Recently I had the chance to get to know a few “influencers”, a word I hated by the way, and I expected to laugh at their business of posting on Social Media for money. What I experienced instead left me unable to think straight for a couple of days. I had no idea the actual influence that in reality they actually do have and the power that comes with that. The reality is, marketing has shifted to mobile phones and those that understand this are taking huge advantage of it.
The most powerful of all the “influencers” in the world is 20 year old Kylie Jenner. She was recently on the cover of Forbes magazine because she is about to become the youngest self-made billionaire in history. And people don’t like it. I went on Twitter and saw the topic trending and immediately I couldn’t help but notice the hate coming her way. Here are a few of her critics and a screenshot of what they thought of the “self made” article and title...
Here are some facts for you to know about Kylie Jenner... Before I say anything else, just read a few of the accomplishments she has achieved since launching her make up line...
Late November 2016, launched her cosmetic line... Sold 15,000 / Units in less than 12 seconds ($29.99)
An hour after the product launched, people were reselling a single kit for over $1,000 on eBay
Projected to have a net worth over 1 billion by the time she turns 21 (Mark Zuckerberg hit 1 Billion at 23 / Bill Gates at 31)
Cosmetic Line has done over 630 Million in past 24 months
She owns 100% of the equity in her company
Has over 110 Million Instagram followers (80% are projected to be female ages 13-24)
Her company has never paid for an advertisement or a commercial
Her portion of the reality show is estimated to be worth around 60 million (Cosmetic company valued over 900 million)
Instagram values a single post by Kylie over 1 million dollars
I know that some of you still might be skeptic but what you are missing out on is a lesson on how to be viable in business in 2018.. She has mastered the game that we call internet marketing! She has less than a dozen employees, kept 100% of her own company, and she is just starting.
I’ve been working the past 7 months on selling products and coaching on line because I realized I actually have something of great value that other people need. You can only have so many people tell you, “You need to teach how you do real estate to other agents” so many times before you realize you probably have something. I couldn’t listen to one more interview from Gary V or one more podcast from Tim Ferris without realizing I better learn the new rules for cell phones and where the future is going with business and marketing.
For the past 7 months I’ve tried to grow all my platforms, I’ve worked hard to produce content worth spending time listening to and watching, and I am learning more every day. Most of all, I have learned how hard influencers have to work in order to have an audience that wants to follow them. They are real business people, Kylie Jenner is a real self-made billionaire and she is just the first of many about to come.
Pro athletes, super models, reality tv stars, and celebrities have all the eyes and ears on them from anyone that has a cell phone and they will be the ones that the Wall Street money wants to partner with and invest with. If you were bothered to hear that Kylie Jenner is worth $900 million in less than 3 years, get used to it because she is just one of a wave of “influencers” that is about to break the billion dollar barrier.
There are so many lessons to learn from Kylie and I for one am cheering her on. I recently met and talked to a friend of mine who has over 1 million followers on Instagram. She is 19 years old and last month she made more money through one 30 min Instagram live and 6 posts on Instagram than her mom made last year as a lawyer of 20 years.
So back to Kylie Jenner... One of my close friends is an executive at Snapchat and a few months back you might remember when their stick took a giant hit because of this tweet "sooo does anyone else not open Snapchat anymore? Or is it just me... ugh this is so sad"
I talked to him about that and my friend explained to me just how much her voice moved the needle in their company. It became a full on crisis and prompted Snapchat to reconsider their entire new layout they had been working on for months.
You might hate this new world we live in, you might want to reject it, but I’d encourage you to embrace it, learn the rules, and win the game.. Cause this new game is going to be the only way to play business soon and believe it or not Kylie Jenner is the Michael Jordan of this sport.