Question: What does a consumer goods product - Dove soap, a search engine portal - Yahoo!, "That Girl" Marlo Thomas, an advertising guru Mary Wells, and a gossip columnist - Liz Smith - have in common?
Answer: They are exploiting the hottest demographic trend in social media networking .. women. Did you know that 36.2 million women write and read blogs every week? (Source:BlogHer)
Recently BlogHer and Compass Partners co-sponsored a primary research study that provides some much needed insights about women who blog and women who read blogs. The findings were presented at BlogHer Business earlier this month. A few interesting stats from the survey. Among the respondents who participated (blah blah blah):
Approximately half consider blogs a "highly reliable" or "very reliable" source of information and advice about everything from products to presidential candidates.
24 percent of women surveyed say they now watch less television because they are blogging instead.
55% would give up alcohol
50% would give up their PDAs
42% would give up their i-Pod
43% would give up reading the newspaper or magazines
BUT, some things are sacred – only 20% would give up chocolate!
The PowerPoint of the study is posted at BlogHer. The link is at the end of the post.
Small wonder that within the last few weeks several social media networking sites, targeted to women, were launched by Dove, Yahoo! and a group of women celebrities.
Dove
After it's successful Campaign For Real Beauty Dove (Unilver) became the darling of the marketing/advertising/pr world. The no-make-up-beauty-is-in-the-heart campaign also resonated with its target audience. Working with Ogilvy North America Dove is partnering with MSN to create dove.msn.com/
Our goal is to become a global leader and a true digital media force by completely redefining the digital experience for women worldwide. We can do this by leveraging the Dove "real beauty" credentials -- our philosophy, compelling content and product offerings. Kathy O'Brien, marketing director Dove North America Money Central
The site is heavily branded including free product samples. Blogs, columns, discussions seem to blur together. Didn't see much participation or comments but it's early in the game. There is definitely a lot to keep you busy from games for tweens and to social media profiling, ask the experts columns and product info. The demo target seems run from young girls to moms to women in-general. A frustration for me was the content is "locked" .. can not be copied and pasted. Not very 'social.'
Questions To Ponder: Can Dove leverage the Campaign for Real Beauty concept and goodwill to create a community where women will feel comfortable and want to participate? Can you be all things to all peeps .. from young teens/tweens to 20-something, 30-something, ?-something?
Shine - Yahoo!
My first impression of Shine was .. a slick publication. There are nine categories including fashion+ beauty, parenting, healthy living, love + sex, work + money, food. Shine editors are responsible for content development. In addition blogs and articles are pulled from Yahoo!'s other lifestyles publishers (including some male writers). Community members can add their comments and digg, del.icio.us, stumble, technorait and buzz up the post.
Shine is targeting the 25-54 audience - .. a highly sought-after demographic for advertisers. From a Yahoo! news article a new buzz word for this demo - Chief Household Officer. Interesting way of putting it ... wonder what the moms think of that one.
We didn't want to be a site just for moms or just for single women or working women, or any specific demo- or psychographic. We wanted to create a smart, dynamic place for women to gather, get info and to connect with each other and the world around them.Source:Shine About Us Page
Questions To Ponder: Can Yahoo! turn the "slick shine" down a notch or two? Can you be all things to all peeps .. from 20-somethings to 50-somethings?
Toss of a pink boa to Yahoo!for reaching out to women around the U.S., bloggers and not, asking for feedback about Shine. I was looking forward to attending the session in Atlanta, alas! my hot water heater had other plans for me. I won't go into details except to say walking on squishy carpet is not a fun thing. Back in Skinny Jeans attended in CA and has a great post about her experience.
WowOWow - The Women On The Web
Here's the deal - you're smart, you're successful, you're rich, you're 40+ and you "know everybody." You want to make money, be an entrepreneur, get involved with something new on the web. Your journalist friend is complaining she is getting cut from 5-days a week to 3-days. Another chum wants to write more than about politics.
Over lunch an idea is born. Together you'll create a site where you can talk to your friends and invite other accomplished 40+ women to the conversation. It doesn't hurt that you and your girlfriends can each invest $200k or a total of a cool $1 million. You knock on your friend Tiffany's and Sony's doors for a few ads and launch a "ladies who lunch site."
Snippets from Charlie Rose's Interview with the founders: Liz Smith, Lesley Stahl, Peggy Noonan, Mary Wells and Joni Evans
Charlie Rose - "When you say geared to women over 40 what does that mean?"
Joni Evans .... "It means women who have had experience, women who have had education, women who have had careers, women who have lived."
Leslie Stahl .... "Virtually every woman who is a contributor is a known person. And they are commenting and writing on something you wouldn't expect that person to write about. Candice Bergen on politics. Leslie Stahl on her new mattress."
I thought this would be my favorite new community. I wanted to love WowOWow. Really I did. Accomplished, smart women reaching out to a demo who had been neglected. I love Liz Smith's wit, and Candice Bergen's savvy and Mary Wells forged paths in advertising for women and Lesley Stahl is from Swampscott, MA where my college roommate lived. Behind the scenes with the cool celebs who seemed to want to include me in their world. I wanted to love WowOWow really I did. But it falls flat for me.
Maybe they don't really want to talk to us. Trust me when I tell you I have spent significant time wandering around the site. I call it a site because it's way far not a social networking community. It's rather like being invited to join the "in group" in high school and then being ignored. In the Charlie Rose interview (he asked great questions but the women danced around giving straight responses) the founders made a big deal about the "conversation." However, few join in on their own conversations to talk to the peeps.
Maybe they don't really like us. In chat about privacy Julia Reed commented: "I read somewhere that like 10 times the amount of people now Google themselves as did five years ago. I mean, you know, just – not people like Candice, who have reasons to be written about." What does that mean?
My ah ha moment is .. I don't think the founders of WowOWow get what social media or building a social media networking community is about. In the Charlie Rose interview when asked what blogs they read, Drudge and news sites a la the Huffington Post (not a big surprise) were mentioned. Women of the Web do you know there are vibrant communities of women bloggers who are your target audience?
However, barely a few weeks old the site is doing quite nicely thank you kindly. My favorite bit in the Charlie Rose interview was when Joni Evans stopped herself because she wasn't "allowed to talk about" the site stats. Liz tossed off, "Go ahead. You have 100 books on the best seller list you can talk about any damn thing you please." So she did. Average length on the site about 8.5 minutes - as of April 8th. Not an earth shattering piece of information. If the number of comments = success than out of the virtual box WowOWow is a huge success. Some posts are pulling in 20, 30, 50 comments and some have hundreds. With five employees recently hired it appears as though a "real" company is developing.
For me the lesson learned is that women want to express their opinions to women who they admire and might be paying attention even if there is no feedback. What does that mean? Is that part of the culture of the 40+ women .. that an outlet for expression is enough even if there is no conversation or response from the author? Is that what the political blogs have taught us? That it's enough to state your opinion but don't expect a response from the candidate?
Questions To Ponder: Can the founders sustain the writing into year two and beyond? Will WowOWow turn into a female version of the Huffington Post (no shame in that)? Is it all about the celebrity?
More Questions To Ponder: How many more sites clocked in the illusion of social media networking communities will launch? Is this the new model in social media networking - as the SNL character Linda Richmond would say, "Talk among yourselves."
