Influencer Spotlight: Chaton’s World

February 1, 2017 by The Motherhood

Chaton, the blogger behind Chaton’s World, is a lawyer, public speaker, runner, writer, mom of two – and as a top influencer, she’s The Motherhood’s Spotlight Blogger this month! Below, she shares with us what inspires her, the challenges bloggers face when working with brands and much more.

What content do you feel your readers find most valuable?

My readers tend to be like me. They are busy working moms. So, taking the time to read my blog is a luxury. Providing them with content that helps them make their lives easier is always the goal. When I don’t do that, I try to make them smile.

What are your thoughts on programs measured by initial click-through rates?

I used to be in marketing in a former life, so I understand the need for determining the return on investment for blogger programs. That said, blogs are different and infinitely more personal. I think that if brands are thoughtful in the selection of the blogger and the blogger delivers, then the click-through rate isn’t always relevant.

2017 is the year of:

Change.

Influencer marketing is:

The wave of the future. Social media is like a Tupperware party on steroids. People are searching for connections and what’s hot. Influencers play a tremendous role in that. We portray our lifestyles to the world and people buy into that. It’s much more personal than traditional [marketing] campaigns. I think brands get more bang for the buck.

What is your favorite space to engage with your readers, and where does your content get the most engagement?

I am having a lot of fun on Twitter lately. I like the broad reach. Also, communicating in 140 characters is a challenge for me. I was voted “Most Talkative” in my high school class. Words have always been my thing! I also love the flexibility and the ability to easily promote posts on Twitter. Facebook is a close second.

Where do you find inspiration for new blog posts?

I have been at this long enough that I literally find inspiration everywhere. My challenge is finding time to write them. I need to invest in Dragon [transcription software] so that I can dictate posts because I often write them in my head while in traffic and then forget them!

Tell us why you blog.

I blog because there is a community of women out there, like me, who are trying to do it all. I try to help them balance their responsibilities. By helping them, I also help myself. Also, I LOVE it! I really enjoy connecting with people on social media. I find it cathartic.

Favorite influencer program you’ve done with The Motherhood?

The Chick-Fil-A campaign, hands down. I loved the product and the company. It was an honor to be included. Also, they hosted really cool events!

What are you thoughts on online coupons?

I like them conceptually. I’m not a heavy user, though. I do think that they’re a draw in blog posts and promote traffic.

What should brands start doing better when working with mom bloggers?

They should provide bloggers with their campaign goals, be honest about their expectations and deliverables, and provide a reasonable calendar with as much notice as possible. Too many brands say things like, “Be creative! Use your judgment!” That is overwhelmingly unhelpful.

To find out more about Chaton and her quest for balance in stilettos, visit Chaton’s World, or give her a shout on Twitter (@ChatonsWorld) or her Facebook page: Chaton’s World Page.

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.

Check out our previous featured influencers from 2015 and 2016 here, and stop by on March 1 for the next Spotlight Blogger!

Influencer Marketing Stats to Demonstrate the Power of Moms Online

January 26, 2017 by The Motherhood

Below, The Motherhood has compiled a list of powerful influencer marketing stats to help share context around the benefits of including influencers in brand marketing strategy. The list provides data on everything from the power of moms and women online to baseline industry performance metrics. Stats are updated regularly, so be sure to bookmark this post to reference later!

The Power of Moms & Women Online

25.1 million females in the U.S. are between the ages of 18 and 49 and have one or more child under the age of 12, and almost three-quarters of them are in the workforce. (Nielsen)
Mothers are worth more than $2 trillion to U.S. brands. (Marketing to Moms Coalition)
Mothers account for up to 80% of household purchase decisions. (Forbes)
44% of women online are influenced by trusted bloggers. (Net Imperative)

