As a prelude to this interview and in the spirit of full disclosure, Becki and I have a history. She was the editor at St. Martin's Press who bought and edited my book, Totally Wired. After SMP, she moved on to work at myYearbook.com, which is a Ypulse sponsor. She emailed recently to tell me about her latest gig wading into the entrepreneurial waters. I thought Trendsta, which already has clients like Atlantic Records, Penguin Razorbill Books, Epic Records and Delia's, seemed very relevant to the Ypulse audience and agreed to do an interview….Given today's announcement from eSPIN and United Sample Partner, I found this interview even more relevant. Lots of b-to-c teen sites are looking for more revenue opportunities "beyond the banner," and I believe selling data from quizzes/surveys or offering product feedback from teen users are fast becoming a new revenue stream.

Ypulse: How did you get the idea to start Trendsta?

Becki Heller: My background is in traditional media. In the early 2000s, when I was working for Rolling Stone and MTV, it was clear that the industry was in trouble. They needed to start engaging users and opening up their content to create a dialogue with their audience. I moved to myYearbook.com where I helped to create a user generated that receives 30 million page views a month. Comparing that to Rollingstone.com that receives 2.5 million page views a month, shows me the power of allowing teens to have a voice.

After that, companies were coming to me asking how they could engage with teens. One look at their marketing budgets and it was clear that they were suffering from some of the same problems as traditional media. If there even was a substantial budget for digital marketing, this money was typically spent on homepage takeovers on social networking sites. Unidirectional marketing. It was clear that new marketing solutions were needed for a generation tuned out to advertising.

So we developed Trendsta.com, an interactive way to integrate products into teens social space online.

YP: Lots of youth marketing agencies have trendspotter panels used for qualitative research or to offer client feedback. How is Trendsta different from these types of panels?

BH: Panels are difficult because they are usually a small group of panelist in a structured environment. It's hard to get a diverse perspective this way. Even those panels that are virtual, participants are usually asked to fill out surveys. It's a very time intensive and expensive process that often delivers skewed results.

The process of engaging with Trendsta teens is almost completely automated, so we can engage ten thousand teens at once. And once teens are engaged the Trendsta system sits in the background passively observing interactions, and quietly segmenting users from within all of a teens social spaces. This ensures responses that are incredibly candid, while also highly informative.

YP: How does Trendsta incorporate word-of-mouth marketing ethics into your business? Do teens need to disclose they got free product? Can they give negative reviews?

BH: Ethics are a huge part of our community. We promote transparency at all times. We want teens to know they're not shills for a product or a company, and we need companies to be aware that all of our users are giving their honest opinion, good or bad. Our teens know there is no reward for giving good reviews. In respects to disclosure, every review posted through Trendsta or the Trendsta application goes out to all of our users networks–facebook, tumblr, twitter, etc.–with a tag that acknowledges that they received the product they're reviewing for free from Trendsta.

YP: What is the business model behind Trendsta? What do you provide for the brands who sign on?

BH: Forward-thinking brands, agencies and entertainment companies pay Trendsta on a per-agent basis to reach teens and twenty-somethings through conversational marketing campaigns. In exchange they create conversation amongst the most connected teens online, with robust reporting and analytic tools about what is being said, and the types of teens they're reaching.

YP: Can any teens/youth sign up to be trendspotters or do they have to be connected influencers?

BH: Trendsta is for the most influential teens online. We've developed an algorithm that can read into a Facebook profile and determine a person's innate influence. It's not just about how many friends they have, it's about how their friends respond to their posts. We're extending this application to Twitter and other networks soon.

YP: What lessons have you learned from your past experiences in media are you are applying to Trendsta?

BH: Publishing gave me a great deal of insight into the need for multi-platform existence. No product is an entity unto itself. Television, books, music fashion are not just products that you sell, they're platforms and if you want to survive and be successful, you have to exist in many areas at once.

Working with myYearbook.com was instrumental in teaching me the value of the user's voice within integrated marketing. Teens will never see an ad unless it engages them. That could be in the form of a game or a recommendation from their very best friend. There always needs to be something to distinguish the marketing message, setting it apart from the 3,000 messages Jupiter Research says the average teen sees a day.

For more coverage of youth marketing, go to the Ypulse Youth Marketing Channel sponsored by Youth Marketing Connection.

Categorized under: Youth Marketing

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