Posts filed under ‘Social Networks’
This “Social Nitwitting” Stuff is a Hoot!
My mom joined me on vacation last week, and her one goal from our time together was to learn how to “Facebook better.” She sent me this cartoon via snail mail today, and as she notes, it’s indicative of our attempted Facebook lessons. I’m incredibly proud of her for wanting to keep up with technology and working to utilize Facebook. Susan knows it has lots to offer her, but lots of what? The day before she left, Susan asked me, “but why would I want to look at Facebook every day?” and knew that I had failed as her personal ‘net instructor. Our contrasting perspectives on social networking’s value and relevance mirror many parent/child and teacher/student approaches to social media tools: the young folks want it and the old folks don’t quite get it. [Disclaimer: this is a sweeping generalization, but not totally off target.]
At OneSeventeen Media, we’re excited to build the bridge in homes, classrooms and youth organizations between tech savvy kids and the important adults in their lives. We know that our interactive tools can improve the lives of kids and their relationships and communications with adult role models.
(Imaged clipped from the San Antonio Express News)
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Making the Most of Ypulse Mashup 2009
By Amy Looper, OneSeventeen Media Co-Founder
This year’s 2009 Ypulse Youth Marketing Mashup conference was another winner and maybe even the strongest lineup yet. It was good to catch up with old friends and to make new ones. For those of you who may be new to OneSeventeen Media, this is one of our very favorite conferences because Anastsia Goodstein, Ypulse Founder, does such a fantastic job bringing in top brand, corporate and social marketers, media professionals, non-profits and educators together to share the latest best practices, research and the strategies on marketing to youth with technology.
For OneSeventeen Media’s focus, the following were particularly relevant highlights:
- Social networks continue to be an important place for youth to accomplish social good and engage around current events. Interestingly enough, C&R research presented that environmental issues were no longer the number one issue among youth, their research shows it was youth oriented issues like education and child poverty as number one, cancer was number two, then followed the environment in the number 3 slot.
- I think the big shocker was learning from Bill Carter’s presentation on Fuse Marketing’s latest research, that teens still read magazines! In fact, it was the second most effective rated medium to reach teens, and TV isn’t off their radar either! Several girls on the youth panels mentioned they like to read Seventeen Magazine, and they do pay attention to ads. However, when they see an ad of interest they will go to the web to do research and then make any purchases from there. 75% of teens believe it’s appropriate for brands to reach them via TV ads. The bottom line? It’s imperative to have go-to-market strategies that fully integrate all available platforms youth utilize. The underlying theme here was to have an authentic, value-providing story that your youth market can relate to.
- Facebook’s faceoff with Twitter continues. While it’s been widely reported that youth have been slow to adopt Twitter, the youth panelist were somewhat divided on which was a better marketing tool. Of note, none of them mentioned MySpace. Facebook fans liked the ability to create a community around your brand ie: through a fan page and or group, while the other panelist opted for Twitter because it was the best way to monitor your brand as well as insert yourself into a relevant conversation with others about your brand. It’s important to remember these young panelists are still a bit older than our market, but trends with the older youth trickle down to younger kids over time — something for us to watch for.
- Last, but definitely not least, Don Tapscott’s keynote presentation was brilliant, and Guy Kawasaki’s masterful moderation of the Youth Entrepreneurs panel was fantastic! These young entrepreneurs are fearless and had many valuable insights to share. You can read more about what others are saying about their conference experiences on the Ypulse site.
Job well done Anastasia and team!
(Pictured above: Guy Kawasaki and the Youth Entrepreneurs panel in action)
Making Social Media Relevant to Learning
From ReadWriteWeb:
“Teachers are always trying to combat student apathy and University of Texas at Dallas History Professor, Monica Rankin, has found an interesting way to do it using Twitter in the classroom. Rankin uses a weekly hashtag to organize comments, questions and feedback posted by students to Twitter during class.”
(Be sure to watch the video to get a feel for how this works.)
I applaud Rankin for her visionary thinking and willingness to dive into social media! Her experiment exemplifies not only her willingness to innovate, but her understanding that lesson delivery must be relevant and engaging for 21st century kids. Twitter is a tool that many educators wrestle with to make useful in classroom settings, and Rankin has worked out a way to make Twitter applicable to academic life.
