According to a new Forrester Report, only 6% of 12- 17 year olds want to be friends with a brand on Facebook. This presents a major challenge, and opportunity, for brands when trying to interact with one of the most prized demo segments. The report goes on to state that the segment doesn’t think brands should be on social media and, if they do have a presence, should serve a passive role by listening and responding to their requests as they come up.

I say phooey. Well, to be clear, I think it’s incredibly important to listen to the segment and respond to their needs in social media but, more importantly, I think there’s fertile ground in social to proactively interact with them. I remember reading that Henry Ford once said something like “if I always followed my consumer research a car would have never been invented because they would have asked for a faster horse.”

I think the same approach should be applied to the 12 – 17 year olds in regards to how they engage with brands in social media. The challenge is determining how your brand can be relevant since, as we all know, all brands are unique. Some brands have an easier job than others – I’m talking to you Skittles – because what they offer is inherently sought after by 12 – 17 year olds. I mean, who didn’t like candy as a kid?

But for others, achieving relevance is more challenging which makes it that much more rewarding when you achieve it! And I’m not talking about the relevance from a marketer’s perspective. I’m talking about relevance from the 12 – 17 year old’s perspective which can be much different than the former.

In order to be relevant, gain Facebook fans and ultimately maintain ongoing interactions with this segment, brands must answer one very simple question: Why should I care about you, Brand XYZ?

Here are five ideas for how to achieve relevancy and make them care about your brand on Facebook.

1.       If humor aligns with your brand’s personality – USE IT. One time-tested approach that’s worked over and over with this segment is that they respond well to humor. This however, needs to be tied into your brand in a way that only you can use that humor.

2.       Add to the experience. This segment is primarily on social networks to stay connected with their offline friends and I guarantee that they’ll appreciate it if you help enrich that experience.

3.       Ask yourself “why do I think they should care about me?” Once you get that answer find a way to bring that to life while adhering to all the spoken and unspoken rules of social (that’s another post for another day) and this segment.

4.       Make their friends care. Cart before the horse, right? Well, kind of. But, if you can make groups of friends care than they will influence the rest. So, create ideas that micro-target groups of 12 – 17 year olds through interests that they might share.

5.       Get some FUN all up in here! Yes, it’s true they are primarily online to connect with friends but they also want to have FUN while doing it. Create a game for them to play – if done right, that will give you the ultimate level of interaction that all brand managers dream about.

Follow through with some of these ideas and you just might be welcomed into the exclusive 6% Club. Got any other ideas for how to reach this segment? Would love to hear them!

As we are all aware of by now, peer recommendations are the strongest drivers of purchase intent among consumers. We’ve seen the numbers. It all makes sense. We trust the recommendations of our friends the most.

If we trust our peers’ recommendations the most, why are marketers so obsessed with the ‘Like’ button and not the ‘Recommend’ button? Levi’s has become famous in the social/digital work for being the first major brand to completely socialize their shopping experience. After that, everyone else followed suit and ‘Like’ buttons went up all over the place.

As marketers we understand the power of one word over the other, even if it seems minuscule to most.  If we spend so much time talking about how peer recommendations are the most powerful form of WOM and drive purchase intent, why are we not asking people to ‘Recommend’ products? Why are we only asking people to ‘Like’ them? I think there’s a place for both plug-ins in the online experience. In many instances a consumer might prefer to ‘Like’ a product over recommending it, because they may not have used that product before and liking has a lower cognitive barrier to entry (in the same way that liking has a lower barrier to entry than commenting or sharing).

Where I’d most ‘Like’ to see ‘Recommend’ plug-ins implemented:

- On review sites and message boards discussing products
- During the e-commerce experience, maybe during purchase or post-purchase
- In follow-up emails after purchase
- In email marketing to existing customers and frequent purchasers

What are your views on Like vs Recommend as a marketer and/or as a Consumer? Have you used either of them? Do you see a larger place for the ‘Recommend’ button? Share your thoughts below.

As the name may imply, here at Mr Youth many of us are not that far removed from college and often find ourselves immersed in the culture as part of the job. Via our RepNation influencer platform, we spend a lot of time on college campuses working with students and studying youth trends. Whenever I find myself on campus, I can’t help but reminisce about the good ol’ days and it always surprises me to see how much social media and technology has influenced college life in the short time since I left.

