Teenagers experience unique challenges when they’re searching for jobs. For starters, they won’t have much, if any, work experience. They won’t have much of an education besides some or all of high school, and they’ll be judged as irresponsible before even getting started. It can be tricky to get your foot through the door in the job world.
The internet has proven itself to be an equalizer for people all around the world. The barrier to entry is low for online businesses, it’s not expensive to start up a website or a shop compared to opening a retail location.
More and more teenagers are finding work opportunities online, both through starting their own businesses in digital marketing, or working for someone else who needs their expertise online.
A lot of these are probably skills that you learned if you have a side-hustle and experience in digital marketing.
Types of Work for Teens on the Internet
Digital marketing jobs can be remote work that you do from home on a less-structured basis, like you won’t have a boss breathing down your neck every second for 8 hours a day, but instead, you’ll have tasks and goals to try to accomplish.
It’s very results-based for the most part, rather than clocking in hours at a desk. Your boss won’t care if you sat and focused hard for 8 hours and looked very busy if nothing’s getting done, right?
On the other hand, there are more traditional digital marketing businesses too, or an older business that is expanding online.
You could end up working at a cubicle in a downtown office, having to track every second of your time, having to wrestle against productivity goals and such, just like in a more traditional office. It really depends on where you end up working.
If you like to be freer, and you’re able to take bigger risks without ending up homeless, then you may want to consider working for yourself or for a smaller agile start-up. If you like the structure and certainty of a more corporate world, that’s an option too. Know yourself, know what you like, and work towards that.
There are plenty of other ways for teenagers to make money, you just have to go for it!
Trading Attention
At the end of the day, digital marketing is basically a collection of ways to buy and sell attention.
Publishers have attention (their audiences) that they’re looking to monetize, and advertisers have money that they want to exchange for that attention. Everything else that happens is just a stand-in for trading attention.
If a company is buying ads on Facebook, or on a blog, or a billboard, or paying an influencer to wear their brand on TV, or whatever… it’s all essentially trading attention.
If you’re able to capture that attention and re-direct it, you can succeed in the career path of digital marketing. Now, digital marketing refers more to a venue than a specific job or career, but most marketers end up having to wear many different hats, especially the ones who start their own businesses.
