Influencer Spotlight: Ari with Love, Peace and Tiny Feet

September 5, 2017 by The Motherhood

This month, we’re shining a light on one of our favorite influencers, Ari with Love, Peace and Tiny Feet. Ari is a mom to two girls, an entrepreneur, author, holistic health advocate and, of course, a top influencer!

Take a look below for our Q&A with Ari.

What do you feel is the #1 trend in influencer marketing in 2017?
I believe influencer marketing is once again embracing the art of storytelling. Influencers are starting to move away from simply reviews and relaying the brand’s story, to sharing with readers how the brands authentically fit into their lifestyles.

What content do you feel your readers find most valuable?
I would say my “insider” tips that they can’t easily find on their own, and my holistic health articles.

Tell us why you blog.
Blogging has given me a chance to connect with people from all over the world, from different walks of life and backgrounds. They find comfort in reading my stories and thoughts on my blog and will often reach out to me to share their personal stories, struggles and accomplishments.

Where do you find inspiration for new blog posts?
My blog posts come from my everyday life encounters, eye-opening experiences in my parenting journey and incredible travel experiences.

What is your favorite space to engage with your readers?
We engage via social media (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter) at times for lighter topics, but I also have readers email me for more personal conversations.

Where do you see the most engagement with your content?
Other than my blog itself, I find a lot of engagement on Instagram.

What’s the #1 question you’re asked by your readers, and what’s your answer?
“How did you find the courage to start blogging full time?” I tell them I just finally made the decision to follow my passion and determined that it was time to work on my own dream. The next question is always, “How do I start a blog?” The latter was my inspiration for starting a free blog series helping those people get started blogging.

What are your thoughts on programs measured by initial click-through rates?
I don’t think they’re realistic. I have blog posts that get even more traction months or years after posting. A long-standing SEO strategy is the purpose of a good blog post.

What are your thoughts on working with a brand on multiple occasions (vs. one-off programs)?
I would much rather a long-term partnership with a brand over a one-off. My readers begin to associate me with that particular brand and feel as though they can better trust my opinions at that point.

What are your thoughts on online coupons?
Since I started blogging in the couponing space, I still believe there is a demand for these.

Influencer marketing is ________.
Here to stay.

What trend or platform is on its way out?
Snapchat.

Favorite program you’ve done with The Motherhood?
If I had to choose, I’d say the Bertolli Mangia campaign. I was introduced to some new products I could easily incorporate into my lifestyle. The meals were so easy to prepare and my family genuinely had a great time together as I worked on constructing the post.

What’s your greatest challenge when working with brands?
Unfortunately, I find that some brands still don’t quite understand how influencer marketing works and will either undervalue the work of influencers or try to approach campaigns with the same strategy and metrics as traditional media.

What are brands doing right when working with bloggers?
Providing relevant details of the campaign while allowing bloggers to express those in their own voices.

What should brands start doing (better) when working with bloggers?
I think brands should put more effort into forming longer-term partnerships and ambassadorship programs with those bloggers whose style and content fit well with the brand’s mission.

Read more about Ari and her musings on her blog!

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 stop by in October for the next Spotlight Blogger!

Want to Publish a Book? 8 Tips from Published Authors

August 22, 2017 by The Motherhood

The Motherhood’s network is comprised of influencers with amazing capabilities, and this month, as part of our The Other-hoods of The Motherhood series, we’re celebrating a unique niche within our network: influencers who are also published authors! Influencers often do more than their fair share of writing to maintain their blogs and social media channels, so we’re always so impressed with those who take the time and talent to share their writing with us in even more ways!

