Connect with us

Genfluencer

Meet Jake Geruson, the 15 Year Old Social Media Influencer

Published

on

Jake Geruson

Today, we focus on the story of Jake Geruson, a 15-year-old with big dreams. Aside from his aspirations as a multi-sport athlete, Geruson has an Instagram following of 30,000 fans. During high school, Geruson took advantage of the extra time he had to grow his Instagram presence, believing that social media was a key to long-term business success. Genfluencer had a chance to interview Geruson and talk about his rising influence on social media.

Q: What inspired you to do social media? 

A: I initially got into social media to keep up with my friends and family, but after a while, I realized that you could use it to create a community. From there, things just expanded as my knowledge of various platforms grew. I began using social media as a sort of way to hold myself to high standards. I found that by publicizing my goals, I was much more likely to achieve them. I use my community as a way to push me to the best of my ability.

On social media, I only show the “best moments of things,” so to speak. Although some people say that this is not the best thing to go about, I found it helps you cherish these “best moments” and strive to get them daily. Holding myself to high standards has helped me pursue my dream! While some people buckle under the pressure of a large audience, it acts as motivation for my mentality.

Q: Where do you see yourself in the next ten years? 

A: I envision myself picking something I love and pursuing it hard, either basketball, track, or something else. Since I’m a freshman, I have the privilege of keeping all my doors open, but soon I will need to commit and push myself even harder than before. 

Q: What is the biggest lesson learned throughout life so far?

A: By continually associating myself with a broad group of people, I found that no matter what position you may be in life, there will always be someone lower than you, and always someone higher than you.

Q: What would you tell your younger self about life and social media?

A: I would tell myself that no matter what happens, your youth is something that will not stay forever, and it’s essential to take advantage of it. If you see it as a disadvantage, it will be a disadvantage, but it will be your most significant advantage if you see it as an advantage.

Q: Do you have any advice for youth trying to get into social media? 

A: Social media is a potent tool that you can get caught up in and filled with opportunities not visible to the eye. Once you are ready, pursue what you want to pursue harder than everyone else! Success comes from hard work! If your journey has been easy, you aren’t doing it correctly.

As Geruson continues to grow, he hopes to scale his accounts to over 100,000 followers. As his accounts grow, the teenager is steadily becoming a force in the era of digital marketing. He hopes to use his presence not as a career but as a way to motivate his future career choices.

To keep up with Jake Geruson and his journey, check him out on Instagram @Jake.ezz!

Genfluencer is dedicated to showcasing the success stories of upcoming influencers that are using their social platform to create corporate opportunities. The digital realm has helped mold young entrepreneurs, and we’re committed to sharing their journeys to inspire rising creators.

Genfluencer

How Rishi Padmanabhan’s Consortium Spreads Technological Education

Published

on

Rishi Padmanabhan
Rishi Padmanabhan (via Spectrum News 1)

Unlike many of his other friends within the Irvine community, Rishi Padmanabhan loves to make devices work. For as long as he can remember, Rishi Padmanabhan’s been prone to taking things apart and making them function again for no other purpose than to get the experience of fixing them. 

As an incoming high school junior at Irvine High, Rishi Padmanabhan still pursues the exact same interest. The rush of understanding how things work still holds the value that it did when he was six years old.

Now, however, he’s channeled the passion differently, creating The Irvine Repair Consortium. Rishi Padmanabhan, founder, and president of The Irvine Repair Consortium has overseen technological literacy training, hands-on repair and restoration campaigns for businesses and locals in his area, and the facilitation of a functioning nonprofit organization.

The Irvine Repair Consortium teaches to anyone who wants to learn the basics of returning devices to working functionality. 

Rishi Padmanabhan’s goal is to share his love for technology with as many people as he can. 

First, he and his team take their new students through training, teaching them how to recognize certain flaws in devices, get the parts to remedy them, and complete the restoration in a timely manner. They provide practice materials and old devices to work on as examples.

Then, the consortium finds broken devices on a variety of online forums and local outlets, fixes them, and sells them again through similar channels. To date, they’ve restored and flipped thousands of dollars in devices.

After, though, the profits don’t go back to Rishi and his team. All proceeds are donated to local Orange County charities.

Rishi Padmanabhan has noted:

“Our mission isn’t about profit. It’s about education. We’re frequently innovating new lectures, programs, and activities for our members to learn from. I think that being able to fix a broken thing is extremely important, especially as we’re seeing technology become a bigger part of our normal lives.”

The Irvine Repair Consortium works on a large array of devices. Basically, anything with a screen. Still, however, Rishi Padmanabhan finds his favorite devices to be the ones that built his passions in the first place: the Ipads and Iphones that he’s been fixing since the age of nine.

Rishi Padmanabhan hopes to continue working with The Irvine Repair Consortium as he finishes high school.

The Irvine Repair Consortium’s work can be found on their website and Instagram page. Rishi Padmanabhan’s Instagram is also linked here.