The effectiveness of Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing is the fastest growing channel for customer acquisition, with businesses making on average $6.50 for every $1 spent on influencer marketing. (Net Imperative)
Influencer marketing campaigns can capture up to 16 times the engagement of owned or paid media. (SocialChorus)
In 2016, 86% of marketers used influencer marketing, and 94% found it effective. (Net Imperative)
53% of women made purchases due to influencer posts, as reported in this survey. (Bloglovin)
Word of mouth is 50x more likely to trigger a purchase than an ad. (Net Imperative)

path to purchase: Blogs

Blogs are 63% more likely to influence purchase decisions than magazines. (Optimind Technology)
84% of consumers make purchases after reading about a product or service on a blog. (Research Now)
80% of blog readers are more likely to purchase from a brand that they’ve read about in a blog post. (The Motherhood Research)
86% of readers talk to others offline about topics they’ve seen in blogs and on social media. (The Motherhood Research)

path to purchase: Social Media

74% of consumers rely on social media to inform their purchasing decisions. (Net Imperative)
81% of women say they frequently buy items they’ve seen on social media, and 72% say the ability to check social recommendations takes the guesswork out of buying a new product. (MediaPost)
88% of consumers have purchased a product they pinned on Pinterest, and 49% have purchased 5 or more products they’ve pinned. (JeffBullas.com)
62% of modern moms say Instagram is a place to learn about products and services. (Facebook IQ)
Twitter says 47% of people have bought an item based on an influencer’s recommendation. (Twitter)
64% of millennials recommend a product at least once a month through social media. (Marketing Dive)

Industry metrics & MEASUREMENT

Marketers that used influencer marketing saw a $7.65 return of earned media value (EMV) on average for every dollar of paid media spend. (Influencer Marketing Hub)

Want to see the results of influencer marketing at your own company? We’d love to work with you! Contact us!

Influencer Marketing in 2017: Mom Influencers Identify Trends

January 11, 2017 by The Motherhood

This year stands to be one of the biggest years in influencer marketing history, as more brands continue adopt the highly effective marketing practice. Nobody knows the industry quite like the influencers on the front line, which is why we asked our network of mom influencers, who reach more than 250 million on social media every day, what trends they’ve noticed over the last year and what predictions they have for influencer marketing in 2017.

Here are a few key takeaways!

Influencers choose Instagram Stories over Snapchat.

Approximately 54 percent of our influencers say that video was the top trend that emerged in 2016. This includes Snapchat, Instagram Stories and Live video.

According to our survey, influencers are more likely to choose Instagram over Snapchat for posting Stories. This is because on Instagram, they’ve already developed a following, making it easier to engage with a built-in audience. Now that Instagram Stories feature nearly all of the capabilities that Snapchat offers, influencers have little reason to put energy into building a following on Snapchat. Some, however, admit to using Snapchat for personal use only. As one influencer put it, “I like Snapchat, but I have not figured out how to use it for the betterment of my blog. Personally, it’s great, but professionally, it doesn’t really hit the mark.”

For influencers, Instagram is the preferred platform platform to engage with followers, while Facebook remains a great way to interact with friends and promote content.

If you’re on multiple social platforms, you may find yourself going to different social channels for different reasons. That’s why we wanted to know our influencers’ thoughts on the best ways to use each platform. They reported that they find Facebook is the best platform for promoting blog posts, sharing live correspondence, video and keeping in touch with friends and family. But when it comes to engaging with followers, 31 percent listed Instagram as the top choice. Pinterest rose to the top as the best platform for sharing food- and recipe-related content, and Twitter was considered the most effective platform for engaging with brands.

Online platforms help streamline project management, but they shouldn’t take the place of working with a direct contact — an influencer’s preferred method of participation.

Online platforms create value when they give influencers a central location to find all campaign-related information and see deadlines and their requirements, but fully automated platforms aren’t their preferred method of campaign management. Authentic relationships between influencers and agency/brands are still key to helping influencer marketing campaigns thrive.

Nearly half (46 percent) of respondents said a central dashboard or platform with an agency or brand direct contact providing hands-on management of the program is their favorite way to participate in campaigns, as compared to only 12 percent who prefer a fully automated platform.

Our network of influencers mentioned that they loved working with hands-on agencies and brands because they have developed great relationships over time, which strengthens their investment in the campaigns. This relationship creates a feeling of working as a team, and influencers often noted they would spend more time on these campaigns. Each approach can have its place, depending on the campaign type, but influencers want to work with people and brands and get to know them — not automated systems.

They also noted that a benefit of online platforms is that all information is accessible at your fingertips. However, drawbacks of platforms included too much focus on numbers, which can lead to influencers with high-quality engaging content being overlooked, and platforms may not do as great of a job of finding influencers that align well with brands and their missions. Many noted that there needs to be a mix of both in influencer marketing in 2017.

