This is a guest post by Annie Wallace who blogs at ViralMom.com.
The stay-at-home mother of the 1950s is no longer an accurate picture of the self-styled businesswoman of today. The modern housewife is capable of running a corporation out of her kitchen with a nursing baby in one arm and a toddler attached to her leg.
It takes a certain skill set undoubtedly unique to the beleaguered domestic engineer. The new era of cyber-technology and social networking has given the modern stay-at-home a social and business vantage never before dreamed possible for this traditionally overlooked market base.
Women of yesteryear would gather around the rotary dial telephone and gab about the goings on of the neighborhood. Welcome to the age of social networking, when the modern mom has gone from party-line gab queen to social networking entrepreneur. Women have figured out how to take one of their favorite hobbies – talking, and turn it into a profit. Leave it to a woman to turn pleasure into profit.
Social networking sites such as CafeMom and Circle of Moms provide a much-needed social outlet for women who lack social interaction. They are more of a social than business platform. While members can and do find ways to advertise themselves and their businesses, the two most recognized original social networking and social monitoring sites for moms are mostly for entertainment, and for showing off the kids.
Of course there are serious topics such as medical discussions on the best ways to treat fevers and bumps and bruises. There are all kinds of different forums and channels for stain removal, getting gum out of hair and the latest must-have CD for the carpool lane.
For the more profit-minded women of today, there are sites such as SocialMediaMom.com, Momblognetwork.com and Twittermoms.com. While the foundation of these social networks is to provide platforms for moms from around the world to meet and share stories, ideas and advice, these three sites function more on the level of entrepreneurship, should a woman be so inclined.
Most of the world is now familiar with Twitter and it’s apparent endless bounty of ways to profit (think McDonald’s or any other internationally recognized brand, which are all on Twitter, along with most of the rest of the forward-thinking corporations out there).
One of the most recent sparks of genius to come from the internet arena is the idea of having mothers sell products on consignment, otherwise known as affiliate marketing. There are several premises and methods for accomplishing this.
There are companies who will pay stay-at-home moms to try their products and review them on their blog, as well as advertise their products on the blogs. Then there are blogs owned by mothers who have so many readers they are actually approached by corporations and asked to advertise on the blog.
Social networking is the communications medium of the future, and whilst they may do it their own way, moms are rarely far behind when it comes to technology. In fact, the mom squad has long been perceived by many in the advertising industry as a largely underrated and underexploited target market.
With this being the case, the likelihood is stay-at-home moms will continue to delve deeper into the realm of cyber-marketing, and will develop a recognized, respected niche group.
Great points on moms!
I agree with the power of the blogs, social networking sites and the internet in general.
It has changed how we work, live, communicate…..everything!
I have also heard about those affiliate marketing methods that you mention, where moms review a product and will get paid by companies for reviewing them.
Nabeel
“Social networking is the communications medium of the future, and whilst they may do it their own way, moms are rarely far behind when it comes to technology.”
Great article Annie. I’m a work from home mom. However, we are a real estate business where our office is in our home, and we do this through technology. In fact, we are a brokerage, and the only brokerage in our are running from a home. Sometimes I think I should start a niche blog for lady real estate brokers who have their brokerage in their home. Rarely are there real estate brokerages run from home, and even more rare for a woman to be running one.
rofl… your first line.
“businesswoman of today. The modern housewife is capable of running a corporation out of her kitchen with a nursing baby in one arm and a toddler attached to her leg.”
That sounds horribly sexist. 😛
Lol, never mind, brilliant post.
Thanks for the interesting site. It’s the first time I saw these sites 🙂 I gotta check them out
Before the popularity of social media sites, many stay-at-home mothers pay more attention to blogs. Yes, many mothers are writing on their blog when taking their children.
But now, with the soaring popularity of social media networks, moms’ attention has switched to this type of sites from blogs.
Wow……I didn’t know about social networking sites for moms.This is what we call target marketing :).I hope Moms will not spend the whole day on these sites :).
Annie, That’s a good summary of how life has changed for stay at home moms and I thank you for the Mom SocNet links.
The newer problem we are heading into, though, is that a lot of online networking results zero or no real face to face interactions, reduced telephone conversations or even lack of periodic hanging out with friends etc. This is definitely not very good for moms. Essentially, many of them are getting smarter by working from home and making money but loosing a big part of fun in life and learning from this the next generation also will become computer worms.
(By the way, this is applicable to work from home dads as well – not just moms)
There is certainly a place in social media for everyone, great article for moms wanting to be involved.
Great post for moms like me but could also be good for dads. As we all know, social media may take us to a successful business or site. Through social networking, we could also share our thoughts and communicate with others though far from each other.
Social networking targeted for the moms is really a great opportunity for them to connect with one another and showcase their work, even while “nursing a baby in one arm and a toddler attached to her leg” (I tried to imagine how it would look :P) .
You have mentioned quite a number of networks which I am not aware of, but I can think of one more called BlogHer. I guess this one too is a social networking site for the moms.