e-Market Paper

CJN - 771

e-Market Paper

Lacey Mikoluk 12/9/2008

When it comes to the Internet, teen age girls have a high interest in social sites, search, gossip, portals and shopping, according to e-Marketer’s November 19, 2008 newsletter. While teenage boys have similar interests with the exception of shopping, teenage girls form more attachments to sites early on than do boys. Furthermore, in an article written for Pew Internet & American Life Project, it was found that teenage girls interact online more so than boys by posting blogs and photos online.

In researching popular Web sites for this target market, I found Web sites catered to teenage girls to be quite interesting. Focusing my research on two sites, www.beinggirl.com and www.gurl.com, I found they greatly cater to the wants and desires of teenage girls.

Beinggirl.com and Gurl.com fully accommodate the wants and needs of teenage girls. They touch upon topics that girls are interested in and deal with on a daily basis. They both discuss going through puberty and having periods, they talk about fashion and boys and relationships. One site however, Gurl.com, discusses more openly issues about sex while at the same time educating on safe sex and answering questions on the topic. Beinggirl.com does talk about sex however not as blatantly as Gurl.com. In regards to this difference, Gurl.com caters to older teen girls, ages 15-18 while Beinggirl.com caters to younger teen girls, ages 13-16.

Not only that, but Gurl.com offers articles and education on difficult issues in their section Fast Facts. Here girls can find information on anything from STD’s, sex, abortion, sexuality, depression, psychological disorders, plastic surgery, voting, human trafficking and much more. Beinggirl.com steers clear of such topics and keeps the atmosphere light with articles about beauty and style, health, relationships, boys, and body image and issues. These are issues younger teen girls seek out to read online.

Beinggirl.com, developed by Proctor & Gamble (P&G) to promote feminine care products, Tampax and Always, touches upon a very sensitive issue for young teenage girls: their period. P&G created this site with the intent to provide a community and safe place for young teens to talk openly and learn about their periods and puberty. By offering advice and question and answer services from an expert doctor gives Beinggirl.com a leg up on the competition against Gurl.com.

Beinggirl.com has its own expert doctor, Dr. Iris Pragar, to answer any questions girls might have. Gurl.com only has an older girl to answer questions, not an expert. Having an expert doctor with a specialty in menstrual periods and puberty answering questions and giving advice to teenage girls provides Beinggirl.com with more credibility than its competitor. Referring to Quantcast traffic statistics, this may be the reason Beinggirl.com has many more visitors per day than Gurl.com. In September of 2008, Beinggirl.com reported roughly 50,000 visitors per day compared to Gurl.com with only 18,000 visitors (www.quantcast.com). However, Gurl.com is a relatively new site that was launched earlier this year while Beinggirl.com has been on the Internet since 2006.

However, having an advertising agency as the site’s creator, the information and content on Beinggirl.com could be seen as biased. It is quite noticeable in the responses from Dr. Iris that she is promoting the use of Tampax and Always. Gurl.com does not seem to have this bias in discussions on its advice page.

In another comparison, the layout and tone of Gurl.com is darker as well. With a black background and dark, vibrant color tables and boxes, this Web site is much more mature-looking than Beinggirl.com’s pastel and floral layout reinforcing Gurl.com’s draw to older teen girls. Gurl.com also uses animation and rough sketches a bit more than Beinggirl.com proving it is a very interactive site which appeals to teen girls who are looking to be a part of a community. Here, girls can create a “room” which is similar to a profile and personalize the content they have a high interest in. Beinggirl.com offers a similar interactivity but they label members’ personal profiles as “lockers”.

This type of interactivity teen girls find most appealing in a Web site as Lenhart, Madden and Smith reported on Pew Internet & American Life Project’s article: Teens and Social Media: The use of social media gains a greater foothold in teen life as they embrace the conversational nature of interactive online media. They found that 35% of all teen girls blog and 54% post photos online. The article goes on to say it’s not just about creative output, but “about participating in conversations fueled by that content”.

Both Web sites provide many opportunities to interact with online quizzes, polls, and message boards. Gurl.com also has a section for poetry and comics written by its members in the section Show Off. This offers teenage girls the freedom to express themselves without being judged.

Teens and Social Media continues on noting that teen girls are very aware of safety on the Internet. Both Web sites make it clear to its members to not give out any personal information over the Internet. Beinggirl.com also offers services from their TeenAngels, members who were taught Internet safety, who advocate Internet safety throughout the site. Gurl.com also follows the rules put forth by the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) which restricts the amount of personal information a Web site can collect from individuals under the age of thirteen.

Lenhart, Madden, and Smith also found that although studies show more boys participate in gaming online, girls do as well only on a smaller scale. Both Beinggirl.com and Gurl.com offer online games where members can participate in friendly competition with other members. Gurl.com allows for the creation of games again catering to a teenage girl’s desire to be interactive while online.

Referring back to Quantcast’s traffic results, Beinggirl.com may have more visitors to its site due to the fact that they are more easily searchable. In viewing the source codes for each site I found that Gurl.com does not list any keywords while Beinggirl.com has many. To test this, I searched many different words and terms on Google related to teenage girls and their interests. With each search term Beinggirl.com appeared as one of the top Web sites while Gurl.com was no where to be found. Although Gurl.com has much more to offer in the way of interactivity and discussion topics, the only way this site is surviving now is through word-of-mouth; it needs to take advantage of search engine optimization and marketing.

Another fascinating fact according to QuantCast’s traffic results: Gurl.com has more regular visitors at 32% than Beinggirl.com with only 20% regular visitors. Also, most Gurl.com visitors have an affinity for similar sites like Myjellybean.com, which offers similar services as Gurl.com, and also Cosmogirl.com, a magazine for teenage girls. Alternatively, Beinggirl.com’s visitors have an affinity for sites such as Playtexgentleglide.com, Carefreeliners.com, and Flow-alert.com (QuantCast Lifestyle Summary). Once again there is bias in Beinggirl.com’s Web site as being created by an advertising agency seeking to promote their feminine care products.

Both sites are up to par with their layouts and updated content. Their layout and theme is consistent throughout the entire site on each page. Not only that but neither Web sites require plug-ins and load very quickly. There is no need for horizontal scrolling and both sites are free to join making their community much more appealing than others that require a membership fee.

Overall both Web sites, Beinggirl.com and Gurl.com, supply teenage girls with pertinent, relevant issues that gratify their need for interactivity. Teenage girls search for community forums where they can express themselves, share stories, and obtain good advice on hot topics like growing up and relationships. These sites offer teenage girls just that and much more.

References

Beinggirl.com - For Girls, By Girls. (n.d.). Retrieved December 8, 2008, from http://www.beinggirl.com.

College Student and Teen Web Tastes - eMarketer. (n.d.). Retrieved December 8, 2008, from http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?id=1006736.

Lenhart, A., Madden, M., & Smith, A. (n.d.). Pew Internet: Teens and Social Media. Retrieved December 8, 2008, from http://www.pewinternet.org/PPF/r/230/report_display.asp.

gURL.com a teen site and community for teenage girls. (n.d.). Retrieved December 8, 2008, from http://www.gurl.com.