My Teens Talk About Their Internet Marketing Views [LNIMV021]

Two of my three smart, beautiful daughters take a few minutes to jump on camera in the car and talk about their internet marketing views – how things look from their perspective.  We discuss Snapchat, Google Who’s Down, Amazon, mobile shopping, Twitter and more.  It’s an interesting conversation and provides a unique perspective.    The third daughter is just a bit too small for this conversation.

You can also view this directly on YouTube here:

[Transcript:]

Mark:  I’m in the car, I have young people with me, and I thought what better time to find out about what young people are doing online than when you have young people with you to ask. We’re actually on our way back to Dallas from Houston from seeing the grandparents, and I thought we would hit some marketing topics.

To my immediate right in the front seat I have Alley. Say hi, Alley.

Alley:  Hi.

Mark:  In the back seat on the right I have Pam, who is probably either Periscoping or Snapchatting this thing right now. Is that what you’re doing?

Pam:  I’m Snapchatting.

Mark:  Okay. So let’s talk about that. Snapchatting – you both use Snapchat, Snapchat is a big thing in internet marketing these days, a lot of marketers are using Snapchat, but a lot of regular people use it just for fun too. What are you guys doing with Snapchat these days?

Alley:  Stories.

Mark:  Tell me what is a Snapchat Story, because I think a lot of people actually don’t even know what a Snapchat Story is.

Alley:  It kind of fits the narcissism of today’s teenagers, it’s the self fulfillment of being able to film or take a picture of exactly what you’re doing at that moment and putting it on a 24 hour window where your followers or your Snapchat friends can see what you’re doing and watch that video in that 24 hour timetable. It’s useful if you’re at a concert, if you’re doing fun things with your friends at a party, people will Snapchat that and put that on their story. You can directly Snapchat each other, but most people view each other’s stories on Snapchat.

Mark:  So it’s kind of like Periscope, only it’s sticky and it lives for awhile?

Alley:  I suppose so. I don’t personally use Periscope, but I know people that do. Snapchat is more widespread in my age group.

Mark:  Is it still short?

Alley:  It can only be 10 seconds long.

Mark:  And do you guys ever see celebrities using Snapchat Stories?

Alley:  Yes.

Pam:  But you have to friend them first.

Mark:  Okay, so only your friends see your stuff?

Pam:  Yes, but you can friend someone and be able to see their stuff without them friending you back.

Mark:  Okay.

Pam:  Jared Leto and a couple other celebrities, I’m friends with them on Snapchat, they just aren’t friends with me back.

Mark:  I see. So it’s like a follow.

Pam:  Yes.

Mark:  Okay. So topic number two; did you guys do any online shopping over the holidays?

Alley:  I did, for Christmas presents.

Mark:  And where do you shop?

Alley:  Amazon.

Mark:  Do you go to Google first or do you go straight to Amazon?

Alley:  Straight to Amazon.

Mark:  So you bypass Google completely?

Alley:  Yes.

Mark:  That’s interesting to me because as a marketer a lot of the time I’m worried about rankings in Google, but I think increasingly for products that you buy online people aren’t typing the product name in the Google search bar, they’re typing it in the Amazon bar. Right?

Alley:  True. I only search on Google when I want to find the best of one product. Amazon will show you all the headphones, but I want to know what are the best headphones. I’ll go to Google to try to figure that out, see what pops up first, see what articles pop up there. But if I know what I want, I’m going straight to Amazon.

Mark:  How about you, Pam, straight to Amazon? And mobile or laptop?

Pam:  It depends on what I’m buying. I go to Amazon for things that are available on Amazon, but if I want a specific brand I may have to go to their website.

Mark:  Are you using Google to find that sometimes or are you going straight to J.Crew or whatever?

Pam:  I’m going straight to the website.

Mark:  Awesome. Are you typically shopping online mobile or are you shopping online on your laptop, because you both have Apple Macbook Airs and you also both have iPhone6?

Alley:  Laptop.