As always, authenticity is key.

One thing that has not changed in influencer marketing in 2017 is that authenticity is still a very important factor. The influencers in our network reported that their personal and authentic content receives the highest engagement, because readers want real-life anecdotes and insights more than ‘expert tips.’ They also reported that readers love it when there is a personal touch to a post with or without a brand tied in.

Do you have any thoughts to add on influencer marketing in 2017?

The Motherhood’s Most-Viewed Blog Posts from 2016

January 6, 2017 by The Motherhood

The Motherhood is already off to an amazing start in the New Year! We are excited about the current direction of influencer marketing, and we can’t wait to explore ways to continue building relationships with new and old partners alike. As we move forward into 2017, we’ve been reflecting on how much we’ve learned in the last year, much of which we shared in previous posts. In case you missed them, we’ve recapped some of our most-viewed influencer marketing blog posts from 2016 here:

#8: Measurement Monday: Defining Your Campaign Success Metrics

We launched our Measurement Monday series last year to uncover how best to measure the success of influencer marketing. The first step? Defining your goals! Because if you don’t know exactly what you should be measuring, then how can you measure it accurately?

#7: Snapchat for Brands?

At the beginning of 2016, many were asking whether Snapchat was worth the investment for brands. While there are new advertising options within the platform, we still don’t see a huge opportunity when it comes to influencer marketing – yet. Based on a recent influencer survey from The Motherhood network, however, the trend seems to be away from Snapchat. In the survey, our influencers said they prefer Instagram Stories over Snapchat, due to the fact that their follower base is already established on Instagram’s platform.

#6: Measurement Monday: Going Beyond the Impression

The long-standing impressions metric does not always communicate the value of influencer marketing. So what should you be looking for? In this post, we dive deeper into a few valuable metrics for influencer marketing campaigns.

#5: Advantages of Using an Influencer Marketing Agency

The Motherhood is founded on trusted relationships between our brand and blogger partners. While there are different approaches to influencer marketing, working with an agency offers many advantages. In our recent influencer survey, nearly half of respondents said they prefer being part of campaigns that include both a dashboard or platform and a direct contact at an agency or brand. Building strong relationships with partner brands and agencies over time is something influencers prefer, and they say those relationships make them feel more invested in a campaign.

#4: Round-up of the Top 10 Social Marketing Predictions for 2016

Take a look and let us know what you think: how did our predictions for this past year pan out? Our influencer network would agree that video was the top trend that emerged in 2016. This includes Snapchat, Instagram Stories and Live video.

#3: Super Bowl Brand Showdown: Which $1 Million Branded Emoji Won the Day on Twitter?

For Super Bowl 50, we were especially interested in Twitter’s new advertising option for brands: a $1 million branded emoji. We followed the four brands that partnered with Twitter to create these emojis and listed the results in this blog post. We can’t wait to see what new marketing trends arise during this year’s big game!

#2: The Motherhood Research Reveals How Sponsored Content Leads to Purchase

We conducted a survey to uncover just how much online sponsored content affects purchase decisions. We found that 79 percent of blog readers will seek out brands they’ve seen on social media, and 98 percent see a product in a store and recall reading about it in a blog post or on social media. Check out our full blog post, including an infographic, for complete results of this survey.

#1: What the Facebook Branded Content Tool Means for Bloggers and Blogger Marketing Networks

And finally, our top-read blog post for 2016 was about the Facebook Branded Content Tool released in April that caused much confusion and concern among influencers. Our team, with the help of one of our amazing influencers, got to the bottom of it!

Thank you for following along with our INFLUENCER MARKETING BLOG POSTS! You can stay up to date with our posts by subscribing at the right side of the page.

Influencer Marketing Research in Partnership with the University of Pittsburgh

December 27, 2016 by The Motherhood

For several years, The Motherhood has partnered with the University of Pittsburgh to conduct influencer marketing research, putting the young medium of social media under the microscope to uncover valuable business insights. Marketing Professor Vanitha Swaminathan, PhD, who is the director of the Katz Center for Branding in the Joseph M. Katz Graduate School of Business, has guided our work together since 2013.

