Some of the most bankable stars on social media are now old enough to be their followers’ grandmothers. Lillian Droniak, a 96-year-old resident of Connecticut, has gathered 15 million followers under the name Grandma Droniak, and her income covers the £8,949 (£9,000) it costs each month to live in her nursing home. Much of her audience is young enough to be her great-grandchildren.

“Later life is where one of the most loyal audiences on social media now sits, and the brands that treat these creators as serious partners rather than a novelty are the ones seeing the returns.”

Mark Mills, Co-Founder of Execfluence.io

She is one of a growing group of women in their late seventies, eighties and nineties building genuine businesses on platforms better known for teenage dance trends. Their audiences are loyal, their sponsorship requests are flooding in, and the brands are beginning to understand why.

From viral granny to family business

The Grandma Droniak story

Droniak’s rise began in 2020, when her grandson started filming her videos to pass the time. She went viral after revealing that her retirement home had threatened to evict her for throwing parties, a dispute that ended in a settlement allowing her to keep hosting them, provided she stopped supplying alcoholic drinks.

The publicity only enlarged the audience. Her grandson now edits her brand-funded videos, which include paid partnerships with food and beauty companies, and the money funds more than her own care: part of it goes into a college fund for her great-grandchildren. Fame has its limits at home, though, where fellow residents rarely grasp why visitors keep recognising her.

The value of a loyal audience

Trust is the product

Naomi Barker of the influencer marketing agency We Are Social says older creators have become attractive to brands for clear commercial reasons. Their communities are deeply established and highly loyal, she says, and that loyalty carries a massive premium among followers with real spending power. Audiences raised on polished celebrity endorsements respond warmly to a grandmother who clearly enjoys her work.

Viv Truran embodies the trend in Britain. The 82-year-old from Cardiff began posting on Instagram after losing her husband, when a neighbour suggested filming her colourful outfits, and she now shares two videos a day with more than 800,000 followers. She tracks her follower numbers and video views by hand, in notebooks she has now filled to a fifth volume.

Choosing brands with care

Truran accepts a couple of paying brand campaigns a month, prioritising local brands and charities such as Age UK. An Age UK campaign created with Innocent Drinks paid her several thousand pounds, yet she has turned down bigger deals because she insists on genuinely liking the brands she endorses. Selectivity, it turns out, is what keeps the audience close.

Others have followed the same route. Grace Geramita, 83, left Italy for the United States at 18 and worked multiple jobs to provide for her two daughters. Today she films her cooking as Nonna Gracie for millions of followers and earns more than she made in any previous occupation. Barbara Costello, a 77-year-old former teacher, shares cooking, cleaning and homemaking advice as Brunch with Babs, and followers regularly tell her she reminds them of a mother they never had.

Why marketers should take note

For advertisers, the lesson is that influence is not a young person’s game. Trust, consistency and a strong point of view hold attention at any age, and personality counts for more than production values. Older creators also reach demographics that traditional advertising struggles to engage, including the women in their twenties and thirties who tell Truran they are frightened of growing old.

For the women themselves, money is only part of the reward. Droniak believes her appeal lies in proving that growing old can still hold parties, fun and new adventures, while Geramita says messages from around the world still move her to tears. Costello, meanwhile, treasures the university student who approached her in a restaurant to say a cookbook had carried the young woman through her first year of independence. Few influencer careers come with quite that kind of return.