Tips from Published Authors

We asked a few influencers in our network to share their advice, and here’s what they said:

Start with a Great Outline. “Your book’s outline can be like a road map to writing your book. For me, my outline becomes my table of contents, my book proposal, and finally, my to-do list. Of course, it changes along the way as the whole thing comes together, but that original scribbling of ideas helps keep me focused throughout the entire process of book-writing.” – Mary Helen with Mary Makes Good
Team Up with a Great Agent. “My greatest source of support has come from my book agent, Sally Ekus of The Ekus Group. Sally and I have worked on three book proposals together, two of which have been made into real-life books! Having Sally by my side helps me feel confident while navigating the world of book deals and publishing – a world that I knew next to nothing about. She has been my negotiator, cheerleader, sounding board and ally from day one – and I can’t imagine having gotten this far without her. If you think you need to be a world-famous blogger or celebrity to work with an agent, you are wrong. I was (and still am) neither of those things, but I AM an author!” – Mary Helen with Mary Makes Good
Set Realistic Goals and Stick to Them. “Since most book deals don’t offer large enough advances to quit your day job, most first-time authors have to figure out how they will balance book writing with the rest of their everyday life. Whether that’s childcare, a day job, a small business, a busy blog (or in my case, all of these things), cramming time for your book into your schedule can be a challenge. Go easy on yourself by setting goals that suit your lifestyle. If you start to fall behind, talk to your agent and your publisher about what’s happening BEFORE you miss a deadline or run out of steam. One big advantage to publishing your book with the help of an agent and a publisher is that you aren’t doing this alone. You are a team, so communication and mutual support is key.” – Mary Helen with Mary Makes Good
Plan Ahead to Create a Following. “First, be sure you’ve set up all social media platforms and your website early. This is important, even if you don’t have a following or a book out, so you can start to gain an audience. I would definitely hire a PR company that can help with a cover reveal, blog tours and a release blitz.” – Anissa with Life, Books, & Loves
Network with Other Authors in your Genre. “…that way they can share when your book is released. They can also help you out with any questions or concerns you may have. When it comes to promotions, relationships with others are key. Being prepared ahead of time with these aspects helps tremendously in getting the word out and launching your book.” – Anissa with Life, Books, & Loves
Tease Your Launch. “In the weeks leading up to your book’s release, write articles, blog posts, and social media posts that support the messaging of your book to whet your audience’s appetite to hear more from you on that topic.” – Kayla Aimee with Kayla Aimee Writes
Use Digital Word of Mouth. “Even in this digital age, book sales happen through word of mouth! People buy books because someone recommended the book to them. Reach out to your network and ask them to share information about your book with their friends and family, both in person and on their personal social media site(s).” – Kayla Aimee with Kayla Aimee Writes
Make It Easy to Share. “Pre-write messages that are easy to share on social media, and that have lots of pre-made images for sharing, too. Giving your team a collection of messaging to share makes it easy on them. While it’s always best to get a personal endorsement, it can be really helpful for people to see your messaging ideas and use them as a jumping off point for what they’d like to write.” – Kayla Aimee with Kayla Aimee Writes

Thank you for sharing these tips with us and our readers, Mary Helen, Anissa and Kayla Aimee!

Are you looking to execute a social media and blog influencer marketing campaign highlighting influencers who are also authors? Contact us! We can create strategic, scalable, unique and engaging influencer marketing campaigns that fit your needs and deliver quality content and meaningful results.

Influencer Spotlight: Heather with Brie Brie Blooms

August 15, 2017 by The Motherhood

We recently caught up with Heather, mom of two (and don’t forget her hedgehog, dog and two cats!), crafter extraordinaire and the woman behind top lifestyle blog Brie Brie Blooms! Below, Heather shares her insights on the influencer marketing industry and social media trends as part of our Spotlight Blogger series:

What do you feel is the #1 trend in influencer marketing in 2017? Ambassadorships! We have been aware of great partnerships, including long-term ambassador opportunities with brands, but with marketing teams seeing value in maintaining relationships with influencers, those ambassador opportunities are continuing to grow. Sure that means we have more exclusivity contracts and guidelines, but that also means we can negotiate better rates and terms that make sense for the partnerships that actually fit our blogs and social channels instead of brands coming to us with one-time opportunities.