The Katz Center for Branding has filmed and shared a new video that explains the work they do and briefly outlines some of our research efforts (beginning at 1:30):

As noted by PhD student Christian Hughes in the video, we’ve most recently explored the factors that make a blogger most successful – specifically, examining the type of content posted and the makeup of influencers’ follower networks.

Out of our previous influencer marketing research, in 2014, we shared the most effective ways to engage moms online on behalf of brands. We followed up in 2015 with research-based practical tips on how to reach influential moms online.

A few interesting findings from our current research include:

Staying on topic matters. A blog post with higher relevancy can increase engagement on a blog post by 20 percent.

Engagement rate and posting frequency are correlated. Bloggers with high Facebook engagement generally post eight percent more often than bloggers with low Facebook engagement. Bloggers with high blog post engagement generally post 35 percent more than bloggers with low blog post engagement.

Readers love visuals. Blog posts that receive high engagement are 12 percent more likely to include a photo than blog posts with low engagement.

A new product release presents a strategic opportunity for a blog campaign. Campaigns featuring new versus existing products are 38 percent more likely to receive high Facebook and blog engagement.

Many thanks to Vanitha Swaminathan, Christian Hughes and Bob Stein at the Joseph M. Katz Graduate School of Business for their work and partnership over the years!

Favorite Holiday Traditions from The Motherhood

December 20, 2016 by The Motherhood

As 2016 comes to a close and the holidays draw near, The Motherhood team has been talking about our favorite holiday traditions and pastimes, swapping stories and ideas. We’d love to hear yours, too!

The Motherhood CEO Cooper Munroe told us, “Every year since I can remember, our family has celebrated Christmas with a big, beautiful dinner of Beef Bourguignon (aka Beef Burgundy). This recipe on Beef It’s What’s For Dinner is very similar to my grandmother’s version, and I highly recommend it for a wonderfully delicious and festive dinner!”

*Image courtesy of Beef It’s What’s for Dinner*

Other team members shared the following holiday stories:

Brittnee

“My husband and I have always picked a night in December to grab a coffee and drive around to all the nearby neighborhoods to check out Christmas lights. Over the years, we’ve established our own driving tour of must-see neighborhoods. This year, we get to share our tradition with our little man. Lucky for us, he’s currently infatuated with Christmas lights, so we think he’ll enjoy the evening just as much as we do!”

Kahlianne

“Every year before Christmas, all of my cousins get together to bake and decorate Christmas-themed sugar cookies! Our decorating skills have improved significantly since we started doing this when I was five.”

Brittney

“The Italian side of my family celebrates the Feast of the Seven Fishes on Christmas Eve. This is a Roman Catholic tradition rooted in the idea of Christmas Eve being a day of abstaining from red meat — hence the menu filled with seafood. Our exact roster of fishes changes a little bit each year, but it always includes baccala, which is a salted cod. It’s a lot of fun to help prepare, and I’ve picked up some of my best cooking secrets from our family’s multi-generational kitchen crew!”

Erin

“When I was a kid and my family went on vacation or experienced a milestone (such as adopting our dog into the family), my parents would buy my brother and me each a Christmas ornament for the tree — something to represent that trip or experience, like a snowman dressed as the Statue of Liberty from a trip to New York City. We would unwrap them on Christmas morning, which was a special way to remember that particular trip and the time we had spent together, and then every year after that, we got to unwrap them again as we took our ornaments out of storage and hung them on the tree. As a result, when I left home and started buying Christmas trees of my own, I already had a box of unique ornaments filled with family memories that I could use to decorate. I’ve continued that tradition with my husband, and my favorite part of the season is getting out that box of ornaments and taking a trip down memory lane.”

Nicole

“When I was younger, my family would watch It’s a Wonderful Life every year (my dad’s favorite movie!) from our sleeping bags on the living room floor. It was always so fun to then sleep next to the lit Christmas tree.”

Serena

“My husband and I both have large families, so our Christmas Day is jam-packed: we typically travel to four Christmas celebrations around town. One of my favorite traditions that we’ve had for years is having our own low-key celebration the day after Christmas. We make brunch, exchange our own gifts by the fire and spend the day in pajamas (a screening of Home Alone is also often involved). This year, I’m excited to introduce our little one to this relaxing tradition!”

The Motherhood wishes you and your families a warm, safe and happy holiday season!

What are your favorite holiday traditions? Share with us in the comments!