Digital Moms on the Move

Every so often I get energized to write a post on moms on the web. I’ve done Mommy bloggers—who they are, how to reach them, and the importance of transparency. The latter was before the FTC proposed regulations and guidelines.

Moms have always been purchasing agents for their households; now they have digital tools to do it. The chart from the Razorfish/Café Mom study shows the digital channels moms use, categorized by mainstream channels used by over 50% of moms, mainstream used by about 1/3 of them, and emerging used by less than 25%. eMarketer adds to this picture by pointing out that moms are using their smartphones to do things like searching for recipes online. Think of the opportunities for reaching them in the course of such activities, but also note that the best way is not advertising in many channels, especially mobile. The second chart suggests that ads on social nets get a rather small amount of attention and even less action. Awareness? Maybe.


What made the subject top of mind was a headline in Marketing Charts a couple of days ago: “Retailers Can Lure Moms with Social Media, Free Stuff.” That’s not exactly a surprise, but the chart on what promotions moms find most influential is interesting. It’s also interesting that moms are more influenced by everything than are adults in general—the purchasing agent effect in operation. What interests me even more when I look at this chart is the ways in which marketers can reach moms with the promos they care about. Just a few examples:

• Notify moms of Product Samples In-store on their social networks (message your fans, advertise to others) and by reaching out to the ecosphere of mommy bloggers
Actually, that advice hold true for most of the items on this list.
• Use the database from Store Loyalty Cards to reach moms with permission email and mobile coupons based on behavioral data.
• In-Store Events and Parking Lot Events can be Tweeted to build excitement and momentum.

Think about it: what promotional techniques should you be using? How can you notify moms that they are available?

Ponder this quote from the RAMA study that produced the promotion data:

“Retailers who aren’t engaging customers through social media could be missing the boat,” said Mike Gatti, Executive Director for RAMA. “Twitter, Facebook and blogs are becoming increasingly popular with moms as they search for coupons or deals and keep in touch with loved ones. The web provides efficient, convenient ways for brands to stay in front of their most loyal shoppers and attract new ones.”

He’s being tactful! Unless your women customers are all over 80, you need to be actively pursuing social media strategies—listening and engaging, not advertising. Otherwise, the boat goes without you!

Women, Brand Marketing, and Social Media

Two recent headlines summarize the dilemma for marketers:
• SocNet Branding Fails to Sway Women
• Are Women Really Ignoring Social Network Marketing? (eMarketer, September 17, 2009)
Both articles are based on data from a Q Interactive study recently presented at AdTech Chicago. (See the full presentation here; it has a lot of data and includes two successful brand studies.)

First, let’s admit that the research is all over the place and that headlines often fail to capture nuances. We know that women are on social networks like Facebook in large numbers. However the study as reported in eMarketer makes it clear that some brand marketing activities do have impact. In this economy, not surprisingly, coupons and discounts have the most impact—not exactly what brand marketers want to hear. Online ads have much less impact; purchasing advice from blogs, online communities and website have even less. A study by the Marketing to Moms Coalition and reported in Marketing Charts asks the question more broadly and finds 49% of online moms doing product/price research and 45% shopping for their children.


So moms are online; they are researching and making purchases. Why do they report so little influence from online brand development efforts like marketer blogging and use of social networks. Maybe it’s just the word “marketer.” We also know that WOM is still the most trusted source of information. In the study I talked about earlier this month “Consumer opinions posted online” came in a distant, but still strong, second. Surprise, surprise! Consumers have never been highly trusting of advertising. I don’t think it matters a bit whether that advertising is online or in traditional media.

The difference, obviously, is that consumers now have the ability to make their experiences and opinions available online. That puts them in strong competition with marketers who are trying to make their voices heard online. And since “people like me” are trusted to give good advice, their voices have impact. That says a lot about how brand marketers should be approaching social network marketing. In the Kraft and Fisher-Price brand studies in the Q Interactive presentation, you’ll see lots of coupons, which the data says women are looking for, and contests, which are engaging. But you’ll also see growing attempts to dialog with women and to listen to what they are saying.

