Though my television may be on, there's a good chance I lost the story line within five minutes of the show starting. And there's even less chance that I'm going to catch the commercials -- and I work in the industry. The only time I can truly enjoy watching television is once my kids finally fall asleep.

The idea is to monitor and participate in conversations and take note of the opinions of mothers on a continuous basis. Over time, you begin to pick up on trends, subtle changes, and new ideas that are within your business' category, but outside of it as well -- or appear to be unrelated. Comments, opinions and ideas that are seemingly unrelated can suddenly produce an epiphany and business opportunity.

Don't short-change your brand in the area of building trusted advocates, ambassadors, and relationships. We're looking for authentic voices to follow and engage with. If we don't find them or don't like what we're finding, you'll be in crisis management mode before you know it and be a case study of what not to do at the next social media conference.

How Moms view their role as helpmates to kids and what it means to marketers.

With the magic of online marketing, social media and consumer-generated content, marketers have the opportunity to get over their fears of marketing to moms and do something they've never done before in order to get the results they've never gotten before.