Three popular content creators spill secrets of successful family vlogging

Shivani Kapila aka The Little Gloves, went from 60,000 followers to 6,00,000 in a few months, when she started posting family-related content and parenting advice; Nikhil Sharma’s videos about his daughter exercising and his family antics are loved by his fans, aside from his travel and tech vlogs; Chef Chinu Vaze has to take permission from her daughter before featuring her in her videos

Scroll through any random person's Instagram following list and, apart from the fashion, beauty, tech or meme accounts, one comes across the odd "family blogger" who showcases their picture-perfect life.

Internationally, family influencers like US-based The Ace Family are well known known for their videos about their children's antics and their lavish lifestyle in Los Angeles. Then there are The Bee Family, The LaBrant Family, and Ohana Adventure, all with multiple kiddos. While the Western family creator genre has a preponderance of large families of five and above, the Indian family creators have more compact families - but essentially do the same - posting content related to their daily lives.

Shivani Kapila, whose Instagram page The Little Gloves has 1.3 million followers, says that family content creation is a microscopic view of Indian life. "Our fans don't see us as celebrities. They see us as people they can relate to," she explains. "A lot of younger people watch my content. They feel that they've lived the same lives and that they can step into our shoes - that they also have a mother, nani, or a dadi, at home, who acts in a similar way."

Kapila's page went from having 60,000 followers to 6,00,000 in just three to four months, after she undertook the crash course "Born on Instagram" started by the platform. Her engagement also started increasing when she started listening to what the audience wanted her to post, and not what she was interested in, aka fashion content. "I realised that parenting content can be my niche, after people started asking for advice on how to take care of a child," she explains.

The secret to being a successful family influencer is being as authentic as possible, she says. "I do not change my life for social media. I make sure that I am myself in front of the camera. I don't wear makeup while making vlogs. Being natural and committing to what you are helps to sustain this business of content creation longer."

Nikhil Sharma, who's known more for his moniker Mumbiker Nikhil on social media, also believes in showing a reflection of his real life than shaping his life around content. He started his YouTube channel in 2013 as a travel vlog, eventually delving into family and lifestyle themes after he got married to Shanice Shrestha Sharma in 2021 and had a child. "I show the real side of life - the difficulties I face as a father, how we handle life as a couple, and what our day-to-day existence looks like." His most popular videos are the ones about the couple's marriage, as well as of their daughter doing "pull-ups" or learning to walk on the treadmill.
"In 2016, social media wasn't a place where you could talk about your struggles," he says. "You would have been trolled back then. But now, people want to see the good as well as not-so-good aspects of your life."

But where does one draw the line between the reel and real life? According to Chef Chinu Vaze, who has cemented her position as a chef-cum-lifestyle creator, it's as simple as tuning out from a 9-5 job. "I treat content creation like a job - the same way you would go to office, finish your work, and come back home and relax. As a content creator, that's what you have to do if you want to keep creating content without burning out."

It was about six years ago, she recalls, when her engagement really took off following the pictures and videos she would post about her daughter. "When I was pregnant, I started talking about what I was eating, and that really resonated with a very specific niche - new moms," she says. "Recently, Instagram has shifted from being this personal content space towards a monetised, creator space, where you could do paid partnerships with brands. That's when I also shifted to more lifestyle-centered content."

As a chef who's also a content creator, Vaze says her daily routine is hectic. "Instagram takes up so much of my time! My husband's also a chef, and we recently launched our own company together, so he does the cooking part, while I look after my content and my cookbooks and the creative stuff," she shares. "My daughter doesn't want to do any more videos now, so she's stopped appearing in them. If I want to shoot with her, I have to specifically ask her!" she laughs. "My other family members like my parents and in-laws appear in my videos when they happen to be around."

To maintain a balance, Vaze had to draw clear lines between what she posted online and what stayed offline - her reel family life is more geared towards something generic, while anything specific happening in the family remains off-camera. While it resulted in a loss of engagement, she says, it was something she needed to do. "I have a no-weekends working policy, and I don't constantly record where I am or what I'm doing, which takes off the pressure to post about it."

For Kapila, however, content creation is a deeply-ingrained part of their family life. "Making videos together has brought us together. I developed a very close relationship with my sasuma; we became partners in crime after we started making videos together," she shares. "My child is an internet child; she has been almost born on Instagram. My sasurji is actually the scriptwriter for the content: he's been the brains behind most of my hit videos."

"We stick to a timeline," she explains. "Our content creation ends at a particular time and our normal offscreen life starts after that. Post 7 pm every day, it's family time."

For these family influencers, content is all about showing life in as authentic a way as possible. But life isn't always perfect as it appears online. "To be honest, my real life is not very different from what I show in my videos. Of course, if something negative happens, I won't show that," Sharma admits. He also says that sometimes, his parents have not liked being asked for selfies when they are recognised in public.

"My mother and my in-laws don't really understand the work we do, but at the end of the day, they're happy," he says. "And so are my fans."