Through our PlumbBrain Micro-Communities we’re excited about the many ways we can social networking and other social media tools relevant and useful to schools — students, teachers and parents.
Research Reinforces Social Media Key to Reach Kids
Forty-two percent of teens use social networks daily. This statistic, and a slew of other useful ones, come from the most recent presentations released by the Pew Internet & American Life Project: Teens and Social Media (pictured above), Social Network Usage in Teens vs. Adults and Cyberbullying. Check them out; they tell us the teens + tweens continue to increase in their interactive connectivity. EMarketer also shares that 15 million teens + tweens are going to be in virtual worlds by 2013. To reach kids parents, organizations and companies have to meet them where they are — in social media!
Also, Danah Boyd makes a case for why teachers should be able to connect with students in digital spaces saying,
“Most of what teachers hear from students outside of the classroom might be answerable by students’ parents if only youth felt comfortable asking them. Teachers get asked about learning in general (e.g., “Why should I care about Shakespeare anyhow?”). They get asked health and sex-ed questions (e.g., “When will I get my period?”). They get asked for relationship advice (e.g., “How do I ask Alex to go to prom with me?”). They get asked about the future (e.g., “How do I get into college?”). Teachers get asked about the serious and the mundane, the personal and the abstract. But most of it has nothing to do with harm or abuse. Youth turn to teachers because they trust them, because they need advice from an adult and because they think that a trusted teacher might be honest with them. While some teens have other adults they can turn to, this isn’t the case for all teens. And for those teens in particular, it’s absolutely crucial that teachers are able to be there.”
As someone who has had valuable interactions with my own students through social media, I agree with Danah. Unfortunately, there are kids who also don’t feel like they can talk to their parents or teachers. We’re excited to provide a safe space for these kids to come to find accurate information about the big deals and little deals in their everyday lives.
$1Billion Annual Spending on Virtual Currencies
“Castronova says people transfer at least $1 billion into the virtual currencies each year, with most of that money going into online games. The actual amount could be much higher, he said, but the market is hard to quantify.” — John D. Sutter, CNN
Virtual currencies are a popular feature of many online gaming and networking sites, but even I was surprised at the amount of annual spending devoted to virtual currencies as disclosed by CNN. If you’re new to the social media space, the article also provides a strong overview on the traditional features of virtual currencies on many sites. Virtual currency utilization is not a primary revenue means for most sites, however the $1Billion+ in annual spending validates that youth and adults are willing to spend their real-life-dollars for virtual products and services.
(Image found here)
Social Media Helps Lost Dog Find His Way Home
I loved this story from my friends Nathan and Leslie Sigler that appeared in my Facebook news feed today.
This is a practical example of the usefulness of social media and creative problem solving. Leslie knows the power of social media first hand as a blogger and graphic artist, so she and Nathan made a smart call to promptly turn to their social media resources! So often the social media stories that make headlines revolve around sensationalized security threats or scandalous celebrity postings; however everyday kids and adults are utilizing social media to do the right thing all the time. At OneSeventeen Media we believe in the power of social media to “do good.” Kids deserve an online space to interact with one another, discover relevant content and navigate their lives, while expanding the personal impact by choosing to engage for social good.
And who doesn’t love a story about a lost dog making it home? Thanks to Nathan and Leslie for sharing their experience!
Join Us at the Ypulse Youth Marketing Mashup
Ypulse Youth Marketing Mashups are conferences hosted by our friend Anastasia Goodstein, the editor of Ypulse.com, a favorite source of daily coverage of the social and digital trends that define today’s totally wired young people and marketing in the youth space. This year’s national conference, June 1-2 in San Francisco, brings together a diverse mix of brand, corporate and social marketers, media pros, educators and youth advocates. The event is about marketing to tweens, teens and young adults with technology and about understanding and communicating with youth ethically—and in ways that add value to their lives.
We’ll be there, and hope many of you are able to join us! Visit www.mashup.ypulse.com for the details, full speaker lineup, and to register. Anastasia has given us a special 10 % discount code for the OneSeventeen Media community: 117MEDIA.
This year, an (Un)Conference: Tweens Online: Balancing Safety and Fun will precede the main event on Sunday afternoon and Mashup itself will kick off Monday morning with three pre-conference sessions:
- Youth Marketing Boot Camp for fresh insights about teens and the new relationship between young consumers and their technology.
