When most people think of social networks they think of teens and young adults. The fact is that moms dominate social networks.

The number of moms on MySpace far surpass teens on MySpace:

• Moms on MySpace: 18MM Uniques

• Teens 15-17 on MySpace: 6MM Uniques

Moms are are highly involved on MySpace:

• 9 billion pages consumed.

• 3.6 billion minutes each month.

Rapid growth of Café Mom:

• 1.5MM+ moms

Moms with older children are active on social networks:

• “More than four out of ten women in their forties surveyed in October by SheSpeaks had a social networking profile. And over 70% of women with children ages 13-17 had talked about products on social networks, compared with all responding women.” eMarketer, Dec. 11, 2008

Moms drive spending:

• 1.7 trillion according to Ketchum

Moms mobilize, vocalize and create action within social networks:

• An interesting example of this is when breastfeeding moms protested Facebook removing pictures of mothers breastfeeding their babies. They used both the tools of the social network and offline tools to effectively make their point.

• Excerpt from Palo Alto Online News article: “Breastfeeding mothers who claim that Facebook is treating them like pornographers are staging a “nurse-in” on Saturday, Dec. 27, at the company’s headquarters at 156 University Ave., Palo Alto. Mothers International Lactation Campaign (MILC), a group of “lactivists,” are staging the 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. protest because Facebook has been removing pictures of the mothers breastfeeding their babies. MySpace and Facebook have removed the images on the grounds that they are obscene, according to Heather Farley, a Provo, Utah, mom and protest organizer.”

Moms influence other moms on social networks:

• Moms’ friends will tend to be other moms

• Moms influence their friends with communication that is spread via their daily usage activities: email, pictures, blog posts, discussion via groups

• If moms want to rant or rave about a product, their friends are an attentive, active audience

• There has been some initial research that correlates power-blogger moms as being highly involved on social networks.

When you take all of these factors into consideration, it makes sense to explore activity within social networks as part of your marketing activity toward moms.

I’ve been providing formal online recommendations for mom brands such as Kraft, Barilla Pasta, and Pedia-Lax. For a complimentary consulting session, send a short list of some of your marketing challenges to jenni@weluvdigital.com.