But from what I’ve read and discussed with many peers, there’s been little attention paid to a core segment of this growing community, and that’s teachers/educators.

When we created and started maintaining a Pinterest page for our client, the Vancouver International Children’s Festival, we originally thought we would (simply) be connecting with our general mom community. But what we quickly discovered is that teachers, specifically, are incredibly active pinners. It was an ah-ha moment for us.

Teachers are a huge part of our client’s organisation. Like many arts & culture orgs, they rely on them to bring their classes to the festival and help communicate to parents that the festival is taking place.

Like moms (and many teachers are moms), teachers are looking for solutions. They are always sourcing new ideas that appeal to the “I Can Do That!” motivation you see in this Pinterest infographic, and for things that help them do their job in an efficient, economical manner while offering kids an enriching experience.

Take, for example, the term “First Grade” which you can search for in the Pinterest search box. You will find reams of boards that are filled with pins that appeal to the first grader – from crafts to books, how to tutorials, and reference blogs. When you read the profiles of those who ‘own’ those boards, you will discover they are educators.

Teachers are using Pinterest as a file-keeping system for their classroom activities! So imagine what happens when your organisation becomes one of their leading sources for idea: more awareness of your brand = brand loyalty and (hopefully) increased intent to purchase (if that’s your intended result).

We won’t even get into the homeschoolers, who are another robust target group on Pinterest.

So what does this means for your business? If teachers are part of your company’s target demographic, then Pinterest is a must-have tool for you to incorporate into your online marketing activities. Make teachers’ lives (and job) easier by pinning activities that they can use in their classroom. For VICF we’ve created a Classroom Crafts board.

Search for “teachers” on Pinterest and start following them; I bet you will find that they, too, will make life easier for you by pinning crafts that you can then in-turn repin and share. The cycle of sharing continues.

Look for activities that are easy, cheap (on the pocketbook) and/or printable.

Connect the dots between your organisation and what teachers could then take into the classroom. With VICF, we have uploaded Pete the Cat colouring sheets and simple crafts because Eric Litwin is part of this year’s festival line-up. We are helping to integrate the festival into their curriculum.

One final word of caution – make sure you reflect the age range of children they are teaching. Obviously an educator who is teaching at the elementary school has very different motivations and needs very different activities that those teaching high school. Same goes for educators in the secondary level such as those in college and university.

Happy Pinning!

Oh, and btw, you’ll find me on Pinterest at http://pinterest.com/limelite/

Infographic courtesy of Flowtown

I don’t need to tell you, because as you can plainly see, we’ve been decidedly absent from our blog.  Yes, we’ve been busy.

So, in the hopes of getting back on the blogging track, we’ve decided to launch a simple round-up of a few of the top articles or blog posts we’ve stumbled across this week. We hope you enjoy them as much as we did.

FACEBOOK, FACEBOOK, FACEBOOK:

We all know d-day (March 30) is looming for the new Facebook Timeline format for pages. So, it’s really important to know what the new format means for your company or organisation. We’ve already switched over one of our client’s pages and have adjusted our future content or tactics accordingly. We highly encourage you to get prepared now and March 30 will be that much easier for everyone in your team.

Here are 11 Ways Facebook Timeline Changes Your Content Strategy

And If you’ve been relying on ‘Like us to win’ or other such fan gates, then this is a must read: 3 Tactics to Employ as an Alternative to Like Gating on Facebook

FROM THE MOM TRACK:

Infant Formula Twitter Party Stirs Up Online Controversy

Remember, just because there’s a tool or medium, doesn’t mean you need to use it.  All brands or organisations need to weigh the pros and cons of talking to and with their consumers before they head into a public forum, and prepare for all reactions. It doesn’t look like GNO or SBF did either.

