Scrolling through social media might feel free, but someone is profiting from your attention. After more than a decade in digital marketing (managing budgets exceeding nine figures), Linda Yonemoto, the founder of Good For You Money, understands how international companies compete for that attention. She shares her insights in this episode of the NGPF Podcast. 

Linda grew up in a low-income household in Alhambra, California. Her parents are from Vietnam, and she translated bills and forms for them, even though money was a sensitive topic.

She graduated from UC Berkeley during the Great Recession with more than five figures in student loan debt and eventually built a career in digital marketing, working for companies like Zappos and L.L. Bean for more than ten years.

She retired from corporate work at thirty-six and founded Good for You Money, a practical personal finance platform to help women leaders and first-generation professionals build financial freedom from scratch.

Linda believes social media is less “social” than students may think. Whether it’s partnerships, influencers, or sponsored content, it’s all commercially incentivized.

She says, “Money is just a tool to leverage in whatever way feels meaningful to you.” If you aren’t buying or selling anything, the viewer is the product.

The goal isn’t for students to stop using social media. It’s to look more critically at what they see.

Ask questions like: Who is delivering this message? Who are the partners or hashtags? It’s easy to see something online and want to buy it. She notes that understanding the work that happens before a purchase can help students think more intentionally.

See the full transcript and listen to the episode to hear more about their conversation about digital literacy and social media.

About the Author

Hannah Rael

As NGPF's Marketing Communications Manager, Hannah (she/her) helps spread the word about NGPF's mission to improve the financial lives of the next generation of Americans.

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