Sex And The Social Mom

by Maryanne Conlin, Feb 15, 2012, 7:59 AM

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It is heartening to hear that on one day of the year, moms aren’t under the covers snuggling with their smartphones. Over three-quarters of moms in a Valentine’s Day study conducted by Socialmoms.com chose to give up Facebook over sex.

This may be a harbinger of things to come.

Per a recent eMarketer report, two-thirds of moms are on Facebook and 87% of moms who use social networks are on Facebook. However, for brands, the important numbers are not how many moms are on Facebook, but rather, how effective marketing to moms on Facebook really is.

It is a tenant of social media consultants that before you do anything, you advise your client to be on Facebook and Twitter. I have no intention of changing that advice, but it has always been in addition to ensuring you have a social medium- and, even more important, consumer-friendly web site.

A new report notes that moms trust a brand’s web site more than they trust a brand’s Facebook page. And, while we tend to pay a lot of attention to optimizing the brand web site for SEO, we don’t always put as much effort into ensuring that it is optimized to meet mom’s needs.

I work a lot in the food industry targeting the primary household shopper, yet I find a number of mid-size food brands have billboards rather than functional web pages.  Social media channels as a form of consumer engagement should not be stand-alones but gateways for more usable information about the brand. And that usable information should drive sales.

As a consumer products marketer, I learned a long time ago that driving sales can only be accomplished two ways, increasing users or increasing usage. Everything we do in marketing is focused on achieving one of those two goals – or it should be. We achieve increased usage with multiple purchase promotions (BOGO’s, etc.) Does your website offer coupons? More importantly, does your website offer mobile coupons … since that is quite difficult to offer to mobile Facebook users based on current limitations.

We achieve increase usage by showing consumers new ways to use our product. Does your web site include a robust section of tips/recipes and usage ideas? Are they each on a separate page with a separate SEO optimized URL? Are they visible when accessed via mobile device?

New users can be driven to buy by current users. Online word of mouth is one of the great advantages of having a strong social media program, but once a newcomer hears about your product, do they know how to use it? Do you incentivize them to try it? Does your web site address new-user needs?

As social shopping gains traction, more and more consumers look to web sites to provide more than information. They seek an experience. If your web site isn’t living up to that promise, moms may be snuggling up with your competitors this year.

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