Ypulse Youth Site Profile: Girls Inc. Online

Ed. Note: Today we welcome our newest Ypulse contributing editor: Jolene Turner, a freelance writer with a strong background in the tween space. Learn more from her bio and watch for her upcoming coverage on tween trends, teen retail trends and more.

Ypulse Youth Site Profile: Girls Inc. Online

It’s all about the joy of being a girl and making things happen at Girls Inc Online, a girls-only member-based interactive online community designed to promote self-awareness, hobby development, setting and reaching goals, celebrating the wonder of being a girl, and showing the importance of girls supporting girls. An offshoot of the nonprofit Girls Inc., the message of the organization is loud and clear, as displayed on the home page:  “Girls get a lot of negative messages telling them they can’t do things or should look and behave in certain ways just because they’re girls. Girls Inc. is there to remind girls that this is just…well, nonsense.” Here are our early impressions…

What it is: Girls Inc. Online is the online community established by Girls Inc., a 146-year-old nonprofit organization created to inspire girls to be strong, smart, and bold and has been built through a network of local organizations in the United States and Canada. Girls Inc. offers after-school programs that provide girls the knowledge, skills, and attitude to, as the organization says, “challenge the gender stereotypes that are often forced upon them by society.”

Who it’s for: The online community of articles, videos, and activities is dedicated to “all girls.” For full use of the site, the creators encourage the girls to sign up for a free and safe membership (activities are unavailable to non members.) Online member-only activities include creating a personal avatar; typing in an online status update; choosing from hundreds of goals to set, track, and share with the Girls Inc. Online community and the girl’s own personal network of family and friends; and cheering on other members as they reach their goals.

The community site also offers education and career planning resources, and articles and videos by and/or are about girls and women talking about the goals they have achieved. According to the Girls Inc. website, the overall Girls Inc. community consists of more than 900,000 girls.

What works: Certainly chock full of resources and tons of videos telling girls they can be all the can be, the only results surely would be positive. Also, the huge list of goals points out specifically what girls can do. Not only can this large list encourage that these things can be done, but it can also introduce girls to new ideas and activities they may have never heard of or thought of before. This helps in expanding the mind to achieve anything, but also expands the imagination with such fun, but not totally crazy, ideas as “visit another planet someday.’

Further, the video topics and types of people interviewed run the gamut and show girls and women of all shapes, sizes, and interest levels—it’s evident that most all types of women/girls has been covered. That said though, it is still very clear throughout the site that the most important thing for a girl to be is just simply ‘herself.’

A special section just for parents also outlines how safe Girls Inc Online is for girls. While girls are encouraged to ‘cheer on’ other girls in achieving their goals, to keep all members safe, the site does not offer chat or messaging options among members, and no free-form text can be posted without the prior moderation and approval of trained Girls Inc. staff members.

The only information required for sign-up is the girl’s first name, email address, and birth date. Parental permission via email is required for girls 13 years and younger.

Challenges: The site isn’t super user-friendly and is a bit confusing. Once you are signed up it is unclear how to first navigate. Also, it doesn’t feel as if you virtually ‘stepped’ inside a new and/or exclusive community. The site is as bland as the original home page that was encouraging membership, and, while younger eyes might have a different opinion, the blinking avatars all over the pages made it seem cluttered, and even spammy .

About Jolene

Jolene Turner is a freelance writer with a strong background writing for the gift, retail, and home decor industries. She spent three years working as an associate editor for the trade journal Giftware News and most recently as a contributing editor for Gift and Home Interactive. In her position at Giftware News she served as the expert in the markets of kids, tweens, and teens, focusing on their trends in retail decisions and products designed to cater to their wants and markets. She was also a trend specialist specializing in stationery market trends of tweens for the National Stationery Show held annually in New York City.