A new research report today confirmed what we already knew. When it comes to influence, Gen Y women have plenty of clout.

According to Mediapost, the report, “Why Y Women,” (click here for pdf) is a two-tier study of 1,018 women ages 18-49 conducted by Radar Research for PopSugar Media . The sample was divided into Gen Y (18-34) and Gen X (35-49).  The questions covered how they see themselves and others in terms of style, trends and social media. Here are some highlights:

• 92 percent of Gen Y women consider themselves to be the trend leaders.
• 67 percent of Gen X women identified Gen Y as trend leaders, too. In the survey, Gen X women cited reasons such as, “This age group tends to discover things first,” “They spend more time in venues where they are more likely to be seen” and “They’re more creative in terms of selection in fashion, pop culture, cuisine, etc.”
• Gen Y women are twice as likely to use online social networking sites to share their recommendations than Gen X women (28 percent vs. 15 percent).
• Twice as many Gen Y women than Gen X women reported they discovered a new brand or product from a friend’s status update on a social networking site (42 percent vs. 22 percent)

More proof of Gen Y women’s disproportionate influence comes from Forrester’s Josh Bernoff, author of Groundswell. A very cool interactive graph reveals that U.S. women 18-24 are the most likely to fall into the category ‘Creators’ – those who create new content on the web. Relative to the average, they index an impressive 200, or twice the average.  Similar findings are reported by MRI, who says the heaviest activity among blog browsers and writers occurs in the 18-24 and 25-34 age brackets.

In a conversation today with Edward Boches, Chief Creative Officer at Mullen and the blogger behind CreativityUnbound, we agreed that while there are dozens of reports about Millennials, but it can sometimes be hard for marketers to hear Millennials talk about themselves. He is working on a solution. (More on that in an upcoming post).

Meanwhile, here are ten women writers under 30 that inspire and influence me.  (Click their names to follow them on Twitter):

1. Adrienne Waldo: Adrienne is a New York based financial marketer with a design background. She writes and blogs frequently for Ad Age and maintains the blog, AskAMillennial.com

2. Blake Sunshine: Blake works in social media and media relations in Austin. She blogs as ‘The Perennial Millennial at BlakeSunshine.com and is a frequent contributor to the Brazen Careerist.

3. Sasha Halima Muradali: Sasha lives in Miami and is a recent college graduate looking for a job in PR. She maintains the blog, ‘Little PinkPRBook’ at SashaHalima.com. She was recently profiled in Business Week.

4. Jenny Blake: Jenny lives in San Francisco and manages a career development program at Google. She blogs at LifeAfterCollege.org (No one said it was easy)

5. Leah Hennessey: Leah also lives in the Bay area and has her own social media and wine consulting business. She blogs at ‘Millennier+Wine.

6. Ines Schinazi: Ines is a recent graduate Brandeis University. She lives in Sao Paolo and writes freelance for TalkingAboutGenerations and Brazen Careerist.

7. Cody Clearwater: Cody is a financial analyst in Miami. She blogs about healthy foods for Millennial lifestyles at GourmetAnalyst.com.

8. Shana Ray: Shana is a social media consultant to the wine industry, based in Sonoma. She blogs at ShanaRay.com. She also writes about Millennials and wine at ProjectYine.com

9. Rebecca Thorman: Rebecca lives in Madison and works in PR. She maintains the popular blog, Modite. She also appears regularly in Brazen Careerist.

10. Rosetta Thurman: I’m not completely sure if Rosetta is a Millennial but she thinks like one (rosettathurman.com) and is the founder of the new alliance for non-profit bloggers.