Some say that “Mom” invented social media. Of the 82 million moms of all ages across the U.S., 26 million are mommy bloggers; grassroots, Oprah-like brand advocates with loyal followers who can change the trajectory of a brand and its products.
Today’s social media moms rule the social web with Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Bebo, FriendFeed and more. From family, fashion, finance and fun to technology, travel, cars, and healthcare, moms account for $2 trillion dollars worth of purchases.
We recently collaborated on a research project for a brand in the Fast Casual segment of the restaurant industry. Part of our investigative work was to learn how the client’s Fast Casual brand could deepen its social engagement relationship with its core audience of social media moms, socially connected and social active moms on-the-go .
We offer a few of our insights from our research and a few of our lessons learned about social media moms.
Social media moms never leave the house without their mobile phones. They use their phones to coordinate, expedite, communicate, and ferret out information they need to stay connected, feel empowered and be in control of their lives.
Social media moms:
• Are not won over by push messages (e.g., alert notifications) alone. Brands need to join the conversation with moms.
• Are looking for a relationship with her brand of choice — a two-way dialogue that shows the brand is listening and responding.
• Seek transparency. They don’t expect brands to be perfect, but they do expect honesty.
• Are busy so don’t waste their time. Be authentic, clear and genuine.
• Love to be comfortable with their decisions. Information is key to their comfort level, so make their homework easy.
• Think pragmatically and emotionally. Brands need to cover both sides of the conversation.
• Enjoy stories. Social media is about communicating — telling a story — which is extremely different than selling.
In recent years behavioral marketing has joined product placement marketing in TV programming. Will this tactic follow into movies and other forms of electronic entertainment as well? It remains to be seen, but the answer is more than likely yes depending on whether there is a good fit between the marketer’s product and the film’s plot or video games theme. The bottom line is with so many new ways to reach audiences (and with much of the audience being fragmented) marketers will have to continue to find new and inviting ways to sway consumer behavior that is favorable to their product or service.
A recent Wall Street Journal article focused on NBC Universal’s programming that includes behavioral placement – which “is designed to sway viewers to adopt actions they see modeled in their favorite shows. And it helps marketers who want to associate their brands with a feel-good, socially aware show.” So viewers of 30 Rock and The Officewill see familiar characters being good stewards of the environment by recycling and doing things in a matter of fact way that tends to resonate with viewers. The article goes on to state that “the more seamlessly integrated the behavior is, the less it feels like the show is trying to manipulate.”
In some ways behavioral marketing may appear as new a fad. When marketers try to do something that they hope will be the next “hip and/or cool” trend the audience will often become cynical about the effort unless it seems genuinely real and original. The WSJ article continued by stating that NBC incorporates messages “that tend to be fairly innocuous… [and] the trick is not to turn off viewers by being lectury or too obvious…”
I love the new Toyota campaign for the Sienna. It’s a bit of a nod to Modern Family, or at least appears to be. The serialized spots are so well done and so funny that I look forward to seeing them.
And as good as the other stuff is, this long form music video for the Swagger Wagon takes the cake. Damn funny stuff.
Some say that “Mom” invented social media. Of the 82 million moms of all ages across the U.S., 26 million are mommy bloggers; grassroots, Oprah-like brand advocates with loyal followers who can change the trajectory of a brand and its products.