Clarissa from Passports and Parenting (Influencer Spotlight)

April 17, 2019 by The Motherhood

This month’s feature influencer spot goes to Clarissa from Passports and Parenting! She’s a blogger, wife, traveler and co-parenting pro raising a multicultural, blended family. You might recognize her from her blog, formerly known as Clarissa Explains It All, which she recently rebranded to Passports and Parenting.

We had the awesome opportunity of meeting and hearing Clarissa speak at Mom 2.0 last year, and she instantly blew us away with her passionate and authentic approach to building relationships online through influencer marketing. Since then, we’ve had the pleasure of partnering with her for several projects, in which she consistently delivers great content. We couldn’t wait to feature her — and what better timing than right after her blog rebrand!

Make sure to follow Clarissa from Passports and Parenting on Instagram, and read on for her insights on influencer trends coming in (and going out)!

What do you think is the #1 trend in influencer marketing in 2019?
A trend I see this year is more influencers focusing on growing and diversifying their own brand and finding other sources of revenue versus only working with brands on sponsored posts, partnerships, etc.

What content do you believe your readers find most valuable?
Readers find content valuable when it is easily digestible, relatable and informative/useful to them.

How has your blog changed since you first got started?
My blog has actually made a BIG change… I decided it was time to shift from Clarissa Explains It All and rebrand to Passports And Parenting, because that name accurately fits my brand, especially as my family and I have grown and changed over the years. I recently shared a blog post about this new journey, and I hope you will all follow along.

What advice would you give to someone who wants to be an online influencer?
Don’t try and compete against others or play the comparison game. Be yourself and write what YOU are passionate about. If you want to win, then help others win, too.

What trend is on its way out?
Brands collaborating with one or two “larger” influencers on campaigns. Instead I am seeing a trend of brands working with a bunch of influencers on campaigns.

What’s your greatest challenge when working with brands?
Ensuring that their brand and messaging is heard and received while making sure that I stay true to my authentic self. Also making brands realize that “smaller” influencers are valuable, too.

What’s your best blogging or social media tip?Help, support, engage and collaborate with others where you can. The more you genuinely show support and uplift others in the community, the more you will shine, too.

Favorite program you’ve done with The Motherhood?
The Know Your Dose Campaign. It is so important to bring awareness to extremely important things like checking medicine labels and ensuring you are taking or giving the proper dosages at all times.

What is your proudest achievement?
My kids. They are almost 15 and 9 years old and I could not have been in any way successful with my blog without their continued help, support, ideas and more.

What are your three most-used emojis?
✈️😂💙

More about The Motherhood’s Influencer Spotlight Series

Each month, our internal team convenes and discusses our latest programs, stellar partnerships and top influencers. It’s not about numbers, but rather, the quality, authentic content they’re delivering consistently. It’s about reliability, professionalism and partnership. We discuss our nominations for the month and ultimately decide on just one blogger to feature.

Take a look at our other featured influencers here, and come back next month for the next Influencer Spotlight!

The Early Days of Influencer Marketing (and What We Can Learn From It)

April 8, 2019 by The Motherhood

This is the influencer marketing interview you need to listen to. We know we’re a little biased because it’s our own Cooper Munroe, but seriously. It doesn’t matter if you’re a skeptic or a believer, this interview on the early days of influencer marketing affecting today now will sell you (or your clients) on why influencer marketing is beneficial, or more importantly, why it works.

In these days of fake followers, pay-to-play and content overload, it’s easy to become disheartened when reading articles about campaigns going awry. That’s why we’re excited that Cooper was able to sit down with Aaron Watson of Piper Creative to have a conversation about the beautiful aspects of influencer marketing. In only 37 minutes, they cover everything from the very early days of influencer marketing to the conception of The Motherhood to the status of the industry today.

Aaron graciously introduced Cooper and the conversation by saying, “The marketing landscape is changing rapidly, and [Cooper] is one of the few people around who is poised to take advantage of the very exciting future that we have ahead of us.”

