Posts Tagged "Facebook"

Now here’s a clever way to exploit the popularity of social media — talk trash against it and target the moms who love it.

There’s a new ad campaign called The Log Off which encourages moms to cut back on all that social media time and shift it instead to something more important — like playing with their kids.

The ad, designed to encourage what  its creator called “online moderation,” features a  lip-synched song  in which children are “pleading with their mommies to get off Facebook and play with them,” according to Social Times, and “really puts the guilt trip on moms who spend too much time on Facebook.”

Whoa.

While the ad was clearly designed to generate as much attention as possible (“Hey, let’s go bash some moms in social media and see if anyone talks about us!”), it does raise a few questions.

Ladies: Are you, in fact, spending way too much time on Facebook? IS it taking away from quality time with your kids? How do you feel about that and what, if anything, have you done in response?

Does social media really impact moms’ purchasing decisions? 

Here at Child’s Play Communications, we knew from our experience connecting companies with moms in social media that the answer was yes, but we wanted to offer greater insight into how and to what degree social media influences what moms buy. Toward that end, we commissioned The NPD Group, a leading market research company, to conduct an in-depth survey of moms across the U.S. based on a series of questions we developed.  The just released  “Social Media Moms: How Networking Impacts Purchasing Behaviors” provides a comprehensive understanding  not only of  what motivates moms’ purchasing decisions but also of moms’ overall use of social media. Following are some key finding:

•  79% of all moms in the U.S. with children under the age of 18 are active in social media
•  Of these moms, about one in four (23%) said they have purchased a children’s product as a result of a recommendation from a social networking site or blog. 
•  Online recommendations have even more impact among the most frequent social media users: 43% of active social media moms who use these sites on a daily basis have purchased a children’s product as the result of a recommendation from these sites.
•  More than half (55%) of these moms said they made their purchase because of a recommendation from a personal review blog.
• 40% of these moms made a purchase because of a  Facebook recommendation.

 The NPD Group fielded an online survey to members of NPD’s online panel and to members of the Child’s Play Communications online panel. The two different sources provided data to create both a holistic view of U.S. moms and their interaction with social media, as well as a deep-dive into the behaviors and preferences of social media moms. The complete survey is available for purchase from NPD.

 Clearly, moms nationwide are making purchasing decisions as a result of the information and advice other moms are providing through social media.

How about you? Have you made a purchase as a result of a social media recommendation? Was it from a blog? What did you buy and why?

What to do and what not to do when marketing to women was a popular subject last week, with major posts on the subject appearing, among other places, on Mashable. Among the many points made, there were a few that I thought were particularly worth repeating:

From 10 Musts for Marketing to Women on Facebook:

“Create a series of posts that your fans can look forward to on a daily or weekly basis — something they will feel a real connection to and will teach them something they can use. If you run a fashion web site, for example, provide a piece of advice from a designer every Friday –- it will make it much harder for your fans to block your updates if they have something to look forward to.”

“Your Facebook Page is also one of the best “focus groups” on the web. Not sure if you should add a product to your line? Trying to decide which functionality to add to your iPhone app? Just ask your fans.”

“Not only do we like to be heard, we also like to know we’re actually being listened to. If a fan posts a question on your page, answer it. If she compliments your brand, thank her. And if she complains about it, address her concerns and reassure her that you’re working on fixing it. This is a great way to build trust and showcase the great customer service and support your company offers.”

Moms, do you agree? What do companies do on Facebook that you love…or hate? What would drive you to a company’s Facebook page–or make you ignore it completely? Marketers, what have you learned from your Facebook experience? What’s proven effective for you?

There seems to be a social network for everything these days, especially when it comes to moms. With Facebook, Twitter, Café Mom and more, online connections are just a keystroke away.  

What if parents want to move beyond cyberspace? Across the country there are local clubs and groups sprouting everywhere. Whether it’s to network, socialize or make new friends, these groups are providing a way to connect.

Raising a little one is hard enough and searching out the perfect group can be time consuming. We recently stumbled upon the web site www.monstersandmonkeys.com, which is essentially a match-making service that connects parents with other like-minded parents. Whether you are a mom-to-be looking to meet other soon-to-be moms or a current parent in search of some friendship, the site boasts that it will do all the research and fact-finding for you.

As the popularity of social media continues to grow, it’s also good to see real social circles expand as well. For the moms among our readers: Would you ever take advantage of a parental matchmaking service? Do you find it difficult to meet other moms in the real world?

  Over the holidays, an uproar ensued over Facebook’s removal of photographs of women nursing their babies. Close to 150,000 moms joined an online Facebook petition entitled, “Hey Facebook, breastfeeding is not obscene!” Eleven thousand-plus participated in a “virtual nurse-in” by exchanging their regular profile pictures on Facebook for ones depicting breastfeeding.  At Facebook’s headquarters in Palo Alto, Calif., a live-and-in-person nurse-in of about 10 moms strong was held to complement the online event.

Facebook’s position: “Photos containing a fully exposed breast . . . violate [company policy against] obscene, pornographic, or sexually explicit material and may be removed.”  Facebook spokesperson Barry Schnitt said the company’s guidelines regarding exposed flesh permit most breast-feeding photos, but that Facebook prohibits including a visible nipple or areola. The company maintains that it doesn’t typically go looking for nudity, but does respond swiftly when someone flags a photo as inappropriate.

When Facebook policies were instituted some years ago, “We decided nudity was something we didn’t want on the site. It doesn’t matter the context. We would agree that there are absolutely many contexts for nudity where it is not obscene,” Schnitt said, but he emphasized that Facebook can’t practically decide on a case-by-case basis.

Clearly, there is, in itself, nothing obscene about a mother nursing her child – it is among the most natural, and by some standards sacred, activities in the world. (Having just concluded the Christmas season, dare I ask if Facebook has banned any Medieval or Renaissance nativity scenes as well?) But that’s not really the issue. The issue is where to draw the line, online and perhaps, for purposes of discussion, offline as well. Most moms seek out a private place to nurse their child, or at the very least, try to nurse as discreetly as possible when in public – with a cloth draped over a shoulder or a back turned to a crowd. And yet: I remember once going to a public space filled with parents and kids – the Intrepid Museum in NYC – and one mom sitting on the ground in full view of a long line of families, nursing her baby in a manner that left her, shall we say, unnecessarily exposed.   As a nursing mother myself, I felt embarrassed – for her, for the families witnessing the scene and for the unpleasant light this could shine on other nursing moms. The point:  As with everything, there is a right way, a wrong way, and shades of gray. Where does that leave the Facebook decision? As frustrating as it may be for moms who want to share a photo of themselves doing what comes naturally – and which, for many of us, is a highlight of motherhood – perhaps, just perhaps, there are some things that are better left private than posted on the Internet.

Not fair you say? If you were creating the Facebook policy, how and where would you draw the line?