Mark:  Mostly you’re shopping on your laptop still?

Alley:  Yes. It’s much easier to see.

Mark:  Right. So mobile design on shopping websites is sometimes not so good, right?

Pam:  Amazon’s is okay.

Mark:  Amazon app is pretty good.

Alley:  It’s not bad at all.

Mark:  But things like J.Crew and some other retailers?

Pam:  They don’t have apps.

Alley:  And they don’t try. They know that people are just going to go on their computer.

Mark:  Awesome. Topic number three, social media or other online predictions for 2016… what’s going to be a big deal in 2016 that’s going to be important to people your age, like an app or an event or something going on in social media? What do you think?

Pam:  Twitter.

Mark:  You still use Twitter, right?

Pam:  Yes.

Mark:  Let’s talk about Twitter. Do you use Twitter too, Alley?

Alley:  Yes. Mostly for news. It’s less of a social outlet and more of news and staying connected with what’s going on globally.

Mark:  When you see a link on Twitter, do you click it?

Alley:  It depends.

Mark:  If it sounds interesting, do you click it or do you just read through the Twitter feed?

Alley:  Yes. I’ll click it.

Mark:  You click links on Twitter. How about you, Pam?

Pam:  Well, I use Twitter mostly to keep up with my friends.

Mark:  And not celebs so much, but friends.

Pam:  Not really celebrities much. My favorite ones I’ll still follow, but celebrities normally use Twitter for publicity, not like on Instagram where they post selfies and stuff.

Mark:  What about Periscope, do you watch Periscopes?

Alley:  I’ve not gotten into that, but that’s mostly because I’ve missed the last year of social media.

Mark:  Because you’re in college now, so you’ve been studying.

Alley:  Right, yes.

Mark:  Dean’s list right there. Periscope and the Dean’s List don’t go together, that’s right.

Do you think Twitter is going to continue to be big in 2016?

Pam:  Definitely.

Alley:  I’m wondering about Who’s Down. I helped launch that app, my sorority was invited to a launch party to launch Google’s Who’s Down.

Mark:  I don’t even know about that, do you know about it?

Alley:  I have it.

Mark:  Tell me about it. What is it?

Alley:  It’s an app where you have your profile, it’s not very big, it’s just your name, and you can be friends with other people or it will connect with your contacts and you can friend them. If you want to go do something you can swipe the little switch and it will change your profile to show you’re available if someone wants to hangout.

Mark:  Cool.

Alley:  You can type in Who’s Down, Alley wants to get Starbucks, and it will notify your friends.

Mark:  So it’s like a flash mob app sort of. That’s awesome.

Alley:  Kind of. They’re thinking about I think doing personalized lists of friends, so if you want to go play Scrabble with these five people and not really everyone.

Mark:  So you don’t get random thugs responding to your Who’s Down, you kind of control the invite.

Alley:  It’s your friend group that can see you want to hangout, but I guess they’re assuming that people don’t always want to extend the invitation to everybody so it’s being exclusive now.

Mark:  Like you don’t want say “Who’s Down and ready to party?” and have your Dad show up. Cool.

Awesome. Any parting words?

Pam:  Brighten has been big in my circle of teenagers.

Mark:  Brighten?

Alley:  I don’t know what that is.

Mark:  Tell me about Brighten.

Pam:  It’s an app where you make a profile and then you friend people you know, and then you send anonymous compliments back and forth.

Alley:  Oh, I do know that app.

Mark:  That’s awesome. I like that idea. So you use that and say, “Wow, your jacket looks awesome today,” and they get that but they don’t know who it’s from.

Pam:  Yes.

Mark:  That’s awesome. I love that – Brighten.

Alley:  I guess in high school and college that really works.

Mark:  I could use those, I don’t have a Brighten account but you could just tweet me something awesome (@masonworld) and I’d appreciate it very much.

All right, we’re northbound and down on the road to Dallas, traveling 74 MPH, and we’re out.