In a fractured world where people are separated by distance, suburban sprawl, overstuffed calendars, experiencing the banalities of everyday life is something to cherish. what time they feed their cats, that they hate their new rain boots, that they feel naked without their cell phone. You come to know little details that make you feel close, e.g.
Readers sign up to “follow” people’s Twitter streams and can bask in the ordinary details of people’s lives.Īt first glance the site seems choc-full of meaningless, well, Twitter, but there is a positive, cumulative effect from being privy to your friends’ ordinary thoughts.
Twitter is a phenomenon that spawned a new category of communication: “micro-blogging.” It is a global blogging community where users post the minutia of their life from their cell phone, IM or directly on the website in the form of 140-character blog updates. Savvy marketers who get it will strive to develop content that contributes to and enhances the core purpose of the site: facilitating teens meeting and flirting with other teens. Currently, under a tab called “Girls Only,” there are listings and information about CosmoGIRL, Seventeen and Teen magazines. Marketers can sponsor special “tabs” in the site, incorporating product messages into content. As with almost all teen sites, there is a ranking component (rank pix and profiles) and IM compatibility. The site boasts lots of fun personality quizzes (what is your flirting style? what kind of sexy are you?), astrology charts/matchmaking, and tools and widgets that help young people get to know and understand themselves and each other. Users can click on any of the five people to view their profile and send them a note, or keep spinning, seeing five new people each time. Users log on, create a profile, and then click “Spin bottle.” Five different profiles come up, matched by various compatibility measures from the profiles.
#ICONATOR COM MOVIE#
A particularly good example of contributing content is a current promotion for the movie “Hairspray” in which avatars based on characters from the film are available for download.Īn online dating site for teens and college students built around the oldest flirtation device in the book: spin-the-bottle. For instance, clothing brands can create digital versions of their fashions to fill teens’ virtual closets. Savvy brand advertisers participating in this world can become a part of that online trading ground by providing relevant content to enhance self-expression. Avatars are another useful tool in the process of exploring and expressing the “self.”
#ICONATOR COM HOW TO#
The teenage life stage is about figuring out who you are, what you care about, and how to communicate these things to the world. A recent art book by Robbie Cooper, Alter Ego: Avatars and their Creators, shows photographs of people next to screen grabs of their avatars the subjects split between accurate and fantastical selves.
An avatar can closely resemble one’s personal appearance, or, more popularly, can be a fantasy creation of an idealized self. Teens can craft digital identities for themselves and outfit their “mini-me’s” in replicas of high fashion labels or clever t-shirts. Dollwizard, while not the only avatar making site (see, Dressupgames, ), is the largest community of customizable avatar creators on the web. What follows are 10 up-and-coming websites that reflect the teenage mindset and interests, with examples of how marketers are participating.Īvatars are dolls for the digital age…with slightly less gender baggage attached. Teenagers care about self-expression, exploring their identity, honing their personal taste, connecting romantically with other teens, and being amused by silly, scatological, hyper-hormonal comedy. So how do you engage this finicky, aloof, but potentially lucrative audience? The answer is by understanding their passions and discovering for your brand to contribute to these passions in a meaningful way. We all know today’s teens are media-savvy and defensive about being “marketed at.” But a brand’s got to make a living.
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