeed.
