• by Stephanie Azzarone , Op-Ed Contributor, March 26, 2014

On Monday and Tuesday, I attended the 2014 Sandbox Summit, a wonderful meeting about the convergence of technology and education. One of the speakers from BuzzFeed mentioned that women share BuzzFeed information four times as much as men.

Other research continues to underscore women’s over-indexing in social media—and moms are leading the trend. According to research from Pew and Burst Media recently compiled by Finance Online, women use social media overall more often and in more ways than men do. Facebook, Tumblr, Pinterest, Instagram and Twitter all have more women on their platforms than men. The differences are particularly dramatic in visual media, such as Pinterest.

Although women’s dominance of the space was no surprise to us – we know that social media is where our target audience, moms, live – there were some particularly interesting findings: women are more likely to check the news using Facebook, interact with brands on Twitter, and support brands on Instagram than men are.

When it comes to the current social media trends among women, there’s no doubt that snapping a “selfie” is the latest craze. Some brands are capitalizing on the phenomenon, both by poking fun and by celebrating the confidence and natural beauty selfies can convey. 

• Dove recently released a short film called “Selfie,” that shows mothers and daughters talking about “flaws” that others praise. Its accompanying #BeautyIs campaign for Twitter and Instagram encourages women to take selfies and talk about how they define beauty. 

• The “Today Show” recently hosted “Love Your Selfie” week, featuring segments that target daughters, teenage girls and young women, encouraging them to appreciate their body image.

• Ellen DeGeneres took the funny, celebrity-packed, and now infamous selfie that made light of the trend and resulted in tons of visibility for Samsung, which provided the phone taking the photo.

Have you incorporated selfies into your marketing campaigns? We’d love to know the latest – and greatest way – you’ve reached out to moms in social media.