The beginning
If anyone told me three years ago that my kids and I would have become ” family influencers“, I definitely wouldn’t have believed you. But here we are. Almost three years later and we have built a community online to share our experiences. I was also able to provide for my family while trying new things and have fun together.
Back in the initial days, I was a stay at home mom with a creative spirit looking for something that was just for me. I started sharing photos of starting solids with my daughter, but when her food allergies complicated that process I took a step back to decide where my content would come from. My sister helped me to come up with the name “Raising Little Sparks”. We began creating content that centered around our “crunchy” lifestyle. As a family, we had been transitioning towards low waste since the birth of our son, so it came naturally to share those aspects of our life.
Community
One of the best things about building an online presence is the relationships you form with people. The key to growing your influence is striking up conversations and getting to know your audience. Many of the people I have “met” through my online community are some my biggest supporters and best friends. Through hashtags, I have connected with lots of like-minded people and have shared information both ways about the eco-friendly lifestle niche. Being a stay-at-home mom with small children, having other grown ups to connect with on Instagram is a real life-saver.
Having the opportunity to share our ever-evolving message has been a huge confidence boost. Although our audience is considered “nano”, we have partnered with many brands and produced lots of quality sponsored content. We have attended local events we might not have had the opportunity to attend otherwise. We have had the chance to try out new products for our family, which have been a source of enjoyment for all of us.
Kidfluencers
Being family influencers means the kids are front and center for a lot of our content. They never participate if they don’t want to, but given the opportunity they hardly say no. One important thing we practice when it comes to them taking part online is consent. They understand that sometimes we have contractual commitments, but they have the right to say no to a photo or give an honest review if they don’t like something. They have made money, received toys and books to review, attended local events and hosted sponsored parties with friends. My son considers it one of his many “jobs”.
I like taking pictures to show people things we got in the mail. It makes me feel good.
Kain (6)
Evolving
Over the last three years, the content we produce has evolved. Where we once shared eco-friendly living tips with babies, we now share low waste school lunches. Following the Instagram trends and adapting photography has been one of the biggest ways I have grown in this process. I have spent a lot of time practicing taking better photos and hope to invest in some better equipment to take it even further. With our main channel being Instagram, having great visuals is really important.
To succeed as a family influencer, I think it is important to keep up to date on updates and trends. I spend some time every month researching updates and how to keep content creation relevant.
What’s next?
With Covid-19 changing the face of influencer marketing, we are staying up to date and allowing room in our content creation to adapt to the times. We are setting big goals for our page for 2021 and hope to meet and exceed our expectations of the year.
