Who You Calling MommyBlogger? The Web's Most Influential and Diverse Community Begs You to Stop Generalizing - Jory Des Jardins - MediaBizBlogger
Four years ago, when my partners and I built the very first conference for women bloggers, we set out to find three women to lead a break-out session we had entitled simply, "MommyBlogging". I, then an unmarried, childless, business blogger in Silicon Valley, remember thinking to myself, "Do they really want to call themselves MommyBloggers?"
It was a moot question. At the end of that first event, one blogger stood up and declared "MommyBlogging is a radical act!", a clarion call to women everywhere who wondered whether their digital childrearing chronicles were meaningless to anyone but their close friends. Shortly after the event, the requests came in from brands and agencies: How do we reach these women? (My partner, Lisa Stone, wrote up a nice history of how this group evolved in our community.)
Today, I'm thinking that the Time Magazine person of the year should be "The MommyBlogger". These women, one of whom tells me she used to receive threatening comments on her blog suggesting nobody would ever want to hear about her self-absorbed life, ended up comprising the largest contingent at our conference--and is the most common segment that event sponsors ask to reach. So many MommyBloggers come to our conference that we had to accommodate the cohort with a whole track addressing their macro issues, such as online privacy and making money, and more niche topics, such as blogging about children with disabilities.
As our online network grew, Moms became the largest segment. In a 2008 study comparing the readers of BlogHer Network bloggers versus the general population of U.S. women online, 46% of the 36 million women who actively blog every week have children living at home. Among Gen Xers who blog, the percentage increases to 67%. They trend above the general population in education, household income, and online spending. And, a critical fact about these women: They trust each other. Sixty four percent of these power influencers bought a product based on a fellow blogger's recommendation.*
And corporate America noticed: Companies such as P&G, GM, Kraft, Clorox, Wal-Mart, and countless others have sought MommyBloggers for their insights and online advocacy. PR agencies such as Fleishman Hilliard, Burson-Marsteller, and Ketchum have established Mom-focused practices and research. Marketing consultancies focused on parents are practically powered by MommyBloggers, a group that is nothing if not open with their feedback and willingness to spread the word about things they love, and don't love. Media companies that cater to women avoid this group at their peril. Online stalwarts such as iVillage (a portfolio company of one of my company's investors, GE) expanded their parenting coverage by building Momtourage; and non-parenting media orgs, such as Time Warner and Nerve.com spun off new sites focused on moms who are online.
Ironically, at this height of appreciation, many women who blog about parenting have become tired of the well-worn, if lucrative, moniker "MommyBlogger".
"MommyBlogger is condescending and makes me want to throw a temper tantrum," said Sarah Gilbert, replying via Twitter to my request for opinions. Though trying to be PC about what to call this group can be a bit like deciding between tomato and to-mah-toe: "blogging mamas" is Gilbert's preference.
It would seem that the community itself has not come to agreement on a term. A few months ago a discussion about the word MommyBlogger revealed a general sentiment in the community: Sure, Mommy is a button-pushing term, but considering the opportunity it attracts, it's tolerable.
"MommyBlogger is on my biz card. I don't mind it at all," said a blogger that I met last year while sitting on a MommyBlogging panel. This stay-at-home mother of three boys (who was seven months pregnant with a daughter at the time) secured personal sponsorship from two Fortune 100 companies to attend the BlogHer'08 conference.
Still, for some MommyBloggers, the term feels like a branding noose detracting from how they would like to be perceived as writers.
"When the mainstream media talks about 'mommybloggers' it's often meant to refer to a group of stay-at-home mothers who, in their spare time, write about the trials of motherhood. Some of us fit into that category, but there's a lot of shortsightedness if people think that's all that 'mommybloggers' are," said Joanne Bamberger, a writer with BlogHer, Huffington Post and her own political blog, PuditMom, in a guest piece she wrote on ZDnet. The decidedly techiercrowd on this site responded to her thoughts with tongue-clucking dismissal.
Said one commenter:
" Are you ashamed at being a mommy or ... a blogger? Small minds are generally offended by words."
This reaction in the Blogosphere is not unlike what Paris Hilton receives from professional navel gazers: Attention cuts both ways; if you make a living under a label—be it "socialite" or "MommyBlogger"—you have to take the lumps with the limelight.
But what if you're not "making a living"? While many MommyBloggers monetize their sites through advertising or occasional consulting, only a small percentage is getting wealthy from it. Most of the die-hard, daily writers are covering their costs, and perhaps the monthly grocery bills, but they do it because they are addicted to the community and the outlet blogging provides for personal expression.
And while these women may break into diatribes about poopy diapers, there is no standard content formula for the Grade A MommyBlogger. Rita Arens, Mommy and Family Contributing Editor for BlogHer.com, wrote of a trend she was noticing among the "first wave" MommyBloggers who have been active online for three or more years, a pulling-back on parenting content, as interests changed and as kids got older and their privacy became more of a concern.
Says one blogger:
"I initially thought my 'Therapy on a Budget' would largely consist of horrific tales of motherhood. Then I realized my kids don't make me as crazy as I think they do. In fact, as they get older, they do less and less that makes me want to sit in a corner and hum 'The Chipmunk Song' for hours on end ... I find I write more and more about life in general. Work. Marriage. My neurotic thoughts.
Says another:
"I don't have a 'typical' Mommyblog (is there such thing?) that focuses only on my kids. I write about addiction, writing, freelance work, PTA, sex and the random silliness of my own life. However, after almost 6 years blogging, (Mommyblogging) is my brand."
Alas, the Blogosphere's most marketable, and exponentially growing, demographic is also the hardest to pin down. Four years after hunting for our first MommyBloggers to lead a session we weren't sure people would show up for, we are still learning what we did when looking at that packed room full of moms from every walk of life: MommyBloggers are just like women…diverse, individualistic and too powerful to ignore.
*BlogHer/Compass Partners Benchmark Study, March 2008. "Active blogging" defined as women who both write and participate in blog discussions.
As co-founder and President of Strategic Alliances for BlogHer, Jory Des Jardins is an innovator in online advertising, women's media and Internet entrepreneurship. Jory can be contacted at jory@blogher.com. Read all Jory’s MediaBizBlogger commentaries at Jory Des Jardin - MediaBizBlogger.
