Should Influencers Include Their Kids in Posts?

Over the past decade, influencer marketing has burgeoned into a major force, elevating people across the globe to tastemaker for the masses. Influencers have become celebrities—and in some cases, so have their children, the child stars of the digital age, who appear in the content their parents produce on Instagram, including in sponsored posts. Part of what makes influencers so, well, influential, is that they feel more like friends than distant celebrities. For influencers, showcasing their personal lives is a key aspect of building that sort of relationship with their followers. And if they're parents, their children are an undeniable part of their lives. "The audience wants to know everything about these influencers. They want to know the most intimate personal details about their lives," said Reesa Lake, partner and evp, brand partnerships at Digital Brand Architects. "And there's nothing more personal than your children." In recent years, however, scrutiny into the inclusion of children in influencer posts—sponsored posts, in particular—has intensified. Children can't consent to sharing their image or details about their lives on the internet. But for those kids whose parents have shared quite a bit of information, their online presence is being built for them. Much as the impact of being in the spotlight from a young age became a topic of conversation in Hollywood long ago—think Shirley Temple, whose parents squandered her earnings, or Lindsay Lohan, who notoriously found herself at the center of scandal after scandal—it's now become one for the children of influencers, too. The industry is young, but it's maturing and, in the process, making adjustments. But kids in influencer content is still a largely unexplored arena, particularly when it comes to longer-term consequences. For now, influencers rely on gut instinct and intuition when it comes to deciding whether to include their children in their content and advertisements. "A lot of people set up their own guardrails of when they're including their children and when they're not," said Lake. "It's really specific on who the talent is and also how much they're used to sharing with their audience." View this post on Instagram A post shared by Stephanie | Olive & Tate (@oliveandtate_) Publicity can come at the cost of privacy Influencers' approaches to sharing photos of children differ drastically. While some essentially position their lives—and those of their family—as a "a reality show on social media," as blogger Kelly Brennan put it, others take a different approach. And oftentimes, concerns over safety drive the strategy. Brennan's personal policy is to only share photos of her children until they're of school age, which means that now, she only shares photos of her 3-year-old daughter, not her daughter who is in kindergarten. Amanda Rodriguez, who's been blogging for over a decade as "Dude Mom," includes imagery of her three teenage sons in her posts but has never shared their names. Stephanie, who runs the blog Olive and Tate, never shares photos in which her children's faces are visible and doesn't disclose her last name online. "I don't want them to be out and about, someone looks over and says, 'Oh, that's Olive and Tate's kid,'" said Stephanie. "That actually terrifies me on a really deep motherhood level." Self-imposed restrictions such as these result from the influencers' desire to protect their children as well as to allow them to create their own online presence when the time comes. But for children born in the social media age, the impact of having their digital footprint crafted for them by their parents is still unknown, and influencers who do share images of and details about their children have to "be at peace" with it, Brennan said. "It's uncharted territory," said Arielle Charnas, an influencer and the founder of the Something Navy brand who frequently shares images and videos of her two daughters with her 1.3 million followers. "I don't know how this is going to affect anyone in the long run, but I try to protect them as much as I possibly can." The conversation is still relatively new, but while influencers are no strangers to criticism, it can get particularly personal. "People very strongly feel the way they feel about things," said Brennan. "I more would ask the viewers to just respect that other person's decision was what they chose to do." View this post on Instagram A post shared by Arielle Charnas (@ariellecharnas) The ethics of inclusion As the influencer space has become a more "grown-up business," said Cooper Munroe, CEO of influencer marketing agency The Motherhood Inc., there's been more regulation. And as standards, both contractual and societal, are set, the question of influencers including their children in their content, sponsored and otherwise, is not just one of privacy; it's also a business concern. For brands, influencer partners who feature their children are appealing: The majority of people shopping online, particularly pre-Covid, are women shopping for themselves or their families, according to Amber Venz Box, co-founder and president of influencer monetization platform rewardStyle. "Brands are really trying to appeal to the mom," she said. Language about including children in posts has become standard in negotiating deals, according to Munroe, who said that often, brands even request the inclusion of an influencer's child outright in negotiations. "Everyone has a different approach," she said. "A lot of times, it's very intentional and thoughtful, sitting the family down and talking through, giving kids veto rights and and making sure everyone's comfortable seeing the content before it goes out." Financial compensation and the question of influencers profiting from their children's images adds another wrinkle. Munroe said many of the influencers in Motherhood Inc.'s network set up accounts, such as Roth IRAs or 529 plans for college savings, and funnel all or a portion of the earnings from certain campaigns into them, meaning the kids are ultimately compensated for their participation. "They're a part of my business. They work here," said Rodriguez. "And as they've gotten older, [payment] has definitely become part of their expectation." View this post on Instagram A post shared by DudeMom | Amanda Rodriguez (@thedudemom) A business built on a fleeting foundation? The future may bring more clarity on the do's and don'ts, but for now, including their children in some capacity in posts has essentially become table stakes for many top influencers. But where children are supporting players for some influencers, they play a starring role for others. When that's the case, the influencer is building their business on a shaky foundation. Kids don't stay kids forever. For her part, Rodriguez has endeavored to keep her blog and Instagram presence focused on herself. "It's not really about who [the children] are as people; it's more about what it's like raising a toddler, middle school or high schooler," she said. "I write the blog and share everything from my perspective, and they're part of my perspective." Fostering an audience invested in themselves as people, no matter what stage of life they're in, is one of the only things influencers can do to ensure long-term success. Even still, there are no guarantees. We don't know what long-term success looks like for influencers in a meaningful sense. The profession has only been around for just over a decade. "The reality for most influencers is that relevancy is going to be hard to retain over decades," said James Nord, CEO of influencer marketing platform Fohr Card. "You really don't have a lot of control over the longevity of your business because staying at the front of culture in a way that makes brands want to pay thousands or tens of thousands of dollars for you to speak on their behalf is very, very difficult."

Influencers & Creators

Influencers' Kids Are the New Child Stars, but the Rules Are Just Being Written

For now, gut instinct and intuition guide decisions about children in posts

Diana Pearl

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Diana Pearl