Tell us why you blog.
Blogging brings me so much joy and gives the ability to work at my own pace, although that is 99% flying through the day on coffee and very little sleep. I was laid off from a corporate career while on maternity leave with my first daughter almost nine years ago. I started blogging as a way to connect and share crafting ideas. That led to wanting to learn about blogging and how I really could turn it into a career path. That led to a full-time position as a campaign manager and learning invaluable experience in influencer marketing. I’m back to working on my own blog full time, and the full circle path it has taken me on has been extremely rewarding.

Where do you find inspiration for new blog posts?
I find inspiration in everything around me. I’m a visual learner and tend to spark up my best ideas when I’m strolling the aisles of Target, or chasing my two-year-old daughter through the grocery store, silently begging for her to let us get our list purchased without any major meltdowns, or when I’m feeding ducks at our neighborhood lake. Inspiration is everywhere, and I’m always thinking, “I should write about this experience.”

What content do you feel your readers find most valuable?
The best content is real content that sparked more than just a product review or quick tip list. My most valuable content to my readers are those feel-good stories embracing the challenges of parenting and successes when we can stop and relish our children’s accomplishments. That, and chocolate.

What is your favorite space to engage with your readers?
My favorite social platform is Twitter because it’s fast-moving. Short, sweet and to the point.

Where do you see the most engagement with your content?
Personally, I see the most engagement on my posts themselves. I enjoy interacting with my audience by replying to comments and I feel brands are paying attention to the comment count. This is not an accurate depiction of the campaign success, though, as that’s only a tiny piece of the engagement.

What’s the #1 question you’re asked by your readers, and what’s your answer?
“My child loves animals too, how did your daughter become the SeaWorld guest kid blogger?” My eight-year-old daughter has been the SeaWorld kid blogger for a few years. She is the only child blogger contributing to their site, and we have had amazing learning opportunities in and out of the parks. My husband and I both grew up visiting SeaWorld. We began visiting the San Diego park with our daughter when she was just an infant and she truly loved it. More visits to SeaWorld and then me visiting for a few media events led us to her making an impact on the public relations team by her love for sea lions. She is articulate, smart, dedicated and genuinely excited to learn. Paired with her natural and organic love for the parks along with a very supportive blogging mom, her role as the SeaWorld kid blogger is a natural fit that I would consider an ambassadorship.

What advice would you give to someone thinking of starting a blog?
Think bigger picture and not just what you are interested in today. Just because you have a super duper adorable puppy, your blog might not be named “The Super Adorable Puppy Blog” with content just about that puppy. Blogs are no longer just an online journal that you might share with your family and friends. If you want to have a blog as a marketing platform, make a plan just like you would if you said, “I’m starting a business today.”

What are your thoughts on programs measured by initial click-through rates?
Working on both sides of the equation, as an influencer and, for several years, as a campaign manager, I understand there needs to be a real measurement for brands and clients. However, the impact of a topic or piece of content cannot simply be measured by a click-through rate. Sometimes an influencer uses a very powerful image on social featuring the brand or product, and while that might not get a click-through to the post, it most definitely will seamlessly place that brand on the radar of the consumer.

What are you thoughts on online coupons?
Online coupons are a great way for brands to drive product purchases while working with influencers. It’s also a nice way for us to provide something of value to our audience.

What are your thoughts on Snapchat?
Snapchat is fun, but I feel it’s lost the engagement we were once seeing as its popularity started to soar. For marketing purposes, some brands are doing it right. Let’s just hope it’s still around when everyone else decides to jump aboard too.

My 2017 holiday predictions: _______.
Starting early. We know Halloween content begins late summer and Christmas is quick to follow. Get ahead of the game now!

Influencer marketing is ________.
Growing and gaining a better understanding from brands. This is debatable. Some get it and some don’t. In my opinion, we are starting to see many more pursuing influencer outreach with smarter, more professional approaches. Brands are hiring influencers to help them understand how to work with influencers and make it a better win-win partnership for us all.

