Women rule in mobile and social – so now what?

May 12, 2010 by Stephanie

Img credit: Ed Yourdon

Recent stats indicate that women dominate men in social networking use as well as mobile use. This seems easily apparent to me, a working mom who is heavily dependent on her mobile device, currently an iPhone 3GS. (I was a longtime loyal Palm user until….well….I don’t really want to talk about it. Sniff.)

As moms, we juggle so many responsiblities. Our phone becomes our lifeline to our job, our spouse, our kids (if they’re old enough), and our social support group. I use mine to read and reply to email, Tweet for work and fun, connect on Facebook, find a recipe for dinner, manage my knitting projects and stay close to my son by carrying photos and videos. It holds my shopping list, my frequent flyer numbers, my knitting needle sizes and all of our family birthdays. Oh, occasionally I use it to call someone, too.

So how do brand marketers best reach these hyper-connected mobile moms?

First, we should assume that she is using social platforms on her mobile device, which will have varying degrees of web-friendliness. Here are a few thoughts on how to make sure your content is going to look as good as possible when it’s dialed up on the small screen:

Make your blog mobile-ready with a simple theme or toolkit. It takes just a few minutes to add a plugin that will show off your great content in nearly any web-enabled device.
Create a variety of status update types in your social networks, including Facebook and Twitter. Not all mobile users will want to click through to your Twitpics or watch your videos on Facebook. Alternating text updates with media updates will allow more users to access your content no matter where they are.
Consider converting Flash sites (and video) to formats which can be read on iPhones/iPads. Without getting all techie-political here, let’s just say this is a barrier at present.

Second, develop campaigns and platforms that make sense to the on-the-go mom. Rather than creating a complex campaign that requires her to upload this and select that to enter and engage, develop something that enriches her mobile life. For retailers, it’s as simple as creating a highly searchable, helpful store app that includes the same deals as the weekly paper. Or it could be a monitoring tool that lets them stay on top of social mentions for their company, kids’ school, or favorite actor (let’s face it, we all have our secret crushes).

How are you reaching out to moms? Are you using mobile in your strategy? Please leave your thoughts and ideas in the comments below.

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