Don’t let the cutesy name fool you – there’s a movement of parent bloggers out there, with savvy marketing acumen and powerful influencing muscle, who are cultivating some pretty big networks.
Advertising Age’s recent report, ‘Inside the Mommy Blogger Business’ , uncovers how Mommy Blogging is increasingly becoming a powerful digital force revolutionising the marketing practices of the world’s largest companies.
Case in point: companies like Wal-Mart are embracing mommy bloggers as key influencers. The retail giant is now sponsoring 12 official mommy bloggers in a professional capacity to review products and publish feedback.
Elevenmoms is a subsidiary of the WalMart website, and there is a direct link from these mommy blogs to the WalMart shopping page. The site describes the genesis of the idea:
“For many months, we’ve been engaged in social media platforms that generate discussion about money saving products and services. Sites and services such as Walmart’s Checkout blog, Customer Ratings and Reviews, and MakeYourDollarStretch.com have given our customers a forum to learn about products and share ideas for saving money.
The question was, how do we support and build upon existing money saving communities? Soon it became clear that we should reach out to the many great writers who are already blogging about great money saving ideas.” (www.instoresnow.walmart.com)
Nobody has yet been able to tangibly measure the business impact these parents have created through their online efforts. What we can track is that a huge percentage of moms go online – to use social networking sites, visit shopping sites, and engage as both readers and creators of blogs.
Mums make up 40% of all females going online, according to a report from BlogHer, a community for women who blog. It also showed that 8m women publish blogs, and 27m women read blogs.
On an individual level these blogs provide a differentiated and trusting voice, enabling women to connect with someone like them on a personal basis. And indeed, this is how most Mommy Blogs are intended – as a way to communicate and share ideas with an extended network of friends and acquaintances.
Some Mommy Bloggers do go on to become high-profile bloggers in their niches – and become equally high-profile targets for brands to connect with. Others will never reach more than a few hundred people in their own personal network. Either way, from the corporate perspective Mommy Bloggers – individually or collectively – represent the voices of hundreds of thousands of mums providing invaluable feedback and influencing others in the market.
Advertisers have always struggled to connect effectively with the half of the market that controls the majority of household expenditure. The exciting thing about this movement is that Mommy Bloggers are not just talking about themselves – they’re also spending on behalf for their families – so are plugged into multiple product categories. In fact, it’s been such a force, marketing & PR agencies are even adding mommy blogging to their list of services.
So, should this approach inform every company’s social media strategy – engaging with specific influential individuals to get the word out about their products?
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