Yes ma’am, it’s another Potty Posting! Once again, feel free to download and/or pass along the PDF version by clicking here: Mother Knows Best.
The PDF includes more pictures like “Whistler’s Mommy Blogger” to the right. (That image, as well as the images in the posting, all come from Mike Licht at Flickr. Be sure to check out his entire collection!) For a text-only version of the posting, just continue reading!
(We also tie up a few loose ends in our subsequent posts here.)Mother Knows Best
Well, mother and her network of online friends
Last posting, we introduced you to the radical idea that women actually use the internet. (Don’t laugh too hard; we’ve had to convince clients of this before.) Obviously, you know better, but you might not have realized that women are the majority online, that they’re extremely active participants, and that they’re creating much of the web’s most desirable content. It’s not hard to figure out why: while the American Dream allows us to choose between 7,983 stroller models, that kind of selection tends to be a little overwhelming without the trusted advice of our peers. Today’s mom isn’t just “on the internet” – she’s consuming it in a uniquely social manner. She wants to get online, get her recommendations, buy her items (about half of moms using social media base purchases on blogger recommendations), and be done before her little Billy sticks a fork in the wall socket and blacks out a city block.
Thus, we have to start this discussion with the “mommy blogger” phenomenon, which has been so insatiable for marketers that we probably need a variation of “cougar” to describe them (“ocelot” doesn’t quite have the same charm). The number one thing working for these moms is their perceived authenticity, especially compared to traditional PR and corporate-run sites. These ladies also tend to be much more entertaining, informal, and irreverent than traditional marketers; when was the last time a Huggies ad encouraged mom to grab a margarita? With 8 million women writing blogs, and a collective audience of over 22 million women, brands have learned to embrace this community.
Now, we know the temptation here is to find the most popular blogger and toss giant bags of cash at her until she shills for your product (by the way, you do know that blogger freebies are now regulated by the FTC, right?), but we recommend targeting bloggers in the same way that you target consumers. Forget about the most popular bloggers for now, and take a good look through a number of authors’ archives (and comment sections) to get an idea of which niches they best represent. Better yet, go beyond sponsoring the blog and partner with the author. After all, there’s a reason why she commands a significant (and engaged) audience: she obviously has a nuanced, insightful perspective that, frankly, you don’t. Why not work with her to come up with better targeted, more insightful, and more innovative ways of interacting with moms? GoodNites bedwetting products did this with Meagan Francis, who now writes articles for the site and answers parenting questions. WalMart even created their own mommy blogger community, which immediately drove all the mom & pop blogs on Main Street out of business (kidding!). Without a doubt, these bloggers hold an uncharacteristically large amount of sway over their audiences, and wooing them is a smart strategy (as long as you and she are both fully transparent about said wooing). But, what’s being lost in all the hullabaloo is that Mommy Blogs are really social networks in disguise. GASP!! SHRIEK!! More on that in a second!
As with gaming, there seems to be a persistent, but totally unfounded idea that women, and especially moms, don’t dig social networking. Can we finally kill this notion if we tell you that Roper recently found that 90% of new moms frequent social networks? Yes, the busiest, most harried people on the planet are active participants on Facebook (where women outnumber men 1.35 to 1) and Twitter and the like. These sites serve as much needed links to the outside world, as they’re undoubtedly the best spots for keeping up with their inner circle of friends and family, sharing photos, and general socializing. (Don’t be so shocked. Keep in mind that most of today’s “new moms” are young enough to have been raised on the internet, texting, and Justin Timberlake as a sex symbol.)
But, these broad communities (I promise no pun intended) aren’t necessarily where the most interesting mom conversations are happening. After all, if you’re pregnant and you suddenly find yourself unable to stomach vegetables, how much help will your network of coworkers and high school friends really provide? On the other hand, a community of like-minded pregnant women and newborn moms would certainly have useful anecdotes to share. In fact, babycenter.com addresses the veggie puking, along with more than 100 other questions in their brilliantly organized “Is it safe?” and “Is it normal?” sections. And, as hinted above, there are de facto social networks hidden in the bowels of mommy blogs. After all, the blogger’s voice is just the loudest in a (virtual) room that features comment sections, message boards, discussion forums (all of which we can track with our Radian6 subscription). The ability for moms to voice their concerns and receive a quick, genuine response is perhaps the biggest draw of these blogs; a smart blogger will openly draw on their readership for this diversity of opinions. Since almost 60% of moms’ conversations mention brands anyway, just throwing targeted display ads at these sites misses the treasure troves of qualitative data that they have to offer. Just scanning the aforementioned babycenter sections provides a remarkably nuanced collection of passion points for moms, so why not supplement your focus groups with real moms sharing their biggest concerns for free? Oh, internet, is there anything you can’t do? Oh, that’s right, you can’t verify the validity of breaking balloon boy news. But for everything else, we cool.