The Notes:

(Then) Paper and pen. Many of my professors frowned upon students having laptops in the classroom as they felt it was a distraction. I didn’t own a laptop until my senior year of college, and even then I rarely took it to class.
(Now) Studies are being done at colleges like the University of Notre Dame that analyze the pros and cons of using modern technology in the classroom. In this study, iPads were provided to a group of students, intended to be used as an e-reader, but over the course of the semester students found the iPads to be more useful as an aggregation tool rather than a replacement for a textbook. They reported that the devices are hard to take notes on and the majority felt the $499 price tag was just too expensive for their beer and ramen noodle budgets. Still, when asked how they felt about giving up the device at the end of the study, 65% said it would be hard to relinquish the iPad.

The Courses:

(Then) Looking back on my college curriculum, my major in Strategic Communications was largely focused in Public Relations – writing press releases and learning how to gain PR through traditional news outlets. I can’t help but wonder how much the curriculum has changed in these few short years since I graduated, as I naturally assume a large focus must be on non-traditional media like Facebook, Twitter, blogs and the like.
(Now) Interestingly enough, I spent a little time on my alma mater’s website and it doesn’t look like much has changed in terms of the courses required to graduate with a BA in Strategic Communications. I’m going to guess that social media is interwoven into the current curriculum, which brings up an interesting question: Can social media really be taught, or is it something you can only really learn through practice?

The Phones:

(Then) Having a brother who works for a wireless provider, owning the latest and greatest cell phone has always been an obsession of mine. I vividly remember walking into college sophomore year with a hot pink Motorola flip phone with photo, video and texting capabilities, and wondering how it could ever get better than that.
(Now) Fast Forward to 2011, a recent study revealed that 49% of all college students own smart phones and this figure has nearly doubled over the past year. I would estimate that about 90% of the students we work with though RepNation equip themselves with iPhone, Droid and Blackberry devices which result in an expectation of near-immediate response time. It makes me wonder – in another 5 years, will students no longer have the luxury of reading emails and taking time to come up with a thoughtful and strategic response, in an effort to respond as quickly as possible? And, if this begins to become the norm so early on in one’s professional career, how will this affect the way we do business in the “real world”?

At the end of the day, I find the changes all very exciting, yet slightly terrifying at the same time. With endless potential it’s going to be hard to keep up with it all, but with the possibility of lectures being held via hologram, how can you not want to try?

This article appeared as part of MediaPost’s Engage:Teens Publications. To read the original post, click here.

A teen, a Millennial and a Mom walk into a restaurant for dinner. The Mom has a coupon for 10% off that she got for “liking” the bar’s Facebook page, the Millennial checked in on Foursquare to get a free drink, and the teen has nothing and is too busy texting her friends to care.

Teens are a unique audience. They have their own needs and social drivers that are unique to their stage in life. Many marketers assume that, because teens are young, their needs are the same as Millennials and that they will interact with brands in the same way.

New research is showing that teens have their own needs and behaviors that are different from other generations. If you’re a marketer looking to reach teens, it’s vitally important that you always have your finger on the pulse of the teen audience. As technology evolves, teens are finding their own uses for it that are unique to their personal and social needs.

There are some myths about marketing to teens that every marketer can learn from.

Myth #1: All teens want smartphones
While it is true that teens want phones, smartphone adoption has only reached 31% as of 2010. If 90% of teens own a cell phone, why aren’t they buying smartphones? The answer is actually pretty simple: texting. Teens send an average of 3,339 texts per month, and typing that many messages on a touch screen is a lot more difficult than typing on even the most basic phone keyboard. That’s why BlackBerry is one of the most popular phones for teens.

Click here to read the rest of David’s teen marketing myths.

This article appeared as part of MediaPost’s Engage:Teens Publications. To read the original post, click here.

So here is my report not from the sidelines, but from the mud pits of Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival in Manchester, Tenn. I was only there for 36 hours of it, but had enough time to party with festival children, see some killer bands perform, participate in the festival revelry and witness some brands in action.

In my eyes, event sponsorship is all about heightening the consumer’s experience. I hope for the sake of our industry, that corporate culture has graduated from thinking signage and logo placement equates to consumer retention and interest.

The true play for a brand in the event activation space is to elevate the event goers’ experience by ultimately conveying that the brand understands what the consumer is going through. Once a brand understands and connections to the consumer’s emotional event experience, they can effectively add real value as a sponsor.

