Oh yes, don’t think because you’re young, hip and can bust a few moves on TikTok that you’re having all the influencer fun.
Oh no, your gran is getting in on the action too.
A new trend has emerged on social media with grandmothers turning into influencers.
If there’s anything we’ve learnt so far in influencer marketing, it’s that there is a market for anything and anyone.
‘Mummy bloggers’ are a huge market among fashion, retailers and food companies.
You may think that 15 year-olds on TikTok are having all the fun with their influencer houses, brand deals and even having a Dunkin Donuts coffee named after them (looking at you Charlie D’Amelio) but there’s another generation getting in on the money-making action.
Does influencer marketing age?
When I first started out working in influencer marketing, I asked whether influencers have their peak influence time after which, would they become irrelevant?
Aka, will I still be following my favourite fashion influencers when they’re in their 40s?
The very smart answer was given to me that yes, we will still be following our favourite fashion influencers when they are 40, and do you know why?
Because we’ll also be around the same age and wanting to know what the latest trends are for our age group.
We grow and age along with our favourite influencers and so they are most always still relevant to us and we will always follow them and what they are up to.
Think about it.
When you were in university, you probably followed other influencers that were also studying.
When you get to the stage of your live where you want to buy a house, you follow influencers who are posting about interiors and their first homes.
When it comes to the time of getting married, you’ll follow influencers that have also recently gotten married for all of the wedding inspo.
And again, when it comes to the stage of your life where you want to start a family, you’ll follow influencers that also have a young family for advice and others to relate to.
It might so happen that your favourite influencers’ life timeline aligns with your own, but during this time you will also find new influencers to follow and those influencers may lose followers that no longer align with their interests.
Influencers that don’t align with my interests
On the complete opposite spectrum, you might follow influencers that are at completely different life stages than your own but whose content still interests you.
For example, I have followed Beth Sandland for quite a long time and even though she has went through a home renovation, getting married and now a few weeks from giving birth to a newborn, I’m still invested in her life and the content she creates.
I went from following Beth while she studied at university in London to now where she is married, a homeowner and starting a family.
I am nowhere close to those things but I’m still interested in what she posts and am influenced by some of her purchases and recommendations.
Similarly, I also follow Hattie Bourne who posts about her two sons and now soon-to-be third child.
I follow a home decor account even though I’m going to be renting for the next few years.
I follow influencers living in Bali and Australia even though I live and work in the UK.
The influencers that you follow and enjoy don’t have to be direct alignments of your current life circumstances.
They can have a lifestyle you aspire to, post content that you love to swipe through and post things that interest you.
The Granfluencer
Now onto the real topic at hand, the Granfluencer. Aka the new trend taking the influencer world by storm.
Our parents ruin everything, don’t they? At least, that we like to believe.
First they joined Facebook and ruined that for the rest of us, and now they’ve logged on to Instagram too, hence why every young person has jumped ship to TikTok.
If you listen to Gary Vee, you’ll know that the older generation spend a lot of time on Facebook and also spend a lot of their money on Facebook and online shopping.
So, if you’re looking to target the 50+ demographic, look no further than social media.
And so, look no further than influencers within that space.
For example, @travelingblackwidow on Instagram, 65-year-old Charlotte Simpson boasts an impressive 14,000 followers and appearances in Forbes and Conde Nast Traveller and has many sponsored posts on her Instagram grid.
Most famous of all is probably Helen Ruth Elam, otherwise known as Baddie Winkle, the 92-year-old from Kentucky.
Baddie has featured in campaigns with Fenty Beauty and regularly advertises for Amazon among many others as she has over 3 million followers on Instagram – talk about an influential granny!
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A new trend that’s here to stay?
With older generations joining in on social media and the population getting older, I can see that it would be in a brand’s best interest to work with influencers of an older age if this is their target consumer.
Then again, if the target consumer age demographic is very wide, it would be beneficial to include influencers of all age ranges, sizes, ethnicities and abilities.
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