"Mommy Blogs" take viewers away from morning television

According to recent reports there has been a 10 percent decline in the number of women watching morning shows on television. In fact, source data from Nielsen Media Research puts the figure at around 450,000. Many of them are instead turning to the internet and frequenting "mommy blogs", blogs written by, and aimed at, women with children at home.

Women are increasingly turning off and logging on because they feel the information they find in online blogs is more relevant and honest. Beth Bletherman, a morning television watcher turned blog site owner from Palo Alto, not only writes her own blog but browses several other “mommy blogs”. She favors mommy blogs because, she says, “the morning shows feel like they’re staged to me, whereas the mommy blogs are pretty authentic — to the point of being almost too honest some times.”

A recent report by eMarketer.com found that 18.4 percent of internet users (32.3 million) were women with children aged 18 or less. Couple this with an estimated 6,000 mommy blogs listed on Technorati and it’s easy to see how some sites, such as Modern Mom, attract around half a million unique visitors a month and boasts a newsletter with over 100,000 subscribers.

Net-savvy mommies, who usually hold the household’s purse-strings, are online and actively seeking out product reviews and information. What better opportunity for marketers wishing to target this valuable demographic, via a very under-used access point, to an audience that’s listening.

Tags: blogs, eMarketer, females target group, Technorati, women