Teens Online - More than MySpace - Part II

The second part of a three part series regarding Teens Online and what parents need to know.

• Part I addressed an aspect of Teens Online related to the use of social networking sites and how they are being used by marketers to promote products and services.
• Part II will feature the backlash to WOM that has arisen as a result of ethical quesions surrounding campaigns like the UPN case study.
• Part III will discuss Where Teens Go Online. Where They'll Go Next. This post will identify some of the sites being used and discuss how to find the next "MySpace."

Until recently the primary focus of Teens Online in the media was "predators" as it related to those seeking to utilize teen sites to create an online relationship in order to commit crimes against them in the physical world. This very real fear resulted in much study and analysis of teen behavior online.

In summary (read below for citations), more kids are connected at higher-speeds than ever before, 3/4 of these kids have no controls when surfing (or have over ridden them), and they tend to give out too much personal information. Marketers are now targeting them in all mediums that connect to the internet (including via cell phones), because 30% of these teens are very influential with peers and family in their buying across all product categories and they get their information online primarily through word of mouth.

The explosion of Word of Mouth (WOM) as a marketing tool is most evident in the creation of WOMMA - the Word of Mouth Marketing Association. The group has offered a Code of Ethics (available here), which outlines how its member organizations will act responsibly.

Combatting the WOM practice is the National Institute on Media and the Family whose web site, MediaWise is a tool for parents to better understand and consider their children's viewing and online habits.

While the battle has been brewing for over a year (this Christian Science Monitor article provides a good overview) it seems only now to be going mainstream (or hitting a "tipping point" in marketing speak).

We now know the participants and the battlelines, its time to see where this takes place in Part III.

Citations from Above:

March 17, 2005 - Pew Internet & American Life release a report by Amanda Lenhart that featured two significant statistics (read full report-PDF, link to the source site):

• 81% of parents of online teens say that teens aren’t careful enough when giving out information about themselves online and 79% of online teens agree with this.
• 65% of all parents and 64% of all teens say that teens do things online that they wouldn’t want their parents to know about.

April 7, 2005 - Jupiter Research released a report (available for purchase) titled: "US Online Teen Media Consumer Survey, 2005 Reaching Elusive Audiences" by lead analyst David Card that was featured in his own official corporate blog. Based on this report Card reports:

• Twenty-nine percent of online teens carry a great deal of influence with both their friends and family, across a variety of product categories. These Teen Influencers are big consumers of media - both on and off-line - more responsive to advertising, and more likely to use media brands cross-media.
• Compared with adults, almost twice as many Teen Influencers cited word of mouth as the main way they find entertainment online. Adults were more likely to favor portals and newsletters. Teens spread the word among themselves, and a marketer's objective should be to assist that process.

May 3, 2005 - MediaWeek reports "Teen Cell Subs Heavy TV Users" by John Consoli. Consoli's most interesting points:

• Teenage cell phone users are also heavy users of television, computers and video games, according to a new study from MindShare Online Research.
• "Today's youngest consumers are setting the stage for the next media revolution," said Marc Goldstein, CEO of MindShare. "Mobile marketing is going to be one of the best ways to reach the next generation of leading consumers here in the U.S."
  
• Teen cell phone users are more likely than other teenagers, the survey showed, to have media and technology items in their rooms, like TVs, computers and video games.
  

Old news? Yes, by today's standard very old. And in terms of the growth of adoption of these technologies, a year is a lifetime. Expect all the statistics underlying these points to have jumped exponentially.

New news.

April 4, 2006 - Forrester Research released a report (available for sale) "One In Four Teens Breaches Parental Controls Parental Controls Can Restrict Behavior, Unless Your Teen Overrides Them" by Maribel Lopez. The key finding, as the title indicates, is:

• While 1/3 of parents indicate they've installed controls, 1/4 of children who have controls have worked around them.