But there may well be another issue that arises from the nature of the social platforms themselves. A study from BlogHer, iVillage and Compass Partners reminds us that women use different social platforms for different purposes. Social networks are primarily used for social purposes. Blogs score much higher for both getting information and sharing opinions. (See the full presentation here.)

Social media can work for brand development and marketing. It doesn’t come quickly or easily, as I’ve said many times. It’s important to start by recognizing that not all platforms are created equal, as far as marketers are concerned. The corollary to that statement is that it takes different types of marketing effort to be successful on different platforms. Starting from this rather simple premise should help brand marketers develop social media strategies that do have impact.

Is the Answer Disclosure or Context?

Another follow-up—this one to a post on compensating Mommy bloggers that I recently wrote for Reaching Women Daily. In that post, I argued for disclosure of any compensated blog post and suggested some guidelines for marketers who want to reach out to the vast blogosphere of mommy bloggers. (If you’re not aware of the vast network of connected moms or are looking for data, you might find this recent report by Razorfish and Café Mom useful.)

So I was interested in today’s 3-minute Ad Age video, an interview with one of the founders of BlogHer.com. According to the interview, they have a different approach to disclosure. It’s not on a post-by-post basis but requires the creation of separate blogs for compensated posts and those that are purely personal opinion. View the video here.

I searched the site (I’m not registered, but I didn’t find any parts I couldn’t enter) and I didn’t find an example of what Elisa Camahort Page describes in the video. I also couldn’t find a community rule that specified it exactly. What appears to be the newer BlogHerAds section may be the execution of the “context” policy, although what it says in the editorial policy is:

Contains editorial content that has been commissioned and paid for by a third party, and/or contains paid advertising links and/or spam. Every opinion expressed must be the true opinion of the author.

They certainly are concerned about blogger compensation; so is the FTC, which is still in the review process but intends to issue guidelines that will affect bloggers as well as other endorsers.
However, I wonder about the context issue. Thinking about how people read (or perhaps how much they often ignore), it seems to me that a disclosure policy like the one I reproduced in the post or a segregation of compensated posts still may not be enough.

If each post that had compensation (including “freebies”) associated with it had a simple disclaimer statement, wouldn’t that be better? That way it’s precisely where the content is located, not in a disclosure or an about this blog statement that might not be read.

That’s where it would be most visible and most meaningful. That would be good for readers; less good for marketers? Maybe, although in the long run, I still believe that transparency rules!

What are Older Women Doing on Facebook?

The initial headline in February about the increasing activity of older women on Facebook caught my attention. At first glance, it surprised me, as it apparently did many of the other “social media experts.” In fact, looking at some of the blog entries in February, some commenters actually seemed to doubt the accuracy of the data.

Monday there was new data from Hitwise via Marketing Charts that confirmed the trend, which is at least continuing if not accelerating. Younger users are visiting Facebook less frequently; older are visiting it more. The growth is in the 35 and over age groups, with the 55 and over growing fastest. The press release also points out that while the traffic to MySpace is slowing, it still had the highest average time spent in February—an important metric—with 29 minutes and 38 seconds. That is a slight decline for MySpace over 1 year ago.

Since I’m a member of the older demographic, I feel uniquely qualified to comment on the reasons for the trend on Facebook. I’ve been looking around since the February data came out, and I have a couple of solid hypothesis.

First, I should say that I’m not typical. I’m on the social networks because it’s what I do for a living. You learn by participating in this environment. Period. While my reason for being there is not typical, the results are. I’m in touch with former students all over the world; I’d have lost track of them without the social nets. I’m also in touch with younger friends and family members with whom I would rarely communicate in any other channel, including email. Point is, my reasons for being there aren’t typical, but the results I get from being there are.

I should also say that I believe the trend continues to be powered by women, although older men are clearly venturing onto social networks also.

So here are my two hypothesis:

1. Some women join Facebook and other social networks to keep up with young relatives and friends. I wouldn’t even be surprised if this was an “early adopter” reason.
2. The “early majority” adopters are hearing about sites like Facebook and deciding to try it for themselves. I’d love to know how many actually are invited by existing members; my guess is that a lot just invite themselves in order to try it out. When they do, they find that people they know are there. This must be ok!