Here is an excerpt from interview. At this point, Cooper is talking about the blogging community back before social media was even a phrase:

“[Blogging] was looked at like this weird, anomaly, strange thing. Everyone thought they were going to go away; they thought it was a flash in the pan kind of trend thing. And it was mostly about politics and technology. It just felt like there’s something here. There really is something so intriguing and exciting about what people were doing because people were publishing their own lives. Telling their own stories in a way that could reach huge amounts of people. And in a way that was in real time and had never been done before. The potential was enormous.

So, it started out and there weren’t very many people, very many women, especially, women with children, doing it at the time. But those who were, were incredibly gifted storytellers. Really creative. Really wanted to share their lives, share what they knew, share their expertise, share their narrative with whoever wanted to listen and connect. And it was from a real genuine place of needing connection and needing community that this felt like it was being built. It was profoundly intimate. So, people were sharing the challenges or the wins or the sadness of their lives to strangers who became friends. And it was just such a beautiful thing to behold.”

While we have come so far from those early days of influencer marketing, one thing has stayed the same; what made content good then still holds true now. Just because influencers today have strong SEO, high definition pictures and five+ social platforms doesn’t mean they are any different from the bloggers who were just figuring it out over a decade ago. What makes influencers valuable then and now is their ability to relate and provide value to their following of real, everyday people. Over the years, we’ve see good, quality bloggers remain good, quality bloggers when they stuck true to themselves and their audiences while using their voices to support important causes and trustworthy brands.

“It went from this strange little thing people experimented with to gaining steam because it was clear it was really effective, to ‘ok, we are a massive, global brand- we need reach.’ And here are these people blogging with the weight of the world on their shoulders. ‘We gotta increase our reach, we gotta increase our reach, and how are we gonna do that?’ So, it started to lose a little bit of what was so special about it, and that was the authenticity and the creativity and the content from the heart. And really caring about why their audience was seeking them out. When people see it now, I want them to think back to what makes this work so well.”

The idea of authenticity and adding value to people through influencers marketing isn’t new. But in today’s digital age, it’s a good and necessary reminder.

“Readers or viewers or listeners will show up for content that adds value to their lives. That’s it. That can’t be lost. It was true back then and it’s true now.” – Cooper Munroe

Listen to the full interview on the early days of influencer marketing here or watch it below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nsm1B5Ut0E

Influencer Spotlight: Jacquie from The Sweeter Side of Mommyhood

March 12, 2019 by The Motherhood

Meet Jacquie from The Sweeter Side of Mommyhood! The Motherhood has had the privilege of working with this amazing Pittsburgh mom of four for several years, and our team is always blown away by her creative approach to campaigns. Jacquie consistently produces amazing, quality content for her readers. You’ll quickly notice from her blog and social feeds that she is passionate about photography, DIY art and hands-on making. She even offers many of her projects on her Etsy shop, which we absolutely adore!

We especially love Jacquie’s vulnerable and authentic voice, which is so evident in the real-life stories she tells. She is the real deal, which is why we couldn’t wait to feature her for this month’s Influencer Spotlight! Read on for our Q&A with the creator behind The Sweeter Side of Mommyhood:

Where do you find inspiration for new blog posts?

Mostly from real life! My girls and I are always creating something new. My husband and I love to cook and experiment with new recipes. And our whole family loves to get out and explore our city. Real life always makes for the best content and I love having a responsive community to share all that with!

What is your favorite social media platform?

Instagram! I’m always first and foremost an artist at heart and the little squares of the Instagram world are a constant and beautiful source of inspiration for me. It’s also the place I’ve formed really meaningful connections with other mamas and families of kiddos with hearing loss. I love being able to inspire other families to get creative, and Instagram is the place I get to actually see that happening when other people tag me in the things they try from my account. It makes my day!

What is a valuable tip you learned in the years you’ve been blogging at The Sweeter Side of Mommyhood?

Identify your goals and work toward them! It might sound obvious but sometimes bloggers get sidetracked with things they think their readers want or other bloggers in their niche are doing. Continually ask yourself, “is this helping me reach my goals or not?”

What is the #1 question readers ask you?

How do you find the time to do it all? My answer is usually the same – I don’t do it all, I usually skip the laundry. Ha! But seriously. Something’s got to give, and sometimes it’s better for my mental health/work/productivity to paint/sew/craft than it is to to do chores. AND we all have the same 24 hours inside every day. You make the time for the things that are important to you. I also only do “chores” while my kids are awake. I use naptime hours and after bedtime hours for FUN things – photography stuff and editing, sketchbooking, quilting, knitting, baking etc. Don’t do your “boring work” while your kids nap!

