New media communities are fertile terrain for word of mord of mouth advertising. They are self-selecting niches organized around concepts, geographies, demographics, personalities, and etcetera. A recent study from Lucid Marketing, a specialist in mother-centric communications offers some insights into word of mouth patterns presumably with an emphasis on the female demographic. The Center for Media Research offered a synopis of the Lucid study which notes that:

“Women were more likely than men to share a positive experience with a business (91% to 83%) or recommend an enjoyable product (95% to 89%). And, full time employees made substantially more daily contacts than those not in the workforce, while those with household earnings of more than $100,000 were more likely to make recommendations than those earning less. The study showed that women tend to prefer verbal communications to other forms of contact, whereas men tend to prefer email.”

If you are looking for ways to tap into the word of mouth marketing phenomenon, here is a place to start.

Speaking of influencing — and influential — women the BlogHer network has started an advertising program for the women whose blogs are aggregated under their banner. MediaPost offers details. If there was ever a brilliant idea it was BlogHer and the new ad network should give that effort a tremendous boost. Kudos to BlogHer’s co-founder (pictured below w/a graphic from their web site): Left to right, Jory Des Jardins, Elisa Camahort, and Lisa Stone.

Finally, with Mother’s Day coming up Sunday it might amuse you to know that the U.S. Census Bureau says:

“The driving force behind Mother’s Day was Anna Jarvis, who organized observances in Grafton, W.Va., and Philadelphia, Pa., on May 10, 1908. While the annual celebration spread around the country, Jarvis began lobbying politicians to set aside a day to honor mothers. She finally succeeded in 1914 when Congress designated the second Sunday in May as Mother’s Day.”

The Census folks also estimate that there are 80.5 million mothers in the United States; that they can expect to have 2.0 children on average in their lifetime; and that this birth rate ranges from a high of 2.6 per mom in Utah to a low of 1.7 percent in Maine, Massachusetts and Vermont. Find more about moms by scanning the Census fact sheet.

And don’t forget to do something special for the mother(s) in your life!

Tom Abate
MiniMediaGuy
‘Cause if you ain’t Mass Media, you’re Mini Media