Blogger agencies dispute findings that ‘mummy blogging’ is on the wane
Lorraine Murphy
Blogger agencies have rejected the findings of a survey which suggests the mummy blogger phenomenon is fading with fewer women reading and writing blogs.
Lorraine Murphy, head of relationships at blogger talent agency The Remarkables Group, claimed the conclusions fly in the face of her own figures which show rising levels of readership and engagement.
The number of brands working with The Remarkable’ 21 bloggers is also increasing, she said, indicating that advertisers are continuing to see value in blogs. Murphy’s comments followed the publication of a survey by social research agency Mums Now, which spoke to 1,500 Australian mothers about their social media habits and technology interactions.
Just 15 per cent of mums questioned in the study are currently writing blogs, a sharp drop from the previous study in 2012 when 27 per cent said they were blogging, while mums are reading 47 per cent fewer blogs and the number asking questions on forums has declined 29 per cent.
But Murphy said traffic for its bloggers has risen by an average of 35 per cent year on year.
“We monitor their traffic every month and none have decreased so we have seen the exact opposite to the findings,” Murphy said, although she claimed The Remarkables represented the “creme de la creme” of bloggers.
“We have the best of the best and it could be that the disparity between the major bloggers and the others has grown bigger, so it loses momentum.”
Murphy said engagement levels have remained high, with more readers accessing blogs via Facebook and Instagram which lend themselves better to blogs about fashion, food and travel. “It is true that the way the reader has engaging has changed but they remain influential,” she said.
“A survey of 8,000 readers found nine out of 10 had taken advice or shared a tip, while almost 30 per cent had bought a product recommended by a blogger,” Murphy added.
Felicity Grey, managing director of blog community Nuffnang, also disputed the findings, telling Mumbrella the number of bloggers registered has increased by 2,000 to 7,400 over the past 12 months.
“In terms of engagement we are noticing that social media and social sharing is increasing the engagement with blogger content,” she said. “On average we have seen a 54 per cent rise in engagement.”
Grey added that its number of briefs from advertisers has climbed 68 per cent in the past six months alone “demonstrating that as we move towards the end of 2014 marketers are confident in the ROI they expect from their blogging campaigns”.
“When we compare this quarter to the same quarter in 2013 the volume of briefs received has increased 32 per cent. This is high growth and really highlights that brands are seeing blogging as an increasingly important component of the digital marketing mix,” Grey said.
Steve Jones
imo close to awful research methodology for what could have been an interesting study.
fwiw (the daily campaign dynamic is) younger mums have more reach/engagement on Instagram, while established family heads shifted their core segment of client interest to Facebook.
Having an active website these days is often more to sell an e-book or cobranded health bar/cosmetic line and optimise some google/amazