YPulse's Anastasia Goodstein has published a useful guide on The School Library Journal on how social media, including social networking sites and virtual worlds, are essential in understanding how to attract the attention of teens and ‘tweens.

Along with her suggestions, Goodstein provides examples of working models that’ve successfully captured a sizable teen and ‘tween audience. Her advice includes providing byte-sized entertainment, encouraging user participation so users feel they have a part in content and products, and supporting causes that kids are passionate about.

“Boys and girls, and teens and tweens use the Internet differently—and you’ll want to tweak your strategy to take advantage of those differences,” explains Goodstein, encouraging marketers to know their audience. “Teenage boys, for example, create and upload more videos onto sites like YouTube. But girls spend more time designing, decorating, blogging, commenting, and communicating on social networking sites.”

She continues: “Tweens tend to view the Internet as one big playground, and they love to play games like Runescape or casual memory games in virtual worlds like Club Penguin. While there’s a certain amount of social interaction on younger kids’ sites, like Webkinz, the exchanges are less frequent and much more controlled and monitored than on those for older kids.”