Today, mommy bloggers are stars — even in the movies. Yesterday’s New York Daily News pegged a story about the growing power of moms who blog to the upcoming launch of the film Motherhood, in which Uma Thurman plays a mom who blogs about her life. I was tickled to be quoted in this story, alongside spokespeople for BlogHer, General Mills and Procter & Gamble. Although the reporter did refer to Child’s Play as an advertising agency — we’re not; our expertise is reaching moms through PR, social media and marketing communications — we enjoyed the article and thought you would too. Please see below.
In Uma Thurman’s latest flick, “Motherhood,” out Oct. 23, she plays a frazzled West Village mom raising two kids and chronicling it all on her blog, “The Bjorn Identity.”
From the big screen to the laptop screen, mommy blogging is big business.
In the last five years, the number of moms taking to the Internet to vent about topics like dirty diapers and breast-feeding has grown exponentially.
In 2005, blog tracker Technorati estimated the number of parenting blogs at 8,500. Today, 42 million women participate in social media every week (including blogs, social networks and message boards) and more than half of them (23 million) are writing, reading or posting to blogs, according to a 2009 survey by BlogHer, a community of women bloggers.
“I have seen moms turn to their blog communities as the first place they go when they have some kind of issues with their kids,” says Lisa Stone, co-founder and CEO of BlogHer.
“It’s wonderfully validating,” says Stone, “because it turns out there are some things you can discuss with your blog friends that you’re not going to bring up at the sandbox.”
Big companies and advertisers are taking note.
“Mommy bloggers are an important marketing vehicle for Pampers,” says Tricia Higgins, a spokeswoman for the Pampers brand at Procter & Gamble. “We read and follow what mom bloggers are saying very closely.”
The corporation General Mills has even created an online network to share information with influential mommy bloggers.
“At first, we began sending product samples for reviews to mom bloggers,” says Greg Zimprich, a public relations director at General Mills.
“Many bloggers were providing recommendations to others, offering useful information like coupon links or even doing giveaways on their sites,” said Zimprich. “Ultimately, this led to the creation of our own blogger network, which now has nearly 2,500 members.”
Moms on the Net have acquired such sway that Stephanie Azzarone, president of Child’s Play Communications, a 21-year-old New York-based advertising agency that exclusively targets moms, is convinced that companies must use the blogosphere to reach them.
“Studies have shown that moms no longer trust institutions or so-called experts. Instead, they trust other moms – even moms they’ve never met before – because the feeling is that these other moms are going through the exact same experience of parenting as they are, so they can understand and speak from their personal experience in a helpful way,” says Azzarone.
Such trust and influence can translate into dollar signs.
Heather Armstrong’s blog, Dooce.com, ranked by Nielsen Onlineas one of the “Power Pack” in the “digital world of mom,” is reportedly worth $40,000 a month in advertising revenues. And while most mommy bloggers aren’t raking in that kind of dough with their musings on motherhood, many have translated their Internet fame into more lucrative gigs in the real world.
“I get a lot of writing work based on my blog,” says Alice Bradley of Finslippy.com. “I make a living now from that.”
