Monday, March 1, 2010

No Kidding Sherlock?!

It's no surprise that a study, performed by BIGresearch for the Retail Advertising and Marketing Association" last fall, stated among it's findings that "Women with children at home are more likely to use Facebook (60.3%, MySpace (42.4%), and Twitter (16.5%) than average adults (50.2%, 34.4%, 15.0%, respectively). Additionally, 15.3% of moms maintain their own blog." For more info on this study, visit: http://www.nrf.com/modules.php?name=News&op=viewlive&sp_id=786

There are more socially active moms on twitter than I could have ever imagined.  I also frequent four mom-centered sites on a regular basis, including BabyCenter, MomsLikeMe, CafeMom & Circle of Moms. Found a new playgroup through one of them which we tried out for the first time today.  A mix of circumstances brought these women together, from relocation to this area, loss of ft work or pure choice to be a SAHM.  They were all looking to replace the adult interaction they all miss on a day-to-day basis, similar to the camaraderie & networking that exists out on Twitter.

@GirlMeetsGeek recently tweeted "LinkedIn = Office Desk. Twitter= Water Cooler. Facebook = Bar" which I totally identified with. Okay well maybe it's not the total picture, but it neatly summarized, for the most part, how I utilize each of those social networks. Perhaps I'd swap out "Bar" for "Girls Night In/Out." While retailers are trying to capitalize on this growing social networking sites for raising brand awareness & increasing future sales through partnering with MomBloggers & other forms of WOM positive advertising, some "Women with children at home" have other motivations for being active on these social networks.

While there is a time & place for all types of agendas, I don't want to see the true value of these personal interactions between people who may have never crossed paths before and those relationships that are being built or maintained clouded by spam & purely commercial interests. Please respect those networks for their organic purposes.

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