SOCIAL STRATEGY-SPHERE, A LESSON IN CAUSE & EFFECT:

Mitch Joel says it’s a lesson from a Social Media master class, Buzz Bishop says it’s about the lack of critical thought process.  Both are talking about the Kony 2012 video, which went viral thanks to some very simple tactics. I encourage you to read both articles and then consider exactly how you are measuring the impact of your next campaign: A Social Media Master Class and Like. Share. Repeat.

1. Edison Research just released a new report called Moms and Media: 2011. The study examines media habits (as in social media) within the mom market. Not surprisingly, they found that moms are highly active on Facebook, have a higher rate of smartphone adoption, and spend more time online than any other group.

As this post details, Facebook moms are just as integral as mom bloggers, with Moms 40% more likely to follow brands on social media platforms than Dads. If you are a regular reader of this blog, you will notice that this aligns with our own research and thoughts.

2. Move Over Helicopter Parents. iParents are here.

Retrevo asked parents about their iPhone activities and found that iPhone parents have more Facebook friends and tend to be more digitially active than other groups. Even I have to admit that when I moved from a Blackberry to an iPhone I noticed that my own social media activities increased dramatically so the results of this study aren’t terribly surprising.

3. Finally, eMarketer reported that children have a major role in what (American) Gen X parents decide to buy. These consumers (aged 35 to 44) are also said to be more inclined to try new brands and stores if they have a coupon and that these Gen Xers enjoy shopping with their significant others and family.

I personally can’t relate to the latter point. To me, there’s nothing worse than shopping for a child that begs to buy some new bright-and-shiny object with every step you take through the store or be accompanied by a husband that questions every shopping decision thus lengthening the whole trip by at least an hour. But maybe it’s just me.

How much do you know about this mom blogger?

By Harriet Fancott, Limelite PR Senior Associate

Mom bloggers are prolific writers, social media mavens, entrepreneurs, and caregivers. Many are former professionals, and yet despite this, businesses often fail to treat them as valuable partners in promoting their message.

Here are eight surefire ways to have your pitch ignored:

1) Start your pitch with “Dear Mommy Blogger.” Expect this one to hit the delete bin before she gets to the first line. Personalize all correspondence from the first pitch to followup emails.

2) Don’t read her blog. You can’t fake this part; you need to know who she writes for, what she writes about, if she’s PR friendly, and whether she does reviews or giveaways.

3) Mis-target your pitch. If she writes about healthy food, don’t send a pitch for potato chips. If the blogger is a breastfeeding advocate, you won’t get a glowing review for formula, and you may damage a potential relationship.

4) Send a generic, overly commercial email. Say things like, “You have a great site, and we think Product X would be of interest to your readers.” Your pitch needs to be personable and translate into a fun, relevant or interesting story. Mom bloggers are looking to build community not exclusively promote products.

5) Ask a blogger to do something valuable to you for free. A good pitch offers should be mutually beneficial. A photography studio asking a blogger to include a full-page ad on their blog as a post is not beneficial to the blogger. Another guaranteed “delete,” is to ask for multiple posts right off the bat.

6) Expect a positive review or plug in exchange for a free sample. Mom bloggers need to maintain integrity with their readers, which means writing honestly about products and services. That said, if your offer is of significant value, be clear about your expectations.

7) Write a really long pitch. Mom bloggers, even new bloggers, get a lot of pitches. Don’t waste their time; get straight to the point. Start with your most important points, and put all boilerplate information at the bottom of the email.

Don’t connect via social networking. Pitching to mom bloggers is about relationships. Follow them on Twitter, join their Facebook page, interact and chat with them as people. When your friendly pitch arrives in their inbox, they’ll know who you are and read your email.

Feel free to share your mistakes or tips for pitching to mom bloggers.

As Harriet’s last post outlined, it’s obvious that companies need a Facebook presence if they want to reach moms. But the question many companies are still pondering is “Do we really have to be on Twitter”? When I caught the post Why Facebook Marketing is More Important Than Twitter Marketing on PR Squared, I felt the need to clarify that having a Twitter strategy is as integral as a Facebook strategy if you plan on reaching the mom market.

