On June 8,  High Road hit up Strategy’s Understanding Youth conference – a wonderful event aimed at educating marketers about the trends that are shaping the behaviour of tweens and teens.

With 10 per cent of Canada’s population being under 20, making meaningful connections with youth is a huge part of what the High Road team does for our diverse roster of clients.

The conference featured some great speakers that spanned a range of topics, such as engaging and motivating youth through gamification and the power of storytelling. The speakers also provided a great snapshot of current trends, and highlighted some fabulous case studies.

We all know that the youth demographic is a powerful group. The message that echoed throughout the conference was that the youth focus and priorities are sometimes different than that of the average PR or marketing team trying to captivate them.

With that in mind, here are some key considerations for marketers trying to get the youth vote:

• Get in the game: We’ve seen increasing instances of gamification – the integration of game dynamics into campaigns is a fantastic way to drive participation and interest. If you’re prepared to go one step further and offer real-life rewards, all the better.

• Transmedia storytelling: Don’t just share your brand’s story across multiple platforms and formats, give your audience an experiential marketing moment that will encourage them to share the story with their peers. Make the story entertaining!

• Talk to your audience, not at them: Marketing is a conversation. Engage with your audience. Ask them what they think. Respond.

• Know when it’s time to let go: With social media sites like Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, more and more it is the consumer that owns the brand – and in many cases it is the active, online youth audience.  Youth are talking about your brand whether you like it or not, it’s up to you whether or not you want to join the conversation.