Marketing to Moms: The Mom Tribes

Recently I went to two wedding showers, a baby shower and a wedding shower.   Nowhere else can you see the most basic example of Mom Tribes at work.  There are the moms who cooked, decorated, sent invitations, shopped and bought gifts for these occasions, with the help of online sites.

Seth Godin Describes Tribes

Seth Godin’s latest book Tribes describes a tribe as a group of people connected to one another, connected to a leader and connected to an idea.  And that’s what Moms do best – they gather together and group their expertise to get their children married, to provide for moms-to-be and new households.

And today, Moms have blogs and social media to facilitate these occasions.  Currently there are 35.3 million Moms with children under the age of 18 online, and 46% of those women are active either publishing or reading blogs.  Just type in Wedding Planning in Technorati and you will find 13,255 results for blogs.

Power Moms are 19.2 percent of active online population

Neilsen Online has classified Power Moms into main groups:  Established Moms and Newbie Moms.  The Established Moms are those aged 40-50 with three or more children at home.  They are the power online shoppers with a propensity for sites like Shopzilla, Target and Wal-Mart.  This group is the one that is the fastest growing demographic on Facebook.

Newbie Moms are women aged 25-34 with one or two children in the home.  They are the natural social networking moms.  They are more than twice as likely as the average Web user to visit Blogger, and 85% more likely to visit Facebook.  The web is their lifeline for news, conversation, connection and advice on every aspect of their life.  Many of them tend to live away from family so social networking among their peers takes on even greater importance.

The Mom Tribes are out there and growing.  Some of the largest power bloggers have followings in the 100s of thousands.  But just as important are those strong networks of Moms linked by common interests from wedding cakes to breastfeeding.

Moms have always been supportive of each other and their families.  Now they just have new tools to help.