Burgeoning social media platform Zigazoo is looking to become the first place kids brand owners go to start building an audience.

The platform launched in 2020 with an MO that’s all about letting kids ages six to 12 create short videos in which they answer questions, complete challenges or share their passions. In the last year, major players including Nickelodeon, Penguin Random House and NBA have used Zigazoo to interact with kids, with branded executions like posting videos, posing fun questions and giving Zigazooers challenges to complete in order to earn “Zigabucks” (an in-game currency).

Two years and three million users into its journey, Zigazoo is set to move into a second phase. Heading into 2023, the platform is aiming to make it easier for all creators to engage with kids and monetize their content, says CEO Zak Ringelstein. In Q1, Zigazoo will expand the feature that currently lets a limited number of major brands issue challenges (anything from making a simple craft to sharing how they’re feeling) to almost all of its users, including indies and kid creators—opening the door for any creator to reach kids from their first moments on the platform.

The company will also shift its licensing strategy outside the app for the first time, expanding from digital stickers and NFTs to physical consumer products. The effort will be led by Ashley Mady, Zigazoo’s first president of consumer products and a former Basic Fun! and Jakks Pacific exec.

This new strategy to increase monetization opportunities on the platform will involve supporting the efforts of individual kid creators, as well as small businesses and brands. “Some of the most popular brands on the platform are independent creators who are teaching kids and encouraging them to be creative,” says Ringelstein. “It’s hard to break through on other platforms, but we’re working to make it easier for [those] creators to reach real kids and get real kid responses.”

Zigazoo’s users are, for the most part, young kids who want to learn. And this curated audience—along with a platform that manages privacy, moderation and publishing—makes it easy for creators to focus solely on making content, says Ashok Kamal, co-founder of California-based School of Rap, which launched its Pod Squad brand on Zigazoo (pictured). Pod Squad features three orca whales who teach kids about topics such as geography, animals and language through rap music.

For Kamal, platforms like YouTube and TikTok are a “red ocean”—a space crowded with brands fighting for eyeballs. By contrast, Zigazoo is still a blue ocean, clear of the crowds and with lots of room to grow, he says.

The company launched its first videos on Zigazoo in December 2021 and now has around 50,000 followers—without any paid marketing or pay-to-play features. “Without paying on a platform like YouTube, we’ll get lost in the red ocean without a paddle,” says Kamal. “So we’re not going to be frustrated by the Herculean effort of trying to get found on [YouTube]. Instead, we’ll focus on Zigazoo, where we can interact with kids and learn what they want to see.”

This story was originally published in Kidscreen’s February/March 2023 issue.