YPULSE: Youth and Millennial Marketing

Originally posted on Special Project Library Action Team's blog, but I figured I'd share my thoughts here as well =D

I’m all about stealing other people’s great ideas (which is why Creative Commons is such a great idea for me hehe). Now my boss (the awesome Karen Yother) likes to refer to it as “not reinventing the wheel,” and others comment, “that everyone remixes used ideas.” Either way, this week’s post is thanks to (the also awesome) Nick Grove, who mentioned YPULSE to me at our last quarterly SPLAT meeting.

YPULSE offers a wide range of resources aimed at understanding the trends and attitudes of tweens, teens, and young adults. Through a Youth Advisory Board, an online research panel, and a mobile social Q&A network, YPULSE offers content, data, and insight on the next generation of consumers. Now this kind of market research doesn’t come cheap, which is why the silver and gold subscriptions will cost you a pretty penny per month. But, they also have a bronze subscription (which only costs you an email subscription) that gets you a couple of features worth mentioning.

One such feature is the Daily Email Newsletter, that sums up the latest youth marketing news. The YPULSE infographics, articles, and detailed data are kept hidden for silver and gold members. But, there are many articles that reference third party sources you can check out at your convenience, and a small synopsis of each of the YPULSE features are still included to give you an idea. The Email Update also shows the results of a daily poll featuring questions on social media, music, and movies, and you can even ask one question of your own per month.

Now I’ve only been getting the YPULSE newsletter for a couple weeks now, but there have already been a few tidbits I’ve found interesting. Did you know that Sup is a new app wanting to duke it out with Snapchat, Push for Pizza is an app that will order you a pizza with one push on your screen, and that a writer for Vulture thinks Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles takes itself too seriously? Obviously these things aren’t library breaking revelations. But offering events and services for this age group is integral to continued library success and if someone is offering some free tidbits, my question is where do I sign up (and if you have any ideas worth stealing, which I know you do, feel free to send them my way!).