Stay-at-home-moms Dominate Social Media

Mothers that stay home withchildren have an extremely difficult job. Cooking, cleaning, teaching, playingchauffeur and occasionally peacemaker can be all in a day’s work. That means alittle leisure time can go a long way; hence the staggering number of stay-at-homeMoms joining social media sites.

A Retail Advertising and MarketingAssociation study showed that more than 60 percent of stay-at-home moms aremore likely to use Facebook, more than 42 percent are more likely to useMySpace and nearly 17 percent are more likely to use Twitter. That's comparedto average adults – 50 percent of which use Facebook, 34 percent that useMySpace and 15 percent that use Twitter.

So what factors stand as theunderlying reasons behind these trends? Staying in touch with friends andfamily has become easier with social media, and the concept spans generations.Instead of moms hanging laundry in the back yard and gabbing or burning up thephone lines all day, they can accomplish the same on Facebook or MySpace. Momsuse social media for advice. Instead of living through “old wives tales” ortaking a wild chance, Moms can seek out legitimate opinions from peers andexperts on any subject. Nearly 94 percent of the Moms surveyed said they seekadvice before buying products or services, and more than 97 percent said theygive advice on products or services purchased.

Social media has a 24-hourper day availability. It proves very difficult to check or update variousprofiles during the day when kids need full attention, so Moms usually updatewhenever they find a free moment or late at night.

Social media trends will come andgo as the sites develop and become even more integrated in our everyday lives. What started out as the meeting placefor hip, young, Internet savvy young adults has become the new marketplace forthe 35+ crowd. No wonder that marketers searching for stay-at-home Moms have turned their intense focus onsocial media sites.