Continue Reading

Genfluencer

How Joey Hickson Built a Network of Over 30M Followers

Published

on

Joey Hickson
Photo cred: @Joey/IG (Taken by: Jared Hankins)

If you’re on Instagram often, you likely follow niche pages. Behind many of them, Joey Hickson. He owns a plethora of pages that scale to a boggling 30,000,000 followers. You heard that right, 30 MILLION FOLLOWERS! Insane, right? A few of these pages include: @Lmao, @RandomVideos, and @Singers. Aside from that, his own personal account @Joey has over 4,000,000. Today, we’ll share Joey Hickson’s story and how he’s revolutionizing social media with his marketing tactics. 

Unlike many niche page owners, Hickson has done a phenomenal job of leveraging his pages to build a living for himself. Alongside his other personal stints, including modeling and traveling, Hickson founded Break media, helping aspiring brands build a following online.

Offering promotional campaigns, consultancy servicing, and other unique approaches to branding, Hickson uses out-of-the-box thinking to build names for other people. 

Boasting an impressive client list, Hickson has previously collaborated with Flo Rida, Empire Records, Capitol Records, and more. Besides that, he’s also worked with Gary Vee, Dwyane Wade, Adidas, Andre Drummond, Burger King, Fashion Nova, and Jason Vedadi.

When we asked Hickson how he could gain millions of followers at such a consistent rate, he responded with:

“As an early Instagram adopter (since 2010), I learned to network with people and consistently engage with other posts. We’d build groups that would work to get each other onto the explore page. It was a massive engagement train. We would gain thousands of followers every day; I would repeat this and average a few hundred thousand followers a month. Engaging with others is always key.”

If you’ve previously been interested in working online, Hickson’s model is one to follow. As of today, his marketable network expands to over 300 million, even larger than his personal network. If there ever was a number that could dwarf his 30 million followers, he’s already reached it. 

In conclusion, Hickson builds his following on multiple social media platforms while building his own personal brand. Joey Hickson’s work has even received recognition in Forbes, Entrepreneur, and many others. If you’d like to stay updated with his journey, @Joey on Instagram is the place to go.

Continue Reading

Genfluencer

Interview With Prominent TikTok Star Ozikoy

Published

on

Ozikoy
Photo cred: Ozikoy (via Instagram)

Over the past year, apps like TikTok have revolutionized what it means to be an “influencer.” No longer confined to the type of stardom found in TV and movies, teens across the country instantly found themselves a new dream, to become “TikTok famous.” Khalil Yatim, better known as “Ozikoy,” is becoming a success story to all aspiring creators at just 16 years old. With a whopping 4,000,000 fans on his TikTok page, he’s risen to stardom over the past few months. Recently, we got the chance to dive into the mind of Yatim, and see what he thinks about his journey thus far. 

Q: Tell us a bit about yourself. How did you get into social media? 

A: My name is Khalil Yatim A.K.A OZIKOY… I have many hobbies that I practice and have a lot of fun doing, such as sleight of hand (magic tricks), Beatboxing, and Soccer. I started my youtube channel when I was around ten years old. I was determined to create some dope content but never really was consistent. I have always had a passion for being a creator, but I just didn’t know how to gain an audience 

Q: What’re some of the coolest things that you’ve done with your online presence?

A: Honestly, I love to make people laugh and smile… The ability to put a smile on someone’s face means so much to me. You never know what that person may be struggling with. 

Q: What’re you ultimately trying to achieve with all that you’re doing online?

A:  I’ve always been thinking to myself, how long will these pranks on TikTok last? There are so many factors to this, and planning beforehand is much easier than stressing about it last minute. I’ve been trying to achieve making people happy; I’ve always dreamt of having an audience and now that I have it, it really shows that nothing is impossible 

Q: What advice would you give to the younger people who want to do what you do? 

A: To everyone that wants to do what I do, I have a BIG TIP for you all, so listen up! Try different things… switch up your content and make sure to ALWAYS think of what your potential TikTok audience would like to see in their feed. 

Q: How were you able to grow such a large following on social media? 

A: I wouldn’t really say I have a large following, there is still so much in the works, and this is only the beginning. I was able to grow my following because I love what I do. When you love doing something, nothing is stopping you! 

Q: Any additional comments you’d like to share?

A: Please promise me that y’all are going never to stop grinding; I don’t care the number of followers you have, I don’t care about the views you average, I don’t care if you even take a few breaks here and there.. but what I do care about though is if you quit… because all this time/hard work working for your dreams to just fade away is not something anyone should take lightly. Start believing yourself and keep grinding – KOY  

Ozikoy embodies perseverance, grit, hard work, and heart. As his accounts continue to grow, he sets his goals towards the sky. If you’re interested in keeping up with him, you can check out his TikTok or Instagram, both titled @Ozikoy. 

Continue Reading

What's Trending?