Additionally, event producers don’t have the time to offer every amenity, every perk, every nice-to-have since they are focused on the entertainment and general production needs. I’m sure every festival producer says, “That’s a great idea; maybe we’ll get to it next year.” Four years later, it’s still a great idea but hasn’t been executed. This leaves a huge opportunity for brands to elevate their activations.

A quick snapshot of Bonnaroo to properly set the stage: four days of music and mayhem on a 700-acre farm in the middle of nowhere. There is no escaping the festival grounds. The average teen I spoke with drove 8+ hours and stayed in a basic camp tent with minimal amenities. Most didn’t have a basic fan in their tent and it was insanely hot. Bonnaroo isn’t an event; it’s a cultural movement comprised of loyal adventure seekers, with approximately half of 100,000 attendees being teens and college-aged.

Click here to read more of Doug’s experience at Bonnaroo 2010, and how some brands got it right.

They are the holy grail of youth marketing; the 5-million-plus American high school students who will be leaving home for the first time this fall, building brand loyalties and buying habits that will last a lifetime.

During student orientation before my freshman year at Boston University, I signed up for a Bank of America credit card. Eighteen years later, I am still a customer — as a dad, homeowner and entrepreneur. Talk about the lifetime value of a consumer …

As students are about to leave the nest (and the influence of parental purchasing), they will have the freedom to build their own “best of” roster of preferred brands that will make this tenuous transition just a little easier. Their choices now will likely affect their loyalties for life, proving that there is no more critical time for brands to connect with consumers than that first step from adolescence to adulthood.

How can your brand seize this crucial market opportunity? Here are the top seven ways to emotionally connect with the class of 2014… right now:

#7: Facilitate connections: Most seniors are still strangers to their future roommates and classmates and have burning questions about the people and things that will shape their college experience. “What kind of music will my future roommate like?” “Where is the best place to grab late-night sushi at my new campus?” Create social connections between classmates and their new college town between now and September to get students talking early on.

#6: Talk dollars and sense: Most kids leaving high school have no clue how to balance a checkbook, apply for a credit card or even start building credit. Provide resources that educate (and make their lives easier) to build brand equity and trust.

#5: Give them the goods: Whether it is a coupon, VIP event access, or just a free slice of pizza, incoming freshman appreciate every edge they can get. If you really want to win the hearts of inbound college students, help them get the clout they need to rock those first days on campus.

#4: Help them domesticate: When mom is doing the laundry and making sure things don’t get musty, teens don’t have to think about home care. Now, it’s their turn to be the head of the household (or don of the dorm room). Show them the way, and your brand can “clean house.”

#3: Embrace school spirit: School spirit is at its peak during freshman year. Can your brand leverage the momentum of the football team, harness the heat of homecoming, or take over the tailgate? Create a national effort with local ties that tap into the power of school spirit, and your brand will never look back.

#2: Create a pipeline to the Bank Of Mom & Dad: Parents don’t know what their kids need at college, and students often don’t know how to ask for it. Brands can bridge this gap by helping students understand their needs and leveraging the growing 55+ age group presence on Facebook to ask for the right stuff in creative ways.

#1: Help them hook up: Facebook was developed to help guys and girls meet each another and hook up. Period. Incoming freshman will “like” anything that allows them to meet more members of the opposite sex. It is a premise as old as the dean, but remember: only certain brands can get away with this (and you know who you are).

This article appeared as part of MediaPost’s Engage:Teens Publications. To read the original post, click here.

No matter the budget, when brainstorming for a client the eager minds at Mr Youth always start by thinking BIG. We toss around ideas of wild, dream executions to introduce or promote a brand, imagining that money is no object. (“Let’s send one person from every single country to the 2010 World Cup!” or “Let’s build the world’s largest piñata!” –don’t laugh, it’s been done! Well, sorta.)

Typically, reality sinks in quick and we regroup to develop a program that has the same strategic and creative chutzpah our client wants, but that fits more in line with their proposed budget and timeline– to sparkling and dynamic results, no less!

Derrick Borte’s new film, The Joneses, presents a concept that sounds as far-reaching as some of our initial wild and crazy marketing ideas. Embed a fake, envy-inducing family into a wealthy, materialistic neighborhood, outfit them with all of our clients’ newest and hottest products, and get them to get their “neighbors” to want it all? GENIUS… maybe.

The concept here is compelling on a few levels. We know for a fact that consumers trust the opinion of their family, friends (and in this case, neighbors) more than any claim a company itself can make. The Joneses may have something to say about how far some brands are willing to go to get you to buy what they’re selling. Is this an example of word-of-mouth gone too far? Are you swayed by strategic product placement as much as some brands are hoping you are?