Why you need a Twitter Strategy

PR Squared’s post includes the results of a study that points out that content shared via Twitter is down from 12 percent to 8 percent. Looking at these numbers alone, you could assume, as PR Square did, that Facebook Marketing is more important than Twitter. But what they did not consider is that 75% of mom bloggers are on Twitter . Note: From personal experience I believe this number to be much higher as it’s rare for us to come across a mom blogger without a Twitter presence.

I agree that there is a limited number of the general mom consumer population on Twitter (our own research indicates that 25% of Canadian moms are on Twitter); however, to effectively penetrate the mom market, you need to identify and reach out to those with the greatest influence: mom bloggers.

Twitter is the water cooler for mom bloggers. It’s the place they go to chat with others like them – mom bloggers and  mom entrepreneurs.

Mom bloggers publish links to their own posts, read and share links produced by other bloggers, leverage their participation in brand campaigns, and  network with brands and businesses. In other words, they tweet like crazy in a participatory, open dialogue manner. Of course, it’s this latter point about networking with brands/businesses that needs the most emphasis when we consider the reasons why you need to be on Twitter.

If you want to work with mom bloggers, leverage their influence, ask them to promote and recommend your brand or company; then yes, you need to build and maintain a relationship with them on Twitter. You need to be part of their water cooler experience.

The best part of having this narrow, bullseye approach is that it provides you with a clear focus on who to follow, what to tweet, and when to be most active.

As you will quickly discover, moms on Twitter use the channel constantly. In addition to using Twitter to talk among themselves, they also use the channel to talk openly about brand experiences – whether or not said brands have a Twitter presence or not. So, in order to gain opportunities that will protect as well as enhance your brand’s reputation, you must interact with this strong and influential community. And the best place to start this relationship is on Twitter.

Are you interacting with moms on Twitter?

Email is still the queen of marketing tactics but social media isn't far behind.

If you’re a small or medium-sized business (SMB), you need to take social media seriously. The latest research by Pitney Bowes in a post by E-marketer indicates that social media is rivaling email in marketing effectiveness for SMBs.

Researchers asked SMBs to rank marketing tactics such as email, social media, direct mail, advertising, QR Codes and mobile marketing based on ease of use, cost-effectiveness, comfort and knowledge, effectiveness, channels used by competitors. Email came up top on almost all parameters and social media was a very close second.

Whereas 60% ranked email first for ease of use, 53% said the same for social media. In terms of cost-effectiveness 59% ranked email first, and 54% said social media.

What can you take from this as a mom-focused business? When we look at statistics around the popularity and use of social media tools for moms, it’s clear that email may be the reigning queen but Facebook, Twitter and blogging are rapidly vying for supremacy.

That said, the research indicated that old-fashioned direct mail campaigns and advertising ranked ahead of social media in “proven effectiveness.” Still we all know how costly direct mail campaigns and print advertising can be, so when you’re looking at bang for buck, social media is clearly the best area to educate yourself, experiment and make connections with moms online.

Consider the stats, which we outlined in our post The Power of Moms: 85% of Canadian moms regularly use Facebook logging into the site two to four times a day. They are connecting with each other, spreading the work about events, issues and brands (47% liking one to five brands, and 25% liking 16 or more brands). Similarly, 25% of Canadian moms and 78% of bloggers regularly use Twitter. It’s easy to see the importance of connecting with an influential segment of consumers, who will re-tweet your messages, enter your contests, and engage in friendly banter.

Moms average 109 word-of-mouth conversations per week about products, brands and services, which is not surprising when you consider that 94% of moms rely on recommendations from other mothers to make purchasing decisions. Moms’ community of peers and friends (including their online community) are the primary source for information and recommendations on products or services, so when you connect with one mom you reach a whole community of moms.

No one is saying dethrone the queen. She’s proven her worth, and will certainly live to a ripe old age. Social media simply adds some much needed sparkle and vitality to her reign.

How does your business connect with moms online?