The survey's findings were pretty significant: 32% of online teenagers (and 43% of social-networking teens) have been contacted online by complete strangers and 17% of online teens (31% of social networking teens) have "friends" on their social network profile who they have never personally met!

Do not mistake a teen's Facebook profile as a reflection of who they are so much as a reflection of how they want to be seen.

Research like the report Forrester put out last month reminds us that Facebook and other social channels aren't as single-minded as they're often painted. Knowing your target audience is still an essential part of any marketing initiative. Let's not forget what matters to our teen audience.

Teens have grown up this world of "instanity," where information, photos, and prices (when they're shopping) are just one click away. They are also just a security checkpoint and a passport stamp away from almost anywhere in the world, where they can witness firsthand how cultures all over the globe listen to (and create) their music and tuck their jeans into their sneakers. How are today's marketers supposed to keep up with that?

Teens will spend more time texting this summer than communicating in any other way. Research by the Nielsen company shows that teen texting is on a steep rise: the average teenager sends more than 3,000 texts per month -- that's more than six texts per daytime hour!

I don't have the answers, but I do have a singular hope. Namely, that these smartphone-wielding teens will tap the power of the mobile web in ways that are wise beyond their years, and that maybe -- just maybe -- their smartphone-free school days will teach them that they are not slaves to technology, but masters of it.

Anonymity is one of the great gifts of the Internet, because it allows people to explore new interests and express opinions without anyone knowing who they are. It's protective, it's empowering, and it's dangerous. For those who have learned the lessons of life to an extent that they can understand themselves and where they fit in the world, anonymity may not be all that bad, but for teens who are still figuring it all out, anonymity may do more bad than good.

This is a trend we are seeing across the industry -- using the power of the social graph to hyper-target content to consumers, both in paid advertising and through the content your brand publishes on Facebook and other networks.

If you start to think about these consumers -- Preppies, Techies, Alternatives, and Independents -- as tribes, and then think about all of their social activities, you can easily figure out how to reach them. Then you won't just be bowling in the dark. You will hit your mark every time.

Why should marketers and advertisers stop at targeting this generation of professionals? How can we take the momentum that marketers build around the event for professionals and translate it to teen markets, reaching the future attendees of SXSW?