Favorite program you’ve done with The Motherhood?
My favorite program was visiting a local food bank to learn about their community kitchen program that makes a difference for children facing food insecurity, while also providing culinary education and life skills to secure employment in the food service industry to struggling individuals.

I love feel-good campaigns, and as a parent, I feel so broken by learning about the food insecurity rates. I visited the food bank, met individuals in the program and learned about what brought them there. I met incredible people with complicated stories that I never would have been able to share otherwise. And maybe by sharing their stories, I reached someone that needed the same kind of help.

Dove Love Your Hair was also a HUGE favorite project. I cut my very long hair because my oldest daughter cut her hair over holiday break after a classmate with cancer had passed away. The day following her haircut, she was so excited to go to school and show her friends her new shorter style. She came home from first grade asking for a time machine because friends said very unkind things about her hair. I was heartbroken and told her I would cut my hair to match. Her little face lit up and I drove straight to the salon. Teaching our daughters how to have hair confidence is so important, and this was a great campaign to be involved in.

What are brands doing right when working with bloggers?
Brands are treating influencers as highly valuable resources with engaged audiences. They are asking for our insight to help them understand how to work with influencers.

What should brands start doing (better) when working with bloggers?
Our time is valuable, and we should be compensated fairly for our work. No one wants to work for free products. If it were up to my two daughters, they would happily let me fill up their rooms with toys, but then there’s that adult-paying-bills thing that has to happen, too.

Read more of Heather’s insights on her blog, here!

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 stop by in September for the next Spotlight Blogger!

Back-to-School Shopping Trends and Insights

August 7, 2017 by The Motherhood

It’s August, and for many families, that means it’s back-to-school time! Did you know that back-to-school is the second-largest shopping season of the year? According to the National Retail Federation (NRF), shopping trends indicate that back-to-school and back-to-college spending are projected to reach $83.6 billion this year, with the average seasonal shopper expected to spend $688 this year.

The Motherhood explored back-to-school shopping trends, including how consumers research, where they are buying and how social media habits come into play for this year’s popular shopping season. Here’s what we found:

When are People Shopping?

According to an NRF back-to-college spending survey, nearly half of those surveyed (46.7 percent) plan to start their back-to-college shopping between three weeks and one month before school starts. The same timing applies to elementary school students, according to School Family Media’s TeacherLists.com*, a service that gives parents a one-click system to order their child’s exact school supply list from online retailers.

Southern states account for 44 percent of all school enrollments, and the majority of these shoppers (70 percent) begin before August. This group also spends more than those in other regions of the country — an average of $554.

Research and Social Inform Purchasing Decisions

Google Trends indicates that searches for back-to-school start to increase as early as June, and peak in August. What’s more is that three out of five searches on the topic occur on mobile devices, which is a 35 percent increase in mobile back-to-school searches from the 2015-2016 school year.

When it comes to mobile, a survey by Deloitte indicated that shoppers use computers and smartphones during the shopping journey. Furthermore, 27 percent said they plan to use social media for transactional reasons (to find coupons and to browse items), and 77 percent said they would try new digital in-store technologies that offer value/convenience.

Online vs. Brick-and-Mortar

Small Business Trends reports that last year, 70 percent of back-to-school sales took place in brick-and-mortar stores. eMarketer projects that online sales will grow by 14.8 percent compared to last year — but will only account for a little more than eight percent of all back-to-school retail sales. One reason behind the preference for in-store shopping could be because of tax-free shopping days, which many states hold in August.

What’s on Shopping Lists?

Deloitte indicated that traditional school supplies (think folders and paper notebooks) are less in-demand since there has been a shift to technology-based learning in schools. Another reason could be that parents are using pre-made school supply kits, which are offered in some places. This year, the majority of shoppers’ budgets (55 percent) is expected to go to clothing and accessories, which is 10 percentage points higher than 2016 back-to-school shopping.

eMarketer predicts that the most popular products purchased during this season include: apparel and accessories, books, music and videos, computers and consumer electronics, office equipment and supplies, and toys, hobbies and sporting goods.

