1 in 4 members of Generation Z in America would like to become social media influencers, according to a new survey.
Gen Z – the generation after millennials – are generally considered to be anyone born between 1997 and 2012.
This number was even higher in the West of the country, with over 41% of the American West’s Gen Z saying they’d like to pursue a career as an online personality.
Only 7.1% of those surveyed said they would not want to be an influencer.
Overall, 16% of Gen Z said they would even pay to become an influencer, 18.5% said they would quit their job to become one, and 12.4% said they would leave college for the opportunity.
However, around half of respondents said that their parents would rather they go to college than be an influencer.
The study was conducted by Censuswide, a group specialising in market research, and was commissioned by Higher Visibility – a company which helps businesses optimise their brand in online search engines. The data was drawn in July of this year, and involved 1,000 general consumers aged 16 to 25.
https://www.highervisibility.com/blog/gen-z-and-the-rise-of-influencer-culture/
One notable finding was that Gen Z males (20%) are more likely than Gen Z females (13%) to believe that being a social media influencer is the only choice of career for them. Almost half of those surveyed said they believed it was a good career choice.
Over 27% of Gen Z said they planned to become social media influencers after they finished education, and nearly 1 in 4 said they thought there should be social media influencer training in school.
When asked what they thought the best benefit of being an influencer was, the most common answer given was “free products” at 62%. This was followed by “earnings” (60.5%), “meeting other influencers” (47.5%), “holidays/travelling” (46.3%), “followers” (46.9%) and “being a celebrity” (37.23%).
9.7% there was no benefit in particular.
Notably, males cared more about their follower count that females – 35% compared to 31%.