What do we know about teens anyway?

God's amazing understanding of us
Philippians 4:4-7 says: "Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."

God understands us more deeply than we can possibly imagine. Have you ever truly thought about how much Christ loves us? I don't think our human brains can even come close to understanding the true awesomeness of Jesus Christ. He gets us, knows our hearts and knows how to reach us on a meaningful level. So how does this relate to the way we should approach our much maligned and often misunderstood audience - teens?

Tuning in
Attracting students to Taylor via online communications requires a focus on the needs of the audience and a deep understanding of their needs. Let's face it, most of us don't truly understand the exact best route to reach out to teens. We need to tune into their needs, understand them, and try to anticipate their needs. There is some compelling research out there that gives us a close idea of where teens prefer to get their information and how they perceive to receive it.

Recently, I was involved in a white paper study performed by Ball State University on this specific topic. The study discussed where are teens getting their information and how can we best reach them?

The key findings about teens
1. Teens are into all things digital: despite the waning popularity of email for personal communication, the vast majority of Teens do use email.

2. Their use of IM, text messaging, and participation in social networking is significantly more than any other group.

3. The research shows that 77% use IM (64% more than other groups), 76% participate in social networking sites (more than twice the average), and 70% text message (67% higher than average).

4. 42% of Teens prefer text messaging for personal communication, 27% still prefer email for personal communication, 16% prefer IM, and 8% communicate through social networking sites.

5. A small pilot study of teen media exposure by the Center for Media Design suggested some of these preferences are gender-based, with female teens spending more time on email and males spending more time with IM.

6. Teens are also the only group where personal blogs are commonly used as a preferred mode of personal communication. Preferences for text messaging and social networking are more common among females, while preferences for email and IM are more common among males.

Marketing Preferences from the study
1. Teens are 25% less likely than other groups to have made a purchase online (which makes sense since they are less likely to have disposable income).

2. Today, we often hear that Teens are less likely to be influenced by email to make a purchase and more likely to be influenced by text messaging.

What Taylor should do with this information
First things first, this does not mean Taylor should launch a campaign over IM and every social network to get teens to interact, rather all of this needs to be placed into proper perspective.

6 thoughts to consider:
1. Taylor should have social sharing easily seen on the site.

2. Instant messaging live chat should be a part of the Taylor perspective student experience.

3. The blogs should be clearly visible and be conversational in nature.

4. The site should be "i-pod" friendly - usability and ease of use is huge with this audience and single-click interaction is a required philosophy.

5. Offer multiple channels of communication for perspective students.

6. Email is still a very strong strategy - these other strategies should not replace this fact, rather offer additional avenues of communication and interaction.