Tapping Into Teens: Strategies for Building an Online Community

…A Division of Tapping Into Teens: Strategies for Building an Online Community Kevin Lonnie – President / KL Communications, Inc. March 27, 2007 – Youth Marketing Mega Event

A Two Part Story PREMISE: • You’re looking to build or augment a proprietary community of young folks • Part One • Recruiting who we want • Part Two • Keeping them

THE PROBLEM DATA QUALITY • Reaching the elusive teen • Lead crazy, multi-tasked lives • How do you get them to join an ongoing community? • Where do you find these people?

THE CHALLENGE Online Recruitment • Finding teens in their native online habitats • Social networking sites: Facebook, YouTube, MySpace • Music websites: iTunes, Pandora, ???

THE CHALLENGE Are we speaking to who we think we are? • Impostor is a digital Proteus who changes his persona whenever it suits his purposes. • That 21 year old co-ed from Arizona State you met in a discussion forum may, in fact, be a retired steel worker from Pittsburgh. • Impostor will claim to be black, white, rich, poor, young, old, straight or gay. • Impostor's requisite imagination and good writing skills can make him a formidable enemy. • Once uncovered, Impostor always flees the field, but he may return in another form - you just never know...

THE BRILLIANT SOLUTION • We would recruit them in person and immediately offer them money to join our community • This way, instead of us being down here and the kids being up there • We’d wind up on the same page

THE BRILLIANT SOLUTION • It was a brilliant plan, we were already working on our acceptance speech for the online research awards, but there was just one nagging detail… • It Didn’t Work!!! • Hokey Smokes! What went wrong??? • Now What Do We Do???

THE BRILLIANT SOLUTION Take 2

THE BRILLIANT SOLUTION Take 2 • Recruit them directly, but in a more appropriate venue, like events, concerts • Weed out mercenaries • Got out of survey mode, went into full blown recruitment mode • Visually screened and recruited as many folks as possible • Minimal incentive at time of recruitment • Incentive would be administered online after completion of registration/profiler survey

Direct Recruitment • So we went to a music festival to recruit teens • Toms River Fest in New Jersey met our target demographic • We set up a booth at the festival so we could recruit new members directly • Also allowed us to recruit kids under the age of 13 as long as they were accompanied by a parent

THE PORTAL CONCEPT • Appeal to their desire to “connect” • Supporting a cause: tap into teen activism and volunteerism • Tie the incentive to something that was earned and not just handed out

2006 Music Festival A Few of The Members We Recruited . . .

2006 Music Festival A Few of The Members We Recruited This Time . . .

2006 Music Festival Who We Recruited

2006 Music Festival • Advantages of On-Site Recruiting • Establish a personal connection with panel members

2006 Music Festival • Advantages of On-Site Recruiting • Establish a personal connection with panel members • Introduce an element of excitement and buzz

2006 Music Festival • Advantages of On-Site Recruiting • Establish a personal connection with panel members • Introduce an element of excitement and buzz • Control sample quality

2006 Music Festival • Advantages of On-Site Recruiting • Establish a personal connection with panel members • Introduce an element of excitement and buzz • Control sample quality • Ability to videotape live interviews with new members

2006 Music Festival • Advantages of On-Site Recruiting “How do you listen to music?”

2006 Music Festival • Pitfalls of On-Site Recruiting – lessons learned the hard way • Keep the survey short and on-point

2006 Music Festival • Pitfalls of On-Site Recruiting – lessons learned the hard way • Keep the survey short and on-point • It’s not about the incentive – it’s about joining the panel (practicing delayed gratification)

2006 Music Festival • Pitfalls of On-Site Recruiting – lessons learned the hard way • Keep the survey short and on-point • It’s not about the incentive – it’s about joining the panel (practicing delayed gratification) • Tie motivation to more altruistic values (e.g. environment, volunteerism, CONNECTING) and stay away from mercenary motivations.

We Got ThemNow How Do We Keep Them? • At the end of the recruitment process, respondents were asked why they decided to join • Cash, gifts, opinions of their peers? • This allowed us to customize our Welcome Letter, immediately elevating our relationship

We Got ThemNow How Do We Keep Them? How teens communicate seems to change radically every 6 to 12 months, so I had a crazy proposition: • When creating online communities with teens, let them run the asylum • Design the look and feel of the community • Let them establish the rules of engagement • Choose topics areas, etc.

We Got ThemNow How Do We Keep Them? • All the top teen web destinations are based on Web 2.0 interactivity • My Yahoo, My Space, YouTube, etc. • Any teen community, even one for market research purposes needs to understand content & personal interactivity are king • Allowing for customization • Keeping it liquid

We Built Our Teen CommunityNow How Do We Use It? • A “Web on the Web” • A spider reacts to the slightest vibration on its web • We wanted the community to provide vision as well as act as a sounding board • Typical panels are “reactive” • We needed to better anticipate interest in new distribution & technology concepts • Identify Opportunities before your competitors • Sniff out new ideas/trends before your company would ever think of asking about it in a conventional survey

Final Chord • An electronic copy of this presentation is available on the KLC website: • www.klcom.com

Tapping Into Teens: Strategies for Building an Online Community