“Children are traffic. I receive more than 70 advertisements in half a year.” “I gain more than 10,000 followers in a month. I can earn 3,000 yuan from one business order.” “I can easily earn 40,000 yuan a month by accepting advertisements.”…On social platforms, many posts claim that maternal and child, parenting, parent-child and other types of accounts can achieve the goal of raising children and making money.
Is it really that easy to post a baby account and monetize traffic? An investigation by a Beijing Daily client reporter found that in this fiercely competitive track, some people earn hundreds of thousands of yuan a year, but they spend huge time and energy costs; some people not only make no money, but also make tens of thousands of yuan; and some people ignore the feelings of their children to gain attention for traffic.
The Juvenile Family Court judge reminded not to destroy the happiness of parent-child interaction by chasing traffic, and not to cross the legal red line in order to monetize your account.
現象
Mother and baby blogger: Behind the traffic is fatigue and anxiety
The 35-year-old “Mother Bean Sprout” is a mother and baby account blogger with 30,000 fans. Six years ago, she shared her pregnancy yoga exercises and postpartum body recovery experience on her personal account. “At first, I just recorded my life, but after the birth, many of my videos got good traffic and gained the attention of many fans. Many maternal and child brands also approached me to discuss cooperation.”
Reporters found that there are many parents like “Douya Mama” who started out simply “showing off their babies” and then turned to account management after a few videos unexpectedly went viral. “A video has gone viral, and I’m asking for advice on how to shoot it next.” On social platforms, many parents shoot it casually, and the result is millions or even tens of millions of views. When faced with the “overwhelming traffic”, they will ask netizens for help.
There are a lot of posts on social platforms encouraging parents to share their baby’s birth number.
“The period from 2020 to 2024 is a relatively easy period for monetization in the maternal and infant industry.” “Bean Sprout Mom” said that the period from pregnancy to the age of one year old is the “golden period” for maternal and infant bloggers to monetize, and a large number of maternal and infant products bring a steady stream of business opportunities. “Through advertising and live streaming, my monthly income in the first few years was 60,000 to 90,000 yuan, which is very impressive.”
However, making money comes with a huge cost of time and energy. “Mother Bean Sprout” said, Mother and baby bloggers seem to have free time, but in fact they have no chance to breathe at all. “Take care of the children, contact merchants, and shoot videos during the day. Time is broken like scum. Only after putting the children to bed at night can I have complete time to write copy, edit videos, and add special effects. It is common to stay up until two or three in the morning, and I will be woken up by my children at 6 o’clock in the morning.”
The physical fatigue is bearable, but not everyone can bear the anxiety caused by traffic. “Today a video ‘went viral’, I was as happy as if I had won the lottery. But tomorrow no one paid attention to the other video, and my mentality would collapse. I would doubt my own worth, and often secretly wipe my tears when I’m stressed.” “Mother Bean Sprout” said helplessly, “Bloggers with maternal and child accounts need a strong heart.”
Parent-child account: I invested tens of thousands and didn’t make a penny.
Different from the situation of “Mother Bean Sprout” who “unintentionally inserts willows to make shade”, the 34-year-old “Dad Xi Bei” represents another kind of parent’s mentality: From the first day of setting up an account, it was all about monetizing traffic. In his opinion, his experience is more common – he wanted to make money by creating an account, but ended up in vain.
“This is a very winding track, and it’s difficult to break out of the encirclement.” Looking back on his several months of experience as a parent-child account, “Dad Xi Bei” felt unwilling to do so, “In order to make fun and beautiful videos, I invested tens of thousands of yuan, but I didn’t make a penny. What really broke me was that no matter what content I posted, there was always very little fan interaction.。”
“Dad Xi Bei” has a son and a daughter. At first, his account focused on “parent-child travel,” taking his children for walks in parks and sightseeing spots. “The scenery is so beautiful, and the children are so cute, but I have posted dozens of posts, and not many people have paid attention to them. Many of the videos have not even a single comment.”
In desperation, “Dad Xi Bei” turned to the field of “parent-child short dramas”, hoping to attract fans through funny and interesting parent-child interactive plots. “Although the number of views has increased, and some videos have exceeded 10,000, the number of interactions is still very small. This means that my parent-child account has no value for discussion, and naturally no manufacturer is willing to cooperate with me.”
“Xi Bei Dad” analyzed that an important reason why the account has not been established is that the parent-child track has been saturated, and every aspect and every corner of children’s lives has been photographed. There are all kinds of popular videos emerging one after another. Netizens have become tired of the homogeneous content and it is difficult to introduce new ones.“In the early years, just filming children eating and eating would attract a large number of fans. Now, racking their brains to think of scripts, it is difficult to catch the attention of netizens.”
調查
“Quality courses” and “running services” are all just routines
Even though it is no longer easy to monetize the traffic of maternal and child, parenting, parent-child and other types of accounts, why are there still so many parents flocking to them?
“The threshold for this job is very low. For parents who have relatively free time, they can just pick up their mobile phones and take photos and videos of their children. This accurately hits the mentality of some parents who want to make money to raise their children.” “Tian Tian”, a blogger who has been working as a maternal and child account for three or four years, analyzed.