Do any of these back-to-school shopping trends surprise you? Where do you do most of your shopping, and does social media inform your purchasing decisions? Tell us in the comments!

*Teacherlists.com is a partner of the motherhood, but this post is not sponsored and All opinions are our own.

Influencer Tactic: Extend the Value of Campaigns with Influencer-Executed Promoted Social Posts

July 27, 2017 by The Motherhood

The influencer marketing landscape has grown more competitive in past years, and it has become increasingly important to work with experienced influencer marketers to develop well-thought-out and expertly executed campaigns that employ more than one influencer tactic.

As a full-service influencer marketing agency, The Motherhood is often tasked with coming up with fresh ideas for tactics that can integrate seamlessly into an overall campaign strategy. When it fits into campaign parameters and goals, a beneficial yet often-overlooked, tactical add-on to influencer campaigns is paid social ads and boosted posts executed by the influencers themselves.

Simply put, influencers receive a social media ad budget to promote their own branded posts on priority social media outlets. This helps reach a highly targeted group of individuals, as well as expanding organic reach and increasing engagements and actions on posts. Not only does this approach provide value to the brand by reaching more eyeballs through an authentic source, it also provides value to influencers, as their channels get higher visibility.

Why is this more successful than a brand simply boosting their own social media posts with ad dollars? Because the influencers’ ad content is written and posted by relatable individuals who align with the message, it resonates with the target demographic more effectively, and it looks less like an ad and adds more value to the consumer buying journey than a simple ad. The combination of authentic content and effective distribution strengthens the campaign for both parties.

Of course, it is important to execute the tactic strategically, using findings from your own brands’ advertising successes as well as letting the influencers use their knowledge of content and community to optimize the ad and boosted post parameters. Getting to know influencers prior to the campaign, determining their level of experience with social ads and clearly conveying the goals, will help increase the probability of success.

In getting to know our network of influencers, we’ve found that over 75 percent have executed a boosted Facebook post while only 36 percent have experience with Instagram ads. Most often Facebook boosted posts are mentioned as the most successful social ad tactic for their content and emphasize that quality authentic images and call to action are key. Our influencers cite increase in reach, heightened engagement and link click throughs as the primary reasons they’ve executed paid social on their channels.

Below are examples of successful paid social post campaigns that The Motherhood has implemented as an influencer tactic in tandem with broader influencer marketing programs.

Boosted Facebook posts led to increased click-through rates.

In our headquarters city of Pittsburgh, we worked with a quick-service restaurant to feature a lightly branded, shareable infographic of crowd-sourced tips for local summertime family activities. A group of local influencers targeted their boosted Facebook posts to reach key individuals, which resulted in a click-through rate 78% higher than industry average.

Boosted Facebook posts integral in influencer campaign ROI of 16X.

The Motherhood worked on a consumer product campaign featuring an on-the-ground experiential marketing program and hyper-local influencer team. Influencers in each of the target locations geo-targeted their boosted Facebook posts to promote on-the-ground branded events, driving high engagement rates and successful event attendance. Moreover, the return on investment for this campaign, calculated based on earned media value, was more than 16 times the initial investment.

Boosted pin team targets easy desserts, generating 13% higher than industry average engagement rate.

As part of a new product launch for a quick dessert product from a well-known brand, a team of influencers created content showcasing unique product preparations. A select set of those influencers were given an ad budget to promote their pins on Pinterest to targeted individuals interested in the category of easy desserts. Within 30 days of posting, the pins had received an average of 1.5X higher number of re-pins than a standard pin in its lifetime. Furthermore, the higher engagement rate of those pins was 13% higher than average for promoted pins in the food and beverage product category.

Another quick tip about promotion: With proper attribution and links, sharing an influencer’s branded content on your brand’s own social channels, or re-engaging influencers to promote their content again during key timeframes, is a cost-efficient and easy way to extend the value of an influencer marketing campaign.

Interested in executing a creative strategic influencer marketing campaign? Let’s talk!