- Urban/Multicultural Mashup features some of the real stars of this space, trend presentations, sessions on mobile and pro-social partnerships and more.
- Ypulse Campus Case Study Slam for insights from lots of pros in the trenches of college campuses, including one dean of admissions in addition to marketers from MySpace Records and Levi Strauss!
Here are just a few of the speakers who will be offering insights into the Digital Generation at the main conference, which starts after lunch (on our own), and continues through Tuesday (when lunch is actually part of lively, user-generated roundtable discussions):
- Don Tapscott, the author of Grown Up Digital, on how this generation is changing the world and its institutions.
- Josh Shipp, a renowned speaker on youth issues who channels his talent for empowering young people into Hey Josh.com, on what teens care about.
- Donna Fenn, who has been interviewing young entrepreneurs over the past two years for her book Upstarts! How the Entrepreneurial Generation is Rocking the World of Business.
- David Brind and Adam Salky, the screenwriter and director of “DARE,” on site for a Q&A after an exclusive screening of this 2009 Sundance Film Festival hit!
- Greg Clayman, Executive Vice President of Digital Distribution and Business Development, MTV Networks.
- Executives from Disney, covering best practices for user-generated campaigns.
- Kit Yarrow, co-author of Gen BuY: How Tweens, Teens and 20-Somethings are Revolutionizing Retail.
- A Youth Panel, ages 13 to 24, rating brand campaigns—and offering feedback on our own youth initiatives!
- Guy Kawasaki, interacting with a another panel of Youth Entrepreneurs.
- Adam Aberman, director of digital strategy at Ashoka’s Youth Venture, and Best Buy’s Tim Showalter-Loch, talking about a very successful pro-social campaign.
- Daryl Butler, who directs retail brand marketing at Nike, on keeping youth marketing simple.
- Bill Carter of Fuse, on cutting spending without losing marketing impact.
We hope to meet some of you in San Francisco! ( Check out the impressive list of 2007-2008 Mashup attendees!)
15.5 Million Youth Using Social Networks
In 2009, 15.5 million 12-17-year-olds will use social networks according to eMarketer, and this number is expected to grow to 17.9 million by 2013. While youth reported the majority of their social networking time is spent connecting with friends, those experiences aren’t always positive:
Over 60% of those surveyed acknowledged that the things friends wrote in their profiles could harm their careers. In addition, 48% said they could be embarrassed by what they themselves wrote, and 38% said they regretted some of the items that had appeared on their pages already.
The youth market is ripe for PlumbBrain, where we can provide tools to help kids navigate the complications of growing up online.
(Image found here)
More Honors Kids In India Than Students in US
A friend shared this with me on Facebook this morning, and it was another great reminder that we have to get kids the online tools they need now. Compared to our global counterparts, the United States is slow to innovate. Kids across the country need the social emotional tools we can provide in the online context they thrive in, today – not five years from now.
Police Use Social Media: Break Barriers, Build Trust
Posted by Amy Looper, Co-Founder & Chief Engagement Officer
I saw last week where Facebook’s membership is now 200 million strong, but what caught my eye as I read through Mark Zuckerberg’s post was where they have created a space for people to share their stories of how Facebook has “helped them give back to their communities [and] effect change.” The story of a Toronto Constable Scott Mills, who is using new media to prevent as well as solve crimes among youth, is a particularly a worthy read.
The story was originally reported in the Montreal Gazette and pointed out that at a recent South African Interpol Conference, 170 law enforcement delegates from 70 countries gathered to talk about tracking international fugitives. Constable Scott Mills presented how he is using social media tools and his 1,700 Facebook “friends” to reach out to youth and to encourage them to report potential crimes before they happen.
It’s working. Among a number of successes listed in the article, it was reported that his YouTube video appeals have had more than 1.4 million views since February of 2007. He has trained an additional 30 officers assigned to Toronto schools on how to use new media to engage teens. He’s also joined online memorial groups for murder victims offering condolences as well as contact information to send anonymous tips.
This is a huge “doing good” story that I’d love to see replicated here in the States. It’s reaching out in a way that meets kids in their technology based culture to provide a bridge for them to do the right things as well.
We’d like to hear your stories of kids who you know that are doing good with social media.
(Image found here)