In addition, “Tian Tian” believes that the parent-child track has now passed its “bonus period” and is facing the situation where professional operating organizations are “ending” one after another. If an individual wants to succeed, he needs to have a highly recognizable personal label, “for example, an educational background from overseas study or a prestigious domestic school, a professional academic background in psychology or medicine, parents or children with good looks that meet the current aesthetics, etc.”
Precisely because ordinary people do not have these special “personalities”, some posts on social platforms claiming that “traffic for showing off babies is soaring, and advertisements are being softened” have attracted special attention from mothers and fathers. However, the purpose of these posts is obvious: To attract interested parents to purchase a “premium course”, the training fee can be several hundred, several thousand, or even over ten thousand yuan.
After a Beijing Daily client reporter added a WeChat account named “Traffic Monetization Lecturer” through Xiaohongshu, he received an invitation from the other party to “join the live broadcast room” at a fixed time every day. Entering the live broadcast room, more than 200 copies of a 399 yuan starting number training video course have been sold. Some training courses that focus on “accompanying services” charge more than 5,000 yuan.
A netizen shared his experience of being “cut off leeks” in a training class.
The so-called “accompanying service” means that the lecturer or operation team follows up one-on-one on the entire process of account creation, from account positioning, topic planning, shooting and editing, script writing, to polishing of speaking skills, diagnosis and review, and provides a complete set of guidance. Some high-priced services that charge more than 10,000 yuan also promise to be “online 24 hours a day.”
However, many parents who paid for classes complained about being “cut off leeks”.“Quality courses” are free public materials that can be found online, and the content is old, messy, and untargeted; “running services” are also often perfunctory, with answers based on generic templates and unified vocabulary. The so-called one-on-one precise guidance is not worthy of the name, and it cannot fulfill its promise of attracting traffic and increasing fans. Some parents had to go to court to get part of the training fees back.
Some parent-child accounts are on the verge of violating regulations
Routine operations cannot monetize traffic, so some parents start to use their brains. In recent years, there has been an endless stream of content that uses novel content to gain attention, deliberately create conflicts between parents and children, create false or controversial characters, and create Internet celebrity children. Children have become tools for parents to make profits.Although relevant departments have formulated regulations and carried out special operations to rectify online chaos among minors, there are still some parents who are on the verge of violating the rules.
Beijing Daily client reporters have observed on some social platforms that some parent-child accounts contain content such as blurry scale of intimacy, uncomfortable visuals, and insinuations. Most of this type of content does not have hard-to-violate scenes, but the shooting styles, physical interactions, and copywriting lines all exceed the comfortable boundaries of parent-child interaction.
For example, in some accounts where mothers share their daily life with their children, the blogger’s mature and sexy outfits will appear in the same shot as the child, creating a disconnected atmosphere; in some accounts that record the daily interactions between father and daughter, there will be close-up scenes of adults and young children, or conversations with blurred boundaries of intimacy, causing discomfort and criticism from netizens.
Some parent-child accounts contain content that is suspected of being “sidelined” to gain attention.
觀點
Showing off babies returns to warmth. Children need mothers, not bloggers.
Yuan Lin, judge of the Juvenile Family Division of Beijing Fangshan Court, said that as guardians, parents should perform their guardianship duties in accordance with the principle that is most beneficial to the ward. When making decisions related to minor children, they should respect the child’s true wishes based on the age and intellectual status of the minor child.
“When moms and dads allow their minor children to appear on camera, they should ask for their opinions and respect their thoughts. The video content released should be a true record of daily life, and the content should be healthy and positive.” Yuan Lin reminded, When parents “show off their children”, they must not infringe on their minor children’s personal rights such as portrait rights, reputation rights, and privacy rights.
Some parents believe that “I am the legal guardian of my children and I can take pictures of them as I want.” Yuan Lin said that according to the Civil Code, if parents excessively consume their children’s images for the purpose of monetizing traffic and seriously damage the legitimate rights and interests of minor children, the court can revoke their guardianship qualifications based on the application of an individual or organization.
Lawyer Chen Qiang also told reporters that the Beijing Youth Legal Aid and Research Center where he works has conducted systematic research on the phenomenon of “Internet celebrity children”. When interviewed, some minors made it clear that they would not be willing to appear on camera unless they were forced by their parents.
“It is understandable for parents to record their children’s growth moments and share their children appropriately. However, if they are coerced by the misconceptions of traffic and money first, and force their children to perform in front of the camera in a performance that is inconsistent with their age and cognition, it may seem to gain attention and traffic on the surface, but in fact it may cause the children to fall into the dilemma of ‘having fans but no friends.'” Lawyer Chen Qiang emphasized that children are not the personal private property of their parents. They have independent personalities and development needs. Parents should put their children’s physical and mental health and long-term development first. For younger children, scripted or adult performances should not be arranged, and children should not be used as a distraction tool.. For underage children with certain knowledge, parents should also respect their true wishes of appearing on camera and participating in filming, explain the possible impact to their children, avoid excessive exposure of personal information, and ensure their children’s normal study, rest and social time.
“A child’s childhood is only once.” Some mothers also expressed their feelings in the comment area. They should treat the track of starting a baby account rationally. Because “What children really need is parents who grow up with them, not self-media bloggers in front of the camera.”。