In my early days on Facebook, the “People You May Know” were generally my former students, their friends, and my daughter’s friends—mostly 30-somethings. Now that has changed. Often it’s now people in my “older demographic.” And they tend to be women; women have historically been the communicators for their households.

This is another “the world is changing and marketers need to pay attention” moment. I saw a study by a site called Vibrant Nation, which is interesting itself. They coach their “older demographic” on why and how to participate. When I left I found a pop-under inviting me to sign up for their email newsletter. It’s a well-done site and does indeed look vibrant! What I went for was the results of a recent study. While it’s worth downloading, here are the essential findings:

KEY FINDINGS - The Vibrant Nation Woman: Networked and Wired
The VibrantNation.com study of 1,000 Boomer women with household income greater than $75,000 showed:
• The personal networks of women 50+ are large and growing.
• They are in personal contact with at least 46 people each month.
• 65% share information online with others in their network.
• They are comfortable relying on referrals from strangers online if the source is knowledgeable/experienced. They rely on references on websites like
Amazon.com (70%), Ebay.com (54%) and Tripadvisor (27%).

Need I point out that this is a very desirable target audience for many marketers?

Here’s a quote from CNN that pretty much sums it up:

"All of a sudden it seems the world is waking up to what we already know," says Carol Orsborn, a senior strategist for VibrantNation. "Women at midlife and beyond are early adopters [of technology], competitive with their kids, and in many cases, they are beating out their kids."

Don’t stereotype us older chicks! Personally, I’m off to charge up my portable electronics and hit the road!

Women of a Certain Age on Facebook

You may have noticed the story on Marketing Charts yesterday about the rapid increase in the number of women 55 and over on Facebook. The stats come from Inside Facebook, a site you should track if you are interested in marketing on Facebook. They are consistent with more general stats from eMarketer (February 9, 2009) that show rapid growth for a broad “adult” demographic.

If any of us had any doubt that social media are not just for the kids, this should put those doubts to rest. My question was why women over 55 are rushing to Facebook. I don’t find any clear answers to that question, although I did find a commenter on one blog post that pointed out that it’s easier to use than MySpace. I’ve argued all along that Facebook is a somewhat more civil environment than MySpace, one in which older consumers may feel more comfortable. Perhaps both are true, but that doesn’t give a solid answer to the question.

I wondered if the predominance of women over men on Facebook was a hint. Women outnumber men in every age category—that’s interesting. Is it the ability to communicate easily on Facebook that draws women? I think so. Is it the fact that men have sports networks to occupy their time? There may be something to that also, but women have special interest networks—health, family-oriented etc.-- other than Facebook too.

A very few marketers are beginning to see ways to take advantage of the presence of women and their predisposition to communicate. A good example is Dove’s Pay Beauty Forward app. Basically it allows a user to send an e-flower to another Facebook user. Note that for each e-flower Dove contributes a dollar to its Self-Esteem Fund. That’s a nice touch, and it ties this marketing effort back to the long-running and highly successful “Real Beauty” campaign. It is all nicely integrated and that may be part of the reason 12,726 e-flowers have been sent since the app launched last year. I imagine you’ll have to be signed into Facebook to explore the program, but it’s worth the effort. Be sure to see the "what is pay beauty forward" screen; it's hard to link to.

Ok, so women of all age groups are on Facebook. Can you use it to reach your target audience? Use Facebook’s targeting tool to find out.

But that’s not the biggest challenge. Can you come up with an app that engages and provides value to your target audience? And, oh yes, it has to support your brand promise! Notice that I’m not defining customer value here; there are a range of possibilities from entertainment to philanthropy to communication. The challenge—both strategic and creative—is to come up with something appealing and to execute it in a way that’s at home in the Facebook environment and attracts your target audience.

Most of us are not very far along that road. How to increase our understanding? “Participate on Facebook and/or other social networks” is the answer I keep giving. That’s the “listen first” rule.

With a certain level of understanding, you then may want to talk to members of your target audience about how they are using social networks. Does anyone know of a marketer who is using a social network to talk to customers about how they use the network?

