What We Can Learn From Kylie Jenner, World’s Youngest Billionaire

It’s now official that Reality Tv star and model, Kylie Jenner aged 21, is the youngest self-made billionaire of all time, snatching the title from Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.

According to Forbes report, she has a net worth of $1billion reportedly acquired through her wildly successful range of make-up line, Kylie Cosmetics where she owns a 100 percent stake.

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Speaking on becoming the youngest self-made billionaire, kylie credits her success to her enormous social media following which ensured her customer base before she made her first product.

She said: ‘It’s the power of social media. I had such a strong reach before I was able to start anything,’ she said, adding that she sees the company going ‘very far’.

Jenner’s success underscores the importance of social media as the chief influencer of this age. Kylie created her empire on the social media with her cosmetics line called Kylie Lip Kits, which was renamed to Kylie Cosmetics later at the age of 18.

With 128million Instagram followers, 26.7 million Twitter followers and a $1 billion-dollar empire, there’s no denying that Kylie Jenner has mastered the art of social media storytelling to boost her popularity and promote her makeup line.

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Social media has become a powerful tool in the hands of brands for customer engagement and to reach new audience in real-time. Social media platforms have also created new opportunities for individuals who use is as a piggybank to amass large following.

Sometimes all that is required to become social-media-famous is creating viral content(s) that captures the attention of large audience. Viral contents often lead to more followers.

Individuals with thousands or millions of social media following are referred to as ‘influencers’. Their thoughts, actions and lifestyle resonate with a large chunk of their followers, which can be used to influence others or shape narratives in public discourse.

These days, 99% of global brands and public figures maintain active social media presence to reach their audience in real-time. Thereby bypassing the need for the traditional communication channels which can be costly and time consuming.

Many businesses are now run on social media. In-fact it has become a platform of choice for new businesses run by millennials, who are looking to gain and grow their customer base through direct sales, without having to rent expensive office space and spend a fortune in marketing.

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Here are some notable businesses/brands that came to existence as a result of social media:

RYAN TOYSREVIEW

Talking about the power of social media, YouTube, in 2018, named 7-year-old “host” of Ryan ToysReview as the highest paid Youtuber of 2018, grossing a whopping $22 million within a space of 12 months.

Ryan, in the same year, jumped from No. 8 to No. 1 on Forbes’ annual list of YouTube stars who are making the most money.

Ryan ToysReview generated about $22 million in pretax income from June 1, 2017, through June 1, 2018, according to Forbes, up from $11 million the year prior. The raw estimate of $22 million put Ryan ToysReview just ahead of controversial star Jake Paul (who banked $21.5 million).

COMEDIAN EMMANUELLA

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Eight years old comedian, Emmanuella Samuel popularly known by her first name, Emmanuella shot to limelight after she started posting comedy skits on social media.

Since 2015, Emmanuella won lots of awards, including NEA award, Niger Delta Special talent award, and City People award. Except for the Nigerian awards, she also gathered a few international ones, such as Prominent Kid Comedienne and Princess of Comedy, both from Australia. Emmanuella was even invited to star on CNN in November 2016, where she gave an interactive interview.

She is reportedly worth over N25million.

Kraks TV

Femi Bakre founder of kraks TV is a graduate of the University of Lagos, Akoka where he studied Electrical and Electronics Engineering.

Kraks TV is the World Star Hip Hop of Nigeria, a curator of ratchet, funny and viral content. No one dominates this space more than it. There are tonnes of viral accounts online but Kraks TV leads the pace.

The founder of video aggregator Kraks.tv has an almost unrivaled hold on his audience. In two years, Kraks.tv became the foremost aggregator of African slapstick humor and ‘reality interviews’ a sub-genre of vox pop television that aims specifically to give the interviewee the slip and sleight of hand, finding humor in the most insane of situations.

With hundreds of millions of views, social media accounts that boasts millions of followers and a website that allows registered users share their own submissions, Kraks.tv has stumbled on a mine of crowd sourced content and spun it into gold.

INSTABLOG9JA

Instablog9ja is an acronym for “Instagram Blog Nigeria”. It is an Instagram-based blog that shares trending news stories in Nigeria. It is owned and managed by an anonymous person and has a total of 2.1million followers.

Unconfirmed reports claim the owner of the blog earn as high as N500, 000 to post A promotional story on the platform. Just recently, Instablog9ja got an advert placement for the governorship candidate of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Mr Babajide Sanwo-Olu.

The news blog has equally partnered with several other big brands which placed ads on the platform to reach a demography of Nigerians who are active on the blog.

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