Influencer marketing is _______.

An industry! I think influencer marketing is starting to be taken seriously on one hand, while on the other, people still think influencers are pretty models selling clothes and makeup.

What should brands start doing (better) when working with bloggers?

Establish long-term contracted partnerships! I love being able to build brand relationships and continually share our family’s love for a brand. This feels more authentic and comes across as much more trustworthy for an audience. Multiple shares over a longer period of time. I know it’s not always possible, but when it is, I JUMP on those opportunities.

What are your thoughts on blogging conferences / are you attending any blogger conferences this year?

I wish I could attend a conference but haven’t yet. I’ve always been attached to nursing babies or been pregnant. Ha. Maybe next year! From what I’ve seen, they can be amazing networking events and provide so much information and inspiration. I wish there were more creative retreat type workshops in existence – smaller hands-on craft experiences for the art and craft-related bloggers of the world. I’d love to attend a conference that could connect bloggers with art-related brands and sponsors.

Favorite program you’ve done with The Motherhood?

Oh this is tough, there have been so many… I really enjoy working local – I loved the Dinosaur Exhibit campaign with the Pittsburgh Zoo and PPG Aquarium (I love taking the photos for these types of events), The History Center Campaign to share the Expedition Moon exhibit, and working with 412 Food Rescue – a nonprofit we’ve come to care a lot about!

What are your thoughts on affiliate marketing?

I don’t participate in any affiliate marketing except for Amazon. I haven’t found any other affiliate platforms that are worth my while. Because my niche is more creative-based, I don’t find much use for affiliate sales. I don’t “sell items” as much as I “teach skills.”

What is your most productive time of day?

Morning for sure! I have never needed much sleep – I can get up at 4am and crush a day of work before my girls even wake up. It’s my favorite. Hot coffee, a dark living room and my iPad. The best mornings!

Phew…We’re already inspired! Make sure to follow Jacquie from The Sweeter Side of Mommyhood on Instagram, as well as her blog, to forever be in awe and motivated by beautiful, unique DIY projects, crafts, stories and much more! Thanks so much for your consistent creative work, Jacquie!

More about The Motherhood’s Influencer Spotlight Series
Each month, our internal team convenes and discusses our latest programs, stellar partnerships and top influencers. It’s not about numbers, but rather, the quality, authentic content they’re delivering consistently. It’s about reliability, professionalism and partnership. We discuss our nominations for the month and ultimately decide on just one blogger to feature.

Take a look at our other featured influencers here, and come back next month for the next Influencer Spotlight!

Influencer Spotlight: Heather Hopson from Single Mom Defined

February 11, 2019 by The Motherhood

We are especially excited about this month’s influencer spotlight; meet Heather Hopson! Heather is our neighbor in Pittsburgh and began blogging at Diary of a First Time Mom in 2012. We’ve watched her work hard to grow her blog and community over the years!

Heather is now using her influence to do something extraordinary in the local area, which is why we’ve chosen to shine a spotlight on her this month! Read our interview with her for more about her projects and the amazing things she’s been learning.

Can you tell us about your project, Single Mom Defined?

Single Mom Defined is a photo essay and video series aimed at providing a much more accurate definition of single black motherhood than the one society presents. According to society, single black mothers are monolithic; we’re crammed into the same stereotypical storyline. But in reality, we each took a unique path to parenting. The interactive exhibition, which unveiled at the Three Rivers Arts Festival, chronicles more than 50 families. Some mothers ended relationships, exited abusive environments, adopted, divorced, or were widowed or abandoned. Some women are raising happy, healthy children with the children’s fathers. Each story should be included in the larger conversation about raising America.

Currently, we are expanding the exhibit — we host pop-up photo shoots, writing workshops and events to connect potential donors and volunteers to nonprofits serving single moms and children. With the help of the foundation community, friends and family and The Motherhood, we hosted Cocktails With a Conscience, benefiting more than a dozen organizations. The Motherhood also sponsored our writing workshop! Some agencies just talk about diversity and inclusion. Cooper’s committed to it.

What inspired you to begin this project?