Crest Weekly Seeks Bloggers

In late August I noticed an article in Ad Age about a new P&G product—Crest Weekly Clean Intensive Cleaning Paste—that is being introduced with little television advertising. I’ve pointed out before that, especially for one of the huge mass media advertisers, P&G really gets the Internet, so I thought I’d keep an eye on what happened. There’s an interview today in iMediaConnection with Ted McConnell, the company’s interactive innovation director, that briefly mentions the program. It’s worth reading for its reflections on the role of interactive in today’s media mix; it reminded me that I was going to watch this program, especially the outreach to bloggers.

In the August 21 Ad Age article, P&G spokeswoman Allison Yang said that TV for this product launch would consist mainly of 5-second tags on other Crest ads. That’s clearly reminder advertising, not Awareness > Information in the old advertising hierarchy. So what are they doing and why? According to Yang:

The product "is not necessarily intuitive," making TV ads relatively less effective at explaining Weekly Clean, she said. . .

"What we've seen with research with consumers is that once they've seen it, they tell everybody," Ms. Yang said, another reason for the emphasis on buzz marketing vs. conventional media.

"The feeling you get is so unique, and women especially love it," she said. "A lot of times you come out with a new toothpaste flavor, and it's not something people talk about."

It appears that their “research” is also not traditional. It seems to have made heavy use of P&G’s VocalPoint Community. Call it a community, call it a consumer panel--my research made it clear that they’ve been working on this resource since at least 2005. Community building is important, but it’s no silver bullet!

The product does not appear to actually have been launched yet. The material safety data sheet is up, but that’s all I can find on the Crest page. Bloggers are busy though; this chart is for the last month. I just searched ‘crest weekly,’ so I got some garbage, but I doubt many people are going to use that whole long product name. Go do a search for yourself, especially if you aren’t familiar with blog search. I got some interesting hits. The jet-set beauty blogger is just the kind of review every product would like to get, but it’s her content, not P&G’s. I found Deal Seeking Mom even more interesting—maybe just for the sheer volume of activity on this blog—and she appears to own three blogs. And has 5 children—I’m overwhelmed!

This is another marketing program worth watching. I’ll try to update soon. In the meantime, if you see anything, please share it with me. I’m sure P&G has good monitoring systems, but don’t underestimate the effort required to keep track of Internet buzz.

A quote from Ted McConnell in the iMediaConnection interview struck me:

"I'm driven by the idea that, somehow, the $700 billion a year that humans spend[s] on advertising could create a lot of good and achieve its business goals if advertisers focus harder on crafting value rather than messages."

Well put. The value starts with a good product. If it’s good and potential consumers will like it, there’s no reason for not putting it out there and letting customers become brand evangelists to help spread the word. We know “real people” are more believable than marketing messages. Is there any reason—short of a mediocre/bad product—not to encourage them to have their say?

Do Seniors Blog?

A few days ago I made the point that it’s not only the young and very young who participate in social media. Boomers and seniors do also. While I was sure it was a true statement, I was interested when I ran across some data on the behavior of older boomers and seniors. The first is from a Groundswell/Forrester post. Josh Bernoff points out that these two demographic groups are more skewed toward the Spectators Technographic segment than to the Creators. His advice: “help them out. Seed your networks and applications with content and make it effortless to respond. Seniors are a lot more likely to participate if you make the on-ramps easy to navigate.” That’s good advice for all target segments! Want to get a picture of how your target demographic scores on the Technographics? Try Forrester’s free data tool.

Interesting, but not surprising data. I kept looking and ran across a study by Ronni Bennett, owner of the As Time Goes By blog. Results were posted on her blog in five sections starting on May 5, 2008. As is the case with most Internet surveys her 402 respondents are self-selected from her readership, so the data only reflects over-50s who are active on the Internet. Pew data says that 72% of Americans 50 – 64 are on the net; it drops down to only 35% of those 65 and over. Ronni Bennett points out that almost 94 % of her respondents are White and 81% are women. So the data is skewed, even for the over-50 demographic, but it gives a fascinating glimpse of their activities.


Almost 88% read blogs, while “only” 54% publish one. The 63% who comment include the Creators, Critics and Collectors in the Forrester Technographics survey ladder (the Joiners seems to refer specifically to social networks, not blogs). It’s hard to compare a response percent to the index on the Forrester chart but they both show a high level of commenting or being a Critic. Interesting.

