Social Media for Young Entrepreneurs

Part 2: Arguments against using social media to market their business

It would not be a stretch to argue that social media, regardless of the context, is not a good place for children to be.

Personally, I am not on many social platforms due to it being, what Lady Gaga appropriately called, “the toilet bowl of humanity”. However, I have used it for many business ventures due to its obvious ability to reach a market quickly and for relatively little cost.

Substack is a social platform after all, and here I am.

But what about the children?

Within the program I created, and provide for you here, it isn’t necessary and therefore I don’t provide a unit for the when, why and how of social media marketing to young entrepreneurs.

If your young entrepreneurs take their businesses beyond the confines of the children’s business fair or local market I guarantee you they will be told or encouraged to “put it on Facebook” to let people know about their product.

Simple right?

Whether or not their customer hangs out on a particular social platform is another conversation but I talked about that a bit in the pro post before this one.

Before I offer my opinion on this, we do need to distinguish between awareness and advertising, as one costs nothing and the other is very expensive for relatively little return on investment. For the purpose of this post and the associated cons, I’m talking about a social media presence. Creating an Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, Pinterest or Twitter account to attract ‘followers’ about the business itself. I’m not talking about social media advertising or paid ads in a social platform.

From a business stand point using a social platform to increase product awareness is a good idea. It allows for interaction with you about your product - access to the owner is a powerful feature in any startup brand awareness campaign. Before social platforms this would be conferences, talks, book readings, meet-and-greets or the store itself where you work every day because you are the employee. It is called ‘social’ for a reason. The sharing, following, liking, commenting, interacting part of social media is the whole point - you are building a network of customers that believe you are ‘friends’. The Dopamine Lab Lesson #1. When you get so big you can’t reply to every comment is likely the moment you can afford to hire a social media manager, and that’s a nice problem to have.

For children this access is not necessarily a good thing.

Let me create a simple scenario with a real example to highlight the potential problem with this. Details are changed to protect the identity of the child I’m talking about.

A nine year old girl has created a hair embellishment product which she sold at my business fair. She sold out quickly and several people asked where they could reach her to buy more. She decided to start a small business selling her product ‘as she made them’ so inventory is entirely random but when she does have inventory she wants to let people know so they can reach out to her to arrange a purchase.

This seemed like a great opportunity to create a Facebook page or Instagram account. She chose Facebook because mom could share and promote it via her own personal account. She models her hair products on her own hair and some friends volunteer to model too. Mom takes some pictures. The girl decides to call her business “Shiny Bobbles”.

Everything about this scenario is a simple social setup.

Mom helps her daughter create the page but discovers her daughter isn’t allowed to have a Facebook account. Children under 13 (and in some locations 14 or older) are not allowed so mom creates a page attached to her own account.

Everything is going well. People are liking and following and sharing. She starts receiving messaging about the product but most are from people that require she ships her product. She has to tell people she isn’t set up to ship her product but advertises the local market she is selling at next.

Again, everything is going well, people are sharing and commenting. Her page has hundreds of followers. But then grandma’s friend notices when searching Facebook that her friend’s granddaughter is tagged on someone’s else’s Facebook feed. The nine year old girl’s picture, and the pictures of her friends, are now being shared across the internet. These pictures are showing up in Google searches.

You can imagine where this went. Parents of the other girls demanding the pictures be removed but the damage was already done. Google searches discover one of the girl’s pictures is posted on a free image download website from someone in another country.

This is not a unique outcome. The obvious solution is to remove the ‘child’ from the business when presenting on socials. However, often the fact that a child owns this business is the appeal and contributes to its success. Many, many parents are willing to risk the privacy of their children to promote their child’s business idea.

My personal experience is the same but not because I was promoting my child’s business. I was simply adding pictures celebrating my children’s successes. Then a soldier was killed at the War Memorial in Ottawa. My eldest son was in Sea Cadets at the time and all parents were notified to “remove all images from social media of your children in uniform”, in an abundance of caution, as the Canadian Department of National Defense thought soldiers were being targeted by terrorists. They were to attend that week’s meeting in plain clothes. I tried to take those pictures off Facebook only to discover if someone had tagged one of my images resulting in a post in their own feed, that image would persist in their feed and I was powerless to remove it. I then discovered many pictures of my very young children on the feeds of people I didn’t know. And all social media was deleted. Full stop. I still can’t take those tagged images down.

It might have been an over reaction, but it did make me sit and think, “did my children consent to having their likenesses plastered all over the internet”? What if my son was a private guy and not yet old enough to express that preference?

This is a personal choice and a parent’s prerogative. I get into arguments all the time with friends on the issue, most citing the connection it provides to loved ones far and wide. I get it. I’m just not that parent. I post pictures in a private Dropbox or Google drive, I write emails, I send short texts with quick snapshots, I call more often. But they all know they are forbidden from posting anything about me or my family on social platforms. We’re just a private bunch.

I’ll add one more example but it isn’t social media specific. As I noted in the post about Henry Patterson, sometimes we can’t anticipate the impact of putting our children ‘out there’ in such a public way. In case you didn’t read the previous post, Henry started a candy company with this mom who was, and is, a PR wizard. He sent a press release about the business she taught him to write. Although it launched a life of entrepreneurship and fame for Henry, the public nastiness was sad and hard on him. I have included a podcast Henry hosts about music where he addresses what happened in his childhood around his first business venture and how it impacted him emotionally. Scan forward to minute 23:30 and have listen to what happened and where he notes, “it resulted in 10,000 comments on the [Daily] Mail online, with death threats” and disparaging comments on his appearance. His mother demanded the paper take the comments down, which it eventually agreed to, but not before it resulted in the parents of the school he was in to attack them verbally as well. He eventually left that school to his benefit, but there was a cost. He feels it was worth it now and notes he pushed to keep going.

So, I think this decision needs to reside with the parent, not a coach, a teacher or a program where they are learning to build a business. I wouldn’t recommend it as part of your entrepreneurship program and I would redirect them to their parent or guardian if they want to explore social media marketing.

As a parent, at what age should you ‘allow’ or encourage young entrepreneurs to use social media to market their business idea? What guidelines should you use to keep them safe and is that even possible?

My best advice as a parent and an entrepreneurship educator is to follow each social platforms policies on age restrictions. Some safety guidelines I see as standard best practice:

1. Don’t post personal images of your child. Ever. Not even in a profile or a press release or article. If the local paper wants to post an image of your child be aware of the consequences. It could turn into a bullying opportunity at school you and your child aren’t ready to navigate. Use an AI to create a likeness in a cartoon style if they personally are part of the brand.

2. Do attached the business social to yourself in some way so you can monitor comments. Moderate everything.

3. For all the above suggestions consider the age of your child and their mental health. If they are 16, have been on social media for a while and have a solid self-esteem rooted in family and community - they are likely totally fine with doing it themselves. Check in often and follow them online. However, if they have emotional issues or experience bullying or even a little sensitive perhaps social media isn’t the best idea. Remember - it’s not necessary so weigh the cost benefit first.

For those where the platform is the business the age to sell online is 18. But options like monetizing a YouTube channel or selling a product on Etsy , these platforms have a parent or guardian work around as part of their terms of service. Read them carefully. Privacy is not guaranteed and content theft is real. Consult a lawyer. There’s a lot to unpack for these types of businesses.

Well… there you have it. My ugly, grumpy, take on social media and children. Or Social media regardless. Clearly I’m not a fan but I do recognize its value. I think it requires careful consideration and informed consent. Rarely do people read the ToS of any application they interact with and perhaps that’s no big deal, but when it comes to your kiddos it’s maybe not a bad idea eh?