Moms Are All a-Twitter!

I started twittering just before Christmas 08 and quickly became a twitter-evangelist. Within 24 hours of creating a profile, I was "followed" by two Mom PR experts (based in the USA), made direct contact with a woman who runs a number of mom blog networks and within 48 hours I connected with two new (prospective) clients. It became quite apparent that twitter is the place to be to engage with peers, clients and like-industry influencers and monitor the competition.

For those companies who want to connect with the mom-market, twitter is the mom-mecca of social networking. As long as you are honest, transparent and actively engaged in the community, you will experience significant results.

When I spoke to Annemarie Templeman-Kluit, founder of yoyomama.ca and yoyobelly.ca, about the impact twitter has had on her business, she cited twitter as one of the biggest referrers of website traffic (more than facebook, which they’ve been on for years). Her participation on twitter was also the reason she was recently interviewed by Canadian Family Magazine. “We've connected with people we would have never found any other way - we've connected across Canada with experts like Ann Douglas and Alyson Schafer, we've been interviewed by Canadian Parent Magazine about mums & technology, we've gotten advice on what we can do with kids with colds & coughs now you're not supposed to give them kids' cough medicine - and it's all thanks to twitter,” said Templeman-Kluit.

Twitter also provides a porthole into the lives of mom bloggers around the world. There’s no way anyone can read the thousands of mom blogs each and every day but with Twitter, you can get quick updates on the daily lives of some of the top mom bloggers, engage with them directly by relating to their mom-life trials and tribulations, send them congratulatory tweets when they win something, and support them by re-tweeting relevant posts to my own followers. That’s one of the best first steps into developing a relationship with these key mom influencers.

Also consider that most media outlets are on twitter, especially those specializing in the mom-market. Twitter is providing a foot-in-the-door to your next media pitch! Most of the outlets use a logo as an avatar(something that does irritate me but that’s for another post), which gives them the freedom to have multiple people tweet and participate in tweet-versations however, in the rare cases like with @yoyomama_van, you will see a photo of the person behind the tweets. In any case, you learn nuances of the editor, writer or researcher that are almost impossible to obtain unless you personally know them. You will learn what they like/dislike, their own daily struggles and how they like to engage with their followers. I have seen media tweet a call for people to be interviewed and products to be submitted. I've also seen companies subtly pitch Annemarie and receive a warm response. Note of warning: do not spam the media by sending them a link to a press release via twitter! Twitter is about learning, sharing, and engaging with your followers. If you spam, you will quickly be blocked or un-followed.

Twitter is easily the best business tool I have found to network with peers, clients, influencers and competition. It does require time and effort but so does any aspect in building a company/brand.

What’s stopping you? Get on Twitter today and when you do, send me a tweet @limelitepr

PS - Having trouble getting started, read this post on "Think like a Toddler and find your voice on Twitter", by Darren Rowse.

The ROI Conundrum

I was recently asked by a prospective client how we can demonstrate ROI within mom-market PR activities. Measuring the Return On Investment is a hotly debated topic within the marketing, PR and social media community because there isn’t an easy answer. There simply isn’t an accurate way or single, standard calculation that will prove the results achieved through PR and marketing equate to a higher value than the money it took to achieve them.

When it comes to spending dollars and cents, most business owners believe that in order to be profitable, there must be tangible proof or money made in order to justify money spent.

For results in traditional media, the PR industry measured impressions – how many articles/news reports and the size/length of the coverage – but it struggled with how to measure the quality of those impressions. You can compare an impression size and placement to the advertising value (how much would it have cost to place an ad that size) but as we all know, editorial is valued higher than advertising because there is a third party (reporter) involved. People read articles, listen to radio commentaries, watch TV news reports while they are likely to tune-out advertising. The question is (and still remains) how do you put a dollar figure on an intangible ‘higher value’ quotient?

In 2006, the CPRS (Canadian Public Relations Society) created the MRP system www.mrpdata.com which is said to measure any type of editorial coverage, provide clear metrics to evaluate media coverage, track total reach and cost per contact. This system “allows its users to qualitatively evaluate editorial tone and article content”. But, as some will say, MRP is not ROI.

For Social Media activities such as blogger outreach, facebook, twitter - all venues where moms converge and connect – the question of ROI is even more difficult because there isn’t a direct link from interaction and engagement (which is what you are doing with SM) to sales but rather an indirect link.

So, how do you ‘prove’ ROI?

I found a great discussion by a couple SM leaders - Jason Falls and Katie Delahaye Paine - which I encourage you to read & watch. But, to summarize their thoughts (which I agree with) here are few things to consider:

“The problem with trying to determine ROI for social media is you are trying to put numeric quantities around human interactions and conversations, which are not quantifiable.”

“Ultimately, the key question to ask when measuring engagement is, ‘Are we getting what we want out of the conversation?’”

The way we handle this ROI question at limelitePR is we develop a benchmark so that we can determine if our efforts are effective. It's not like we don't want to measure things, it's just what and how do we measure them. So, we start by asking and answering questions like:

• Are you part of the online conversation – how much & where?


• Are your competitors part of the conversation – how much & where?


• What are people/moms saying about your brand?


• Are people/moms commenting on your blog? Are there certain topics that generate more response?


• How are you part of the mom community?

Once we have a benchmark, it's then possible to track and see the growth we’ve achieved through social media and traditional media PR tactics. It also provides us with information on how we can be reactive with our communications.

Really, the definition of ROI is in the eye of the beholder. “Return” is all about what you want to achieve and then developing and implementing a plan that will raise awareness, gain loyalty and ultimately put your brand into the hands of your consumers – moms.

If you want to learn how big brands are using Social Media, check out this presentation by Graco’s Lindsay Lebresco at Blogwell San Jose. She walks you thru Graco’s social media strategy and the tactics they've used.