Facebook’s Nicola Mendelsohn says her kids are the ‘sneaky focus group’ which proves teens still dig the site
Facebook’s Nicola Mendelsohn has said she views how her teen kids interact with Facebook – and rival sites – to help gauge the web usage patterns of millennials.
Mendelsohn, the vice president of the social network’s EMEA operations, told Business Insider that three or her four kids are in their teens in what she called her “sneaky focus group”.
She said: “Why are they there? Because they are their real selves. Their personal identity is absolutely crucial to them. So if [they] want to have a night out, and see all your friends, and discuss where you’re going to go, what you’re going to wear - and I’m telling you that’s what teenagers do because I watch it quite a lot - they do it on Facebook."
Millennials are of course using other sites such as Snapchat and Instagram too, Mendelsohn acknowledged this: “Now, do they do other things? Of course they do, they’re teenagers. They experiment, they go to other places.
“They spend a lot of time on Instagram. We see a lot of young people coming on to Instagram. And, of course they use other things, that’s what teens do. But we have very high usage with teenagers on both Facebook and Instagram."
This comes after she last week predicted that digital and mobile first campaigns will run away with a majority Cannes Lions Awards.