I've got my eye on the marketing industry to students... but I have a little help. This world of marketing to teens, tweens and Gen Y constantly changes and its hard to keep up. One of the best decisions I made over a year ago was tapping Y-Pulse for insight. Daily I receive updates from this mainstream publication in my inbox... and it consistently provides some helpful insight into my audience.

Recently Y-Pulse's editor shared "10 Free Resources every Youth Marketer Should be Using." If you work with students you'll find some of these very helpful and will want to bookmark them. I'm including the list (with her comments) in this post for quick reference:

1. MTV News Whatever your thoughts are on the relevance of MTV, the channel invests heavily in researching their demographic and knowing what teens (collective) want. Reading MTV News online is basically reading headlines handpicked by editors who are deciding what entertainment news is most relevant to their audience. It's worth checking on a daily basis. You can also sign up for MTV Sticky, a free trend email from MTV's research department.

2. Cynopsis Kids - If you're trying to reach tweens and want to stay on top of the latest news in licensing, kids/tween TV and movies, this daily newsletter is a must read.

3. TrendCentral- Yes, they are an advertiser. You can go to the site or sign up for their newsletter.

4. My High School Journalism Obviously this site is dead during the summer months when school's out, but this fall you should definitely check in on a weekly basis. This is the gateway to loads of high school newspaper websites and a way to see what teens think are important issues both at their school and in the world.

5. Next Great Thing Youth. Mobile. Trends. Fleishman's blog description says it all. They do nice roundups of youth oriented mobile links along with more in-depth posts on what's happening in this space.

6. Trends & Tudes - Harris Interactive (a sponsor of Ypulse Research) has a monthly e-newsletter that highlights research they've done for their clients. They don't just offer numbers but always offer insights you can pull from the research, whether it's on bullying at school or college students today.

7. The Pew Internet & American Life Project - Pew produces free reports on how teens are using the internet. Every one is a free goldmine of information.

8. CNET/Digital Kids Coverage This used to be a blog but now is a way to search CNET News for all of their youth and technology oriented stories and posts.

9. Danah Boyd's Research Danah is one of the few academics who consciously strives to make as much of her research free and available online. Not only that, it's required reading if you're focused on youth and social media.

10. Youth Media Exchange If you are interested in social change and want to know what young people all over the world are concerned about, YME is a great resource and a truly international youth activism site. Worth checking to get a global pulse of what youth activists are thinking (and doing) around the world. Also a great resource for corporations looking to partner or create global pro-social campaigns.

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