Imagine if you Googled yourself and horrible search results popped up on your screen, saying you are damaged goods, trash and selfish. How would it shape your identity or form others’ opinions about you? Well, that’s what happened when I Googled myself. I typed “Single Black Mom” and these negative narratives rose to the top of the first page. Although it’s disappointing, it’s not shocking. Very few companies invest significant marketing dollars, which influence search results, to positively promote single black mothers. Single Mom Defined hopes to address this problem by providing a counter-narrative.

Where do you see the most engagement with your content?

In our private Facebook group. It is such a sacred, safe space for single mothers of all ages, races and circumstances. It’s a no judgement zone where moms laugh, cry, hurt, heal, support and even scream.

Who is your mentor?

So many to name! When it comes to blogging, I learn so much from Lamar and Ronnie of Black and Married with Kids and Brandi from Mama Knows it All. When it comes to community building, I turn to Muffy at Brown Mamas, which has a huge Pittsburgh Brown Mamas Facebook group. She helped grow my local moms meet-up group. Cooper at The Motherhood is my go-to when I coordinate influencer marketing campaigns.

What is your favorite topic about which to write?

Race, religion and relationships — connected to motherhood, of course!

What are brands doing right when working with bloggers?

They are letting us be! Be moms and bloggers first and saleswomen second. When we are given the freedom to weave their products and services into articles in an authentic way, it creates a level of trust between the blog, the brand and the reader. Real relationships are born, not just fabricated friendships. I remember turning down a paid campaign, because it didn’t resonate with me — would go against my core beliefs, and the brand brainstormed with me to create something that did. It was a win-win!

Favorite program you’ve done with The Motherhood?

Northwood Realty Services. I am fortunate to live in the same city as The Motherhood, so this campaign was both online and in-person. Bloggers and Northwood moms came together to discuss how to achieve success at work without sacrificing life at home. Then, we shared our stories and parenting tips with our readers. The Motherhood has this amazing ability to not only create quality content but also form relationships beyond the blog.

Fill in the blank: 2019 is the year of _____.

Being! Every year, I pick a word to represent the year to come. Last year, I had so much to DO. I couldn’t just BE. Now, I’m ready to walk the word out. Be who God called me to be. Be willing….be ready…be still…be quiet. The last one is pretty hard, since my company is called Motor Mouth Multimedia! But I’m learning to turn down the volume of work, social media, and people to listen to what God wants me to be. In the end, simply being makes doing so much easier. There’s much more clarity and direction.

Share with us your favorite life hack.

Meditating. As a full-time entrepreneur and single mom, there are 101 things on my daily to-do list. It’s easy to become overwhelmed and stretched beyond capacity. So, I start my day watching one of my favorite YouTube Channels — The Mindful Christian. You can choose what works for you — 7, 15, or 20-minute guided meditations. It allows me to start the day in God’s presence. Sometimes it’s my me time. Other times, my daughter joins in and teaches me the breathing techniques she learns in her health and wellness class at school.

Are you doing anything like this in the Pittsburgh community right now?

We’re really excited to partner with Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh to install the Single Mom Defined exhibition at its main gallery. Alongside what will become a traveling exhibit, we’re planning programming, a single moms book club and data points around poverty, childcare and transportation. Currently, I’m on the advisory committee for The Pittsburgh Foundation Single Mothers Project, which is developing a policy and advocacy strategy that will help to advance necessary systems change and remove structural barriers that impede the success of single moms in poverty.

Keep up with all that Heather Hopson is doing by following her Instagram, and make sure to wish her a happy birthday on February 21!

More about The Motherhood’s Spotlight Blogger Series
Each month, our internal team convenes and discusses our latest programs, stellar partnerships and top influencers. It’s not about numbers, but rather, the quality, authentic content they’re delivering consistently. It’s about reliability, professionalism and partnership. We discuss our nominations for the month and ultimately decide on just one blogger to feature.

Take a look at our other featured influencers here, and come back next month for the next Influencer Spotlight!

Buying Followers: What Every Influencer Marketing Pro Needs to Know

January 28, 2019 by The Motherhood

If you work in any field related to the influencer marketing industry, then the controversial topic of buying followers on Instagram is likely all too familiar. In order to better understand all perspectives on this topic, we at The Motherhood recently partnered with research corporation Westat to survey both influencers and marketing professionals.

