Why Moms Blog
My good friend Kevin Burke (pictured here) of Lucid Marketing and Moms Who Blog wrote an excellent piece in MediaPost's "Engage Moms" this week. Kevin has been focused on Moms for a long time and as far as I'm concerned, he has the inside track. I trust his research and his opinion. This particular article, Understanding Why Moms Blog, is especially timely.
Let me just share a comment from the article that sums up the focus of brands up to and including the advent of social media, "Marketers are historically good at talking at people but poor at conversations. To work with Mom bloggers, businesses need to take the time to read the blog to get to know the writer and gain a better understanding of her audience."
Hello – this is true of all blogging and bloggers.
Make no mistake. If you're approaching pet bloggers, gossip bloggers, fashion bloggers, food bloggers, or Mom bloggers, you'd better have a clear understanding of who she is and who she connects to, before pitching her products/ideas that are of no interest to her. And don't try to "buy" her… she's not for sale.
Ok…onward and forward and let's see what Kevin had to say about understanding why moms blog.
Kevin lists a number of reasons moms go online to blog. Among them are social bonding where the woman who writes the blog connects to other like-minded moms and creates not only new friends, but long-standing conversations. Many moms I know use their blog to give advice, offer recommendations, and just be a sounding board.
Satisfaction is another reason moms blog. "Moms might blog," he says, "because writing about their experiences helps them better understand themselves and their families."
An area I am especially interested in, though I've done nothing yet to support it, is the "preserving memories" area. By writing about our lives, and chronicling the life of your families – including parents and grandparents – moms are creating the stories that will be told around the kitchen table for decades to come. A blog is a fantastic way to keep these stories alive and fresh, and create the truth about our world – a truth that is a perspective displayed and discussed differently by different people.
Kevin has many other forms of blogging which moms engage in. Moms, of course, are often eager to do product reviews and serve ads on their blogs, the better to supplement the family income or to turn their passion into a supporting income. They don't do it to "get rich", but they might do it to save for a child's college education and they might do it because they are passionate about a product – and willing to accept samples.
If you are looking to market to women and moms and understand that this is a group of people who are very well connected and have pride in their writing and their families, you may be able to tap into them for some key marketing support. Be respectful and honest. They'll return the favor.
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