• by Maria Bailey , Columnist, December 22, 2014

I’ve been in a nostalgic mood this week as my family and I celebrate the well-lived life of my father-in-law, who passed away last week at 88 years old. It certainly puts things in perspective as we approach the end of 2014 and reflect on all that has happened this year. 

I decided to look back at my usual January marketing to moms trends post and see how the year stacked up to my predictions. Straight from the January 2014 post are the following headings, with the updates in italics:

1. Leverage the new holidays Millennial moms have created to new marketing occasions.
Babymoons, gender reveal parties and half-birthdays are all events created by Millennial moms. These Millennial Mom-created holidays are hotter than ever and will continue to get more creative as these mothers enjoy the limelight with their babies and toddlers on social media.

2. Get into video. Really. Get into video.
Maybe you have dabbled in video and uploaded a few YouTube videos, but you need to do more. Quick product commentary, mom video reviews and consumer-generated Vine videos are the types of videos that moms are watching. YouTube remains at the top of the video hill, but witness the explosion of short (as required by the sites) videos on Vine and Instagram. Make videos that are short and sweet; usually you have less than one minute to get your message across and that time frame is only going to get shorter. Remember to go mobile with everything video.

3. Hang back on jumping into Google+  and Google Hangout.
Mom bloggers aren’t as excited about Google+ as the media and Google+ would like you to believe. Mom bloggers in particular have spent years establishing their communities, and, as mothers, they are just too busy to re-establish them on a new platform. I’m still holding to this opinion. Over the year, I’ve worked with plenty of moms on many different campaigns, and I still don’t see the Google+ and Hangouts drawing expected crowds. Again, it’s not about the platform as much as it’s about the time. Busy moms aren’t looking for one more thing on their plate. 2015 may change that but time will tell.

4. Meet moms in their living rooms.
Disney is doing it. So are Morton, Leap Frog and Cadbury. This month alone, over 5,000 moms will be hosting a party on behalf of a brand. These in-home parties proved tremendously successful in 2014 and will continue in 2015. It meets moms’ needs on so many levels; socializing, sharing and empowering each other with information.

5. Engage with mom bloggers in a new way.
Moms are moving away from writing product reviews on their blogs. Brands need to leverage a mom’s Instagram followers, Pinterest boards and Facebook friends. Yes, yes, yes. Just this week, Instagram’s 300 million user number surpassed Twitter at 284 million active users. Find the moms who are active across several sites; they are your best influencers.

6. Recognize that the newest form of marketing hasn’t even been introduced yet.
Don’t believe that the marketing plan you set into place today will be fresh until my 2015 trend list is published. There are technologies and social media platforms that will spring up in the next 12 months that none of us can predict yet. Last year at this time, Snapchat wasn’t on my iPhone! Now it’s Snapchat, Instagram and Vine. What will I add to my phone in 2015? 

Thank you to MediaPost for another year of Engage:Moms. I wish everyone a happy holiday with friends and family.