Watch the trailer and let us know:

An hour-long high school dramedy series that’s a musical? Let’s face it: Glee initially had everything going against it. Time will ultimately tell, but skeptics be damned. This year’s Golden Globe winner for Best Comedy Series turned out to be a runaway hit that has yet to lose steam as it heads into the second part of its freshman season. Above all, the show’s writing is top notch by melding a perfect blend of edgy dark humor and a lot of heart. The talent of the young cast is undeniable. And Jane Lynch turns anything into comic gold. But producers were faced with some tough challenges right from the start. How to get people to actually tune in? Enter social media and a relatively risky gamble on an aggressive interactive marketing campaign.

First of all, Fox chose to debut the pilot episode months before its actual season debut in order to capitalize on its 20+ million captive audience from American Idol. They then utilized the down time to really gain traction online by engaging with their most passionate fans (or ‘Gleeks’). Currently, @gleeks has a nearly 50,000 person following on Twitter and almost 2 million fans on Facebook. Mix that with its very own YouTube channel with exclusive content, PR-worthy appearances (Oprah!) and even nationwide mall performances. Yep, everyone’s all abuzz over the little show that could.

Blurring the line between fan and fiction even further, Glee has since launched a national casting campaign for new characters to appear on the series. Fox also recently released an interactive “hypertrailer” allowing viewers to click and “fan” the show’s cast members on Facebook, who also participate live on-air in weekly re-run episodes (or “Tweetpeats”) much like the cast commentary on today’s DVD and Blu-ray discs.

So what’s so significant about Glee’s marketing strategy, anyway? At its core, it is truly a niche show. But a very enthusiastic niche crowd at that. And Glee is giving that very core audience exactly what they want: access and interaction. At a time when studios are shuttering unauthorized playback of content and guarding creative copyrights like a fortress, this show is practically shooting it across America through a t-shirt cannon. Whether it be the show’s music content (consistently charting week after week on iTunes) or capturing that “underdog” spirit in everyone, Glee has succeeded in truly crossing all media types, including a forthcoming iPhone/iPad app. That makes it one of the very first scripted shows to actually achieve results in reaching out to a young, digital audience with significant viral success. That’s definitely a social media coup to be gleeful about. I, for one, am proud to be a Gleek. Who’s with me?

Glee resumes its season on Tuesday,  April 13 on Fox.

One company that sticks out (literally and figuratively) is Stickybits. Stickybits produces two-dimensional barcodes users can attach to any real world object. For example, take a sticker and put it on your business card, scan it with either the iPhone or Android app and upload a full PDF version of your resume to the sticker. When others scan the barcode on your business card, your resume will be at their fingertips.

This is just one example of how QR codes are changing the way we think about barcodes. Facebook is also jumping on the QR bandwagon and will be used with an upcoming version of the Facebook mobile app. Facebook is still keeping the details under wraps until April, but some predict that QR codes will be most useful for Facebook’s integration of location-based social networking. In addition, QR codes will be useful for businesses who want to engage with consumers on a deeper level.

Stayed tuned, and don’t be surprised if you start seeing QR codes everywhere. Happy scanning!

In the wake of Haiti’s massive and devastating earthquake, we’re now bearing witness to the largest text-based fundraising campaign for disaster relief to date.

Countless compassionate individuals combined with the girth of our social media world have led to an outpouring of financial and emotional support for the people of Haiti. As of Thursday morning, the American Red Cross had collected nearly $3 million in donations through text messages.

Both the American Red Cross and the Yéle Haiti Foundation have set up “text to donate” services and have asked Twitter users to text a number to make a donation, which is then added to your cell phone bill. #Text, #Help Haiti and #Yele are currently among today’s top 10 trending topics on Twitter.

Text-based donations get aid swiftly to those in need- Yéle Haiti’s technology partners Mobile Giving and Give on the Go have even waived the typical two-week waiting period to deposit the donations. As a result, Yéle Haiti says they’ll have nutrition bars, candles, blankets and flashlights on the ground in Haiti this Friday. Many text-based donation services even let you sign up for tweets to see how their donations are being spent.

These past few days have truly been a testament to the power that technology and social media hold- and as a wise man once said, “With great power comes great responsibility.”

To donate $10 to the American Red Cross’s earthquake relief efforts, text “Haiti” to 90099.

To donate $5 to Yéle Haiti, text “YELE” to 501501.