Recently, my colleague at Edison, Melissa DeCesare, authored a report entitled Moms And Media: 2011, with data based upon our long-running Edison/Arbitron Internet and Multimedia Research series. This is our first full-length research report focusing on Moms in particular, and looks at how this key cohort consumes media, uses technology, and interacts with social networking sites and services.
In the five years that we’ve been tracking social media in this series, we’ve generally seen that women are more likely to use social networking sites and services than men, and we’ve previously published data (from The Social Habit: 2011) that indicates the most frequent users of social media are even more likely to be female. So, while we shouldn’t be surprised to learn that Moms, specifically, are heavily into social networking, the disparities are still striking.
For instance, while 51% of Americans 12+ have a profile page on Facebook, an incredible 62% of mothers can say the same. What’s more, not only is the percentage of Moms on Facebook nearing two-thirds, but also 70% of social networking moms are posting status updates online. That’s content creation, folks. And that means that you don’t need to be a “mommy blogger,” to be a mommy blogger.
Social media is encouraging mothers of all stripes to share content online, and while mommy bloggers are extremely important for brands as part of targeted outreach programs, mommy “status updaters” are an increasingly vital part of the continuum of marketing communications. In fact, for many brands, social-savvy Moms are important not only because they create and share content, but also because they are listening. Indeed, there may be no more interesting disparity in this survey than this figure, comparing the percentages of Moms and Dads who follow brands, products or services on their social networks of choice:
That, as we say in the research business, is a honkin’ big gap. Moms are 40% more likely to follow brands on social media platforms than are Dads. So, it’s easy to see why so many brands are talking to Moms: they listen.
And, a note to my fellow Dads: economic power isn’t economic power unless you actually wield it. So look for more articles here on BrandSavant about diapers, back-to-school shopping and minivans.