Our analysis of the resulting data led to an informative piece that was published by the American Marketing Association. Here is an excerpt from the article:

Paid influencer marketing, commonly identified by disclosures or hashtags such as #ad or #sponsored, grew by almost 200% in 2017, composing more than 1.5 million Instagram posts worldwide.

In response to this opportunity, some influencers are buying followers to boost their perceived reach and improve their opportunities for working with paying brands. This practice has invited criticism about a lack of transparency that can deceive consumers, and brands are now boycotting influencers who purchase followers. For example, Unilever recently called on the marketing industry to stop working with influencers who buy followers, and it laid out steps to distance itself and its brands from such accounts.

Working with trusted partners is key to engaging influencers who are legitimate, have trusted followings and can successfully promote a brand or campaign in a meaningful way. Understanding this trend is key to helping marketers and communicators make informed decisions about which influencers are the best fit for a brand or campaign.

To better understand the trends in influencer marketing and gather insights into perspectives from both sides, influencer marketing agency The Motherhood and research corporation Westat fielded two surveys in August 2018. One went to influencers and one to marketing professionals.

More than 400 influencers responded to the survey, with 90% reporting that they have never purchased followers. However, 18% said they have considered doing so for two main reasons…

Click here to read the whole article, “What Every Marketer Needs to Know about Influencer Marketing and Buying Followers.”

Instagram Algorithm: The Six Factors You Need to Know About

January 9, 2019 by The Motherhood

Deciphering and breaking through algorithms is a challenge for any brand on social media. Here, we take a look at how the Instagram algorithm works.

Instagram suggests that, before, when it was chronologically-based, users would see only half of their friends’ content. Now, the algorithm shows them nearly all of it. (Business 2 Community)

Per Instagram, there are three main factors that determine what content appears in one’s feed: interest, recency and relationship. What exactly do these mean? TechCrunch defines these terms and how they affect the Instagram algorithm:

Interest: How much Instagram predicts you’ll care about a post, with higher ranking for what matters to you, determined by past behavior on similar content, and potentially, machine vision analyzing the actual content of the post.
Recency: How recently the post was shared, with prioritization for timely posts over weeks-old posts.
Relationship: How close you are to the person who shared it, with higher ranking for people you’ve interacted with a lot in the past on Instagram, determined by commenting on their posts or being tagged together in photos.

Other factors that contribute to ranking influence are how often you post to Instagram (frequency); how many users you follow (the more you follow, the less you may see of any one user); and usage habits (how long you spend on Instagram determines what you see).

Something you may want to notice here; straight engagement is not listed under these factors. So boosting engagement numbers from groups and pods doesn’t necessarily guarantee that post will appear at the top of everyone’s feed. Instagram is looking for a combination of factors to determine what is truly wanted-to-be-seen content based on each individual user.

Where engagement does come into play is under interest and usage habits. For example, if a follower always engages with a influencer’s posts, spends time reading, liking and commenting, then the Instagram algorithm will more than likely present that influencer’s posts at the top of their feed. So if you are a brand or influencer, it is very important to create meaningful content for your followers, so they continue to engage and see your posts.

What About Brands on Instagram?

According to the social media platform: “Instagram doesn’t give extra feed presence to personal accounts or business accounts, so switching won’t help your reach.”

For those creating dynamic, engaging and relevant content, the algorithm changes will benefit brands, since it will showcase that content to more followers than when posts were arranged chronologically.

In fact, according to Instagram, “relevancy sorting has led to its 800 million-plus users seeing 90 percent of their friends’ posts and spending more time on the app.”

What about over-posting? Instagram says they do not penalize brands for posting content frequently. However, Christina d’Avignon, a product designer for Instagram feed, did tell The Verge: “we do make sure your feed feels diverse so we may break up posts.”

Also, while Instagram doesn’t prioritize videos over photos (or vice versa) in the feed, if data determines that a user prefers to engage with videos vs. photos, that user may then start seeing more video content in his or her feed.

As a general takeaway for brands, the quality of a company’s content will determine its overall Instagram reach.

What things have you noticed about the Instagram Algorithm? Tell us in the comments!