Youth Marketing Strategy Event - some highlights from my day of live tweeting

I was asked to run the @youthstrategy Twitter account on April 16th. So I was there, all day, tweeting away, and listening to awesome speakers talk about how brands can more effectively market to young people – kids, teens, students, young adults. I also wrote this post about live tweeting which will help anyone else who plans to be doing live tweeting at an event. You can read that here.
But for this post I wanted to share some interesting stats which I hope you will find fascinating!

My takeaways from the event

Every one knows that young people have been brought up in a world full of digital distractions. It’s a challenge for brands to keep them “brand loyal” – but this challenge has meant that brands are being ever more creative with their marketing, which makes us all realise we need to up our game
Matt Smith from Rough Hill explained that young people don’t fit into the stereotype of “irresponsible – the world handed to them on a plate and they dont appreciate it” but they are far more self reliant, mature and accepting of others. There is a lack of trust in institutions and brands so the key aim is to win trust.
One of my favourite speakers of the event was Joeri Van den Bergh – Co-founder and Gen Y Expert at InSites Consulting. His talk was a brilliant finisher and he shared lots of videos (see them at the bottom of this post).
My favourite slide was the one pictured above. It’s Buddha and on his chest it says “Work Hard” and on his belly it says “and Be Nice to People” and he is holding a sign that says “Play Ping Pong”. This slide came from Mark Runacus (from Karmarama‘s) speech on big data.

The top people tweeting were

More stats from the day

Number of followers of the @youthstrategy account before: 1777.
Number of followers now: 1840
Number of RTs we got on the day: 30
How many pictures were taken at the event and shared on Twitter – 27

Top Tweets

Isn’t this cool? I can embed tweets straight into a blog post. Here are some of my favourite tweets from the day.

#YMS13 Clint! @Archrival ‘Gen Y are time stressed, life hacking & life tracking’

— Unite News (@UNITEGroup) April 16, 2013

First time I am preaching #coolbrands in the right setting #yms13 #geny #millennials #london twitter.com/Joeri_InSites/…
— Joeri Van den Bergh (@Joeri_InSites) April 16, 2013

Top things new students say they can’t do without. Mobile phone, alcohol, laptop, food and paracetamol #YMS13
— Karen Fewell (@DigitalBlonde) April 16, 2013

Loved @Joeri_InSites‘s talk at #YMS13 – lots of escalators. Lucky he gave us this conclusion slide! pic.twitter.com/pLJB0oRyPA
— Keren Lerner (@topleftdesign) April 16, 2013

Hear from the youth directly at #yms13 : Truth 1 – not all youth are depressed. twitter.com/sharinamutreja…
— Sharina Mutreja (@sharinamutreja) April 16, 2013

Thanks @youthstrategy for a great #yms13 Really is THE #youthmarkeitng event for trends, insights and connections. Will be back for #yms14!
— William Harris (@williammrharris) April 16, 2013