Respondents in the Elderblogger survey are active in a lot of categories. The number who list blogs and the number who say “banking” are both a surprise to me.

Other data reveals that over 69% visit blogs directly with almost 24% using RSS feeds and only 7% retail subscriptions. The RSS is not what I expected from this segment; the great majority who go directly to blogs suggest considerable reader loyalty. Almost 74% read blogs daily; again something of a surprise to me.

What are they looking for? Information and fun are the two top categories; tis may imply that these people have more time to just read for entertainment than some younger groups. There’s a pretty high level of socializing here too.

Elders are looking for useful content, entertaining content, and connectedness—and a surprising number are looking for it on the web. That’s something else that’s only going to grow in the coming years. Marketers need to connect with this group online!

Men, Women and Social Networking Data

Late yesterday afternoon a headline on this subject caught my attention. It must say something about the rapidity of change and news in this space that this morning I can’t find it on either of the sites where I think I saw it! Fortunately, I used the time-honored tactic of making a cryptic note on a sticky pad and it led me back to the site Rapleaf.

I was looking for the data from their social media study, but on the way I took a small detour. Who can resist looking up their own email address to see what’s out there. The site knows correctly that I belong to Facebook and LinkedIn. It also has my Amazon Wish List—wonder how they got that? The data on my profile all came from MySpace (try it yourself, and you’ll see). I thought I had cancelled that account a long time ago. The link was connected to my very minimal profile on MySpace that still exists. I looked up the directions and tried to cancel the account—we’ll see.
Having satisfied my curiosity, I looked for the study. It’s not terribly new having been released in November 2007. It’s also not comprehensive; it covers only social networks on Google’s Open Social platform. Still, it’s very interesting. I just choose to take headlines from various articles on it; that gives you the links:

•The Social Media Gender Gap (Business Week, May 18, 2008)
•Women ‘Lead the Way” in Social Networking (UK)
•Women ‘Hold Down the Fort’ of Social Networking (UK)
•Women ‘Outpacing Men’ on Social Media (UK)
•More Men are Uber Connectors
•Men More Likely to Use Social Networking for Business
•Women Make More Friends on Social Networks
•Women Like to Socialize But Men Are All Business on Social Networks
•Men and Women Differ on Social Networks

Paints an interesting picture, even if you just read the headlines! But there’s more. They offer business services that, according to the site:



Analyze the social web footprint of your consumers to effectively plan online ad campaigns and engage with your consumers across social networks.




Discover the demographics of your customer base, including age and gender groups across social sites.





Identify influencers and friend groups among your consumers, to drive new referrals and viral marketing.


Yes, there are privacy issues. But it gives marketers who want to reach users of social networks not only a lot to think about, but a tool that may help them connect with networkers.

Men, Women and Online Activity

Remember when the Internet was the playground of men -- mostly young and geeky? eMarketer reported yesterday (enewsletter, March 24) that not only is “young and geeky” no longer true—men isn’t either. Their stats say that more women than men go online at least a month, with women constituting 51.8% of users and men being 48%.

They attribute this change in Internet demographics to the fact that there are more women in the US than men—roughly 51% to 49% according to Census figures. The second reason is the frenetic activity of female teenagers on the web. I’d add a third reason—the important family-related Internet uses of women, especially working women.

The teenage girls rationale is on target, according to Pew. In a study of how teenagers use social networking sites, they found teen girls more likely to create profiles. The difference becomes huge when you look at girls vs. boys in the 15-17 age group.


What about their older female counterparts? E-Tailing.com quotes other eMarketer statistics that show women heavily favoring the Internet for research before they buy. Women also frequently consult the Internet for health-related information. The iHealthBeat blog quotes comScore data that shows the Internet to be second only to medical professionals when women seek health information.

One of comScore’s fastest-growing web properties of 2007 was Everyday Health, with a growth rate of 349%. That made it the third largest online destination for women. Comscore adds that, “Women’s category leader, Glam Media, grew 213 percent during the year, due in large part to the addition of several new entities, including Quality Health Network, MyYearbook.com, and LifeScript.com, among others.”

Women are online in large numbers. The teenage demographic is certainly not to be overlooked, but it is older women who are researching and shopping for products and services that enhance their own well being and that of their families.
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