Modern marketing companies have discovered that they can use today's teenagers for free promotion without the kids asking for anything in return. Kids these days are addicted to social media, and in fact, many find self-confidence through the number of likes or friends they have on social media. When kids like or retweet something, they are unknowingly promoting businesses to all their friends or followers. Companies use this to their advantage, even going so far as to offer virtual rewards to top promoters. If children knew that they were essentially being exploited by these big companies, they would probably demand something in return, something more than just a virtual reward. Social media has become widespread over the last ten years, Twitter has almost 700,000 users (Brain Statistics), Facebook has almost 1.1 billion (Yahoo) and YouTube has over a billion users per month ( YouTube). According to a 2012 survey documented by the PewResearch Internet Project, "95 percent of all teens ages 12 to 17 are now online." For teens to feel like a part of their community, they need to participate in social media. “Likes, follows, friends, retweets – they are the social currency of this generation, Generation Like. The more likes you have, the better you feel. (Generation Like) For marketing companies, the more followers or likes a user has, the more exposure a business can get if the user promotes it. Companies target all teenagers, some who seek attention, like Tyler Oakley, others who seek fame and success, like Steven Fernandez, and others who are simply young fanatics, like Ceili Lynch. Tyler Oakley, a video blogger, has more than four million subscribers on YouTube; his videos consist of talking about his likes and dislikes. (You... middle of paper... l Little does she know, though, that she and millions of kids like her have always been part of the marketing plan. The Hunger Games was supposed to virtually no marketing for Catching Fire, they allowed kids to do everything for them, at no cost. They built an entire campaign on the recent social media boom, using kids for free. In recent years, companies have discovered that. 'they could reach. children use social media more effectively Children will like, share and retweet things, therefore sharing them with all their friends who will then share them with their friends, etc. now spreading like wildfire It seems that companies have turned to children to do most of the dirty work for them when it comes to advertising. Some children have understood this and are using it to their advantage, while. that others naively continue to work for free..