Friday, February 21, 2025

Puebla school offers degree for social media influencers

A Puebla school has decided to take advantage of the social media trend and provide its students with a degree in becoming an online influencer.

This is the not first school to offer such classes. In 2019, an online Italian university announced a three-year course on becoming an influencer, saying, “The figure of the influencer, despite not being officially recognized as a profession, is increasingly in demand by companies.” The University of California Extension in Los Angeles also offered an online course in 2022 called “Personal Branding and Becoming an Influencer.”

Influencers are online personalities that use their own personal brand or “influence” to encourage followers to buy certain products, stay at certain hotels, and live a certain kind of lifestyle. They make deals with companies to promote their products and the few that are extremely successful can make six-figure salaries. While being an influencer may seem simple from an outside perspective, these educational programs insist there is a lot more to job than just putting up selfies online.

Creating a personal brand, finding and sealing deals with companies, excelling in digital media, and increasing followers are all things that influencers have so far had to learn on their own. These new classes and programs insist they can help aspiring social media influencers skip steps and get to making money faster.

The announcement for Puebla’s program has become its own viral sensation with social media accounts across Mexico mocking it ruthlessly. Some critics said that image of a young man carrying his books that can be seen on the advertisements for the program does not exactly fit the image of a celebrity influencer, or even represent good visual advertising. On Facebook and its website, the Greenfield School currently provides no further information about what might be included in the unusual course of study.

With reports from Plumas Atomicas and CBS News

Have something to say? Paid Subscribers get all access to make & read comments.
Elderly man in shorts and sandals and no shirt on the shore of a beach in Mexico touching an oarfish in the surf. The iridescent fish is a pellagic type, i.e. very long and reminiscent of an eel.

‘Doomsday fish’ washes ashore near Loreto

0
The deep-water fish's rare appearance on a Baja California Sur beach took the Boise, Idaho, tourist by surprise — even more so when the eel-like fish seemingly refused to leave.
El Guerito and el 200, two high-ranking Sinaloa Cartel operatives arrested Thursday in Culiacán

Mexican authorities capture two top Sinaloa Cartel operatives in Culiacán

5
The arrests took out Chapitos faction leader Iván Archivaldo Guzmán's security chief and a major financial operative.
Seal swimming in crystal clear blue waters of the Gulf of California, surrounded by rocky outcrops.

Dos Mares project seeks to establish new Baja California Sur marine reserve

1
Proponents say the reserve would help Mexico meet international conservation commitments while protecting local livelihoods.