Business has, for evidently some time now, discovered parents as a commercial market to reach online. Read this marketing research for CafeMom. (CafeMom being another social network and information site for mothers. More emphasis on text, pictures, and social connections; less on videos.) A quick glance across the web, reading reports like the one above, or research from less market-driven, more demographically oriented organizations like the Pew Internet and American Life project reveal that parents are increasingly using internet and social media for information, social support, interactions with others, creativity and personal expression, communication and publishing.
Trying to keep up are nonprofits and educational institutions that offer sites for parents. The interest isn’t commercial; it’s educational. They want parents to be more knowledgeable, feel more confident about their parenting skills, have a sense of resources to turn to – particularly reputable resources – and possibly even behave in more competent ways. But often the limited resources result in site that are not competitive in terms of features, or graphics. What they have going for them is really good information. In fact, a lot of time and effort is spent ensuring that what is conveyed online is accurate, research-based, and reputable.
But when parents go online, what do they want?
- Do they want a one stop parenting site that allows them to connect with other parents, get information that answers their parenting questions, enables them to upload pictures of their cute kids, shop and play games?
- Do they want a parent as person site that provides parenting information but also provides information, resources and connections about other parts of their lives like work and health?
- Do they want a really good source of information without extras like opportunities to upload pictures or have a social profile.
It probably varies with the individual parent, and the amount of time that they have to give to their time online, the sources of information they use to answer their parenting questions, and what they want to do online besides get information – and where they want to do that.
Is an answer in how much a parent identifies him or herself as a parent while they are parenting? For instance, if parent-identified parent might go to a site like CafeMom to talk about parenting and about lots of other things. A parent who doesn’t necessarily see his or herself that way might go to Facebook or a general interest site like iVillage.
That might be presuming time spent on single sites. How site-loyal are parenting users? Do they have one or two that they go to with any frequency, a whole lot of bookmarks, or just do a general search when they need information?
Marketing surveyors like CafeMom and Pew conclude that it’s ‘different strokes for different folks’ . So should the well-meaning nonprofits go for the one size fits all tact, pack their sites with many features to grab as many users as possible, or aim for a market segment they most want to reach?
iParent 