by By: Meghan Schroeder
Influencer identification is used to help understand who or what accounts or media platforms are controlling and steering conversations in the specific sphere of that product or company. It enables organizations and users to discover individuals who have an established voice in that world to ensure they are connected with the latest trends to help the brand maximize influencer relationships. These conversations can be positive or negative but it is helpful to understand the affects.
Although this changes between fields and companies, mothers control 85% of household products resulting in $2.4 trillion in spending. Some claim that their moms have no idea how to use social media – constantly having to show her how to use the newest feature on Instagram, upload her pictures to Facebook, or set up a Snapchat account. Yet, this is not the case with millennial moms. Millennial is defined as people born between the mid- 80s and the late-90s. Millennials were raised when modern media was being discovered – a millennial mom is very connected and comfortable with media. 83% of new moms are millennial, spending over eight hours online and often searching for parent advice and tips. They turn to social media to seek help and recommendations from other moms. Who knows best than another mother? Through social media they connect with one another as a new parent to ensure they pick the best and safest products for their children.
As this trend only continues to grow, it is fascinating to see how more mothers have stopped using traditional parenting books, but instead turn to social media for help. Word of mouth is a large factor to consider for a household product company when looking at this target public audience as an influencer. For example, if one mother uses a product that she is not fond of and posts a review or status, many mothers will comment, share or retweet this experience – potentially detrimental for this product.
For example, Cristen Casados is a California mother of two girls that averages 405 likes per post and 33 comments with 348k reach. She has 81.2k followers on Instagram, 7.1k on Twitter, and 245k on Pinterest. Cristen also has her own blog, with 3.1k followers that include a list of approved products, travel, house, style and kids suggestions. She also provides helpful parenting advice and her secrets to a healthy home life. Cristen is a perfect example of a mother that has the power to affect purchase decisions due to her high level of engagement and authentic trusted relationship with her followers. Mothers all over tune in and trust Cristen. People claim these influential moms act as a guardian parent for the Internet because they are so easily relatable as if you are asking a friend or family member for a genuine review; it’s genius.
Hi Meghan, I really enjoyed how unique your blog is! Being college students I think we all can sometimes forget how much credit goes to our moms lead alone millennial mothers. Millennial mothers like, Cristen are paving the way on social media for many mothers like her. Since Instagram, Snapchat, and Pinterest are a somewhat newer concepts when it comes to parenting advice I think this type of an influencer would be beneficial to first time parents, or other mothers who are seeking advice regarding their children.
Hi Meghan!
I really enjoyed your blog post and thought it gave a really interesting perspective of millennial mothers. Going off of Isabelle’s comment, millennial mothers really are paving the way on social media for other mothers and generations to follow. There is such a huge opportunity to gain knowledge, tips, and advice as new mothers and the millennial generation knows how to take advantage of social media to do that. I’ve also seen many young mothers grow a significant following around being a mom and sharing their experiences and becoming influencers that brands send mother and baby related products for them to review and post about. Super interesting!
Depending on the product or service, mothers can be a valuable target market due to their purchasing power. I think it’s smart to identify millennial mothers as a network of consumers that are constantly staying informed/informing others. In my mind, organic positive reviews or posts from these millennial mothers is exactly what a brand wants. These type of consumers are no longer buying products/services without diligent research on a brand. For that reason, I think transparency is important for a business. Overall, this blog brings up a great point and solidifies our learning on micro-influencers.
Thanks for this perspective! You mentioned that millennial moms spend somewhere around 8 hours online–is that per day? I assumed so. It’s a shocking number! Though, it makes me think about how much time I spend online… and I suppose that when I consider how my consumption of information has evolved from books to magazines to social media over the years, this makes more sense (and makes me feel slightly less guilty!). Your parental information gathering argument provides the perspective that perhaps social media is the modern way to information gather–not completely unlike my grandmother’s card club and book clubs or my mother’s tv shows, books, and magazine. Micro-influencer mothers are the new Martha Stewart!
Hey Meghan!
What an interesting topic! I never really thought about how much mothers control the majority of purchases for household products, which is weird because it seems pretty obvious. I think a lot of companies forget that sometimes, that most mothers are in charge of deciding which products are going to be used in their family’s home. As a millennial, I’m curious to see how social media and parenting will continue to evolve as I enter the years of possible parenthood myself. Providing Cristen Casados’ background story was a really great example; it’s crazy that she can juggle such a demanding hobby AND be a parent of two children. Thank you for picking such a relatable and interesting topic!
Hi Meghan!
This is such a great topic and a well-written article. I have looked at so many accounts from young mothers posting around different products that they have enjoyed and also informing mothers when they don’t like a product. Your post made me think about our generation and how we will be as mothers. I think that as time evolves, we get more and more connected with social media and I can only imagine how much more people will use Instagram and other platforms to connect with other parents and to share their experiences parenting. Thanks for picking such an engaging and interesting topic!
Hi Meghan!
I really enjoyed your article. I think it’s difficult for millennial moms to be super comfortable with their parenting sometimes because of backlash from other generations. You always hear “well that’s not how I raised my children, and they’re fine…” or something like that. I think you highlight intersting points like the power and control millennial moms have on household products. One savy review could determine the future of a product!! I think you’ve got a lot of great information here and it’s very well written.
Meghan,
First of all, thank you for defining a millennial because I have been unclear for quite some time who actually falls into that classification. Secondly, I really like that you discussed how millennial mom influencers can really dictate which products and companies succeed and which don’t. I think this particular point really highlights the often underestimated relevance and reach of social media influencers. I think you also did a fabulous job of honing in on the peculiar position of millennial parents (not just regular parents, but millennial parents). I’m really curious how I’ll develop as a millennial if and when I am a parent. Is the power of parenting now in the millennial generation’s hands? It will be interesting to see how parenting practices shift and change as a result of parent presence on social media.
Hi Meghan!
I appreciated your insight into pointing out that new moms are very much active on social media. I completely agree with everything you said; I feel as if “new mommy” books have gone off the shelves and been relocated online. I even follow a handful of influencer who are moms on Instagram myself- they have great recipes and style advice! I feel as if this is a strategic tactic several baby products have adapted to and will continue to grow as the social media savvy people begin to become parents. Although women our age are still a little far away from having kids, I think we still feel inspired by these mommy influencers. Even though a large number of their followers are mainly other moms, I feel like mommy influencers attract a mass amount of fans making them as influential as they are.
Thanks for the read!
Bella
Twitter: @bellabarilati
Linkedln: @isabellabarilati
Hi Meghan,
Thank you so much for sharing! I never actually thought about the fact that most new mothers are from the Millennial generation and are so caught up with social media in today’s day and age. I believe that the “influencer” mother figure is actually really important for new mothers to have someone to relate to, but there will always be those mothers who have something negative to say about what other mothers are doing. Overall, I believe that the “influencer” mother figure is super important, but it is also important for these “influencers” to stay true to their own personal practices (so long as they are healthy) while ignoring the trolls coming after them.
Meghan,
This post is so amazing! Thank you for sharing insight on a demographic that I personally feel is overlooked, but holds huge amounts of power over products and businesses. Moms, especially millennial moms are such a huge, connected network and they have massive influence over products and services that pertain to their children. These moms have set the standard for what people are going to buy and what people are going to be talking about in terms of their children and lifestyles. Social media is a very powerful tool to utilize to get a message across. These moms are running the show and that is exciting to see.
I enjoyed your post and it made me think about motherhood. It seems to be a bit of fishbowl for mom influencers while a comparison trap for ordinary folks. Not to mention the stress of actual parenting that must affect both parties. If new moms spend 8 hours online a day I wonder what their baby is doing. Sure in the early months there is a lot of sleeping for the baby, but as the baby grows parenting becomes much more demanding and time consuming. I feel it is a fine line between cute outfits and kids becoming an extension of a mom’s fashion wardrobe. I worry at times that the influencers so many people look up to have no idea what they are doing let alone are actually good parents.
Hi, Meghan. Thank you for sharing. This was a really interesting post. I had never given it much thought before, but it makes sense that millennial-mothers would be able to use social media effectively. With this in mind, millennial-mothers who blog and have large followings definitely have a very strong power to influence purchasing, since their audiences are generally made up of moms. Such types of individuals should definitely not be forgotten when identifying influencers.
Meghan, I think this post is spot on. I feel like moms with small children make up a huge part of the blogging and social media community and have loyal followers within their communities. It is interesting to think about the fact that this might be correlated with the fact that most of the new moms ARE millennials. 83 percent! That is crazy. I’m sure we will see more and more of this as the “social media natives” get older and continue to become parents.
This post is so unique to me because even being a graduate student, I often forget to think about moms in reference to social media use, this being because I don’t have kids. It’s really awesome that millennial moms are having such an online presence because it really does spread the wealth of knowledge with tech-savvy mothers who are using Instagram and other social media platforms to find information about what products to use, or parenting tips. I think we’re going to see more of this as time goes on, considering the next generation is even more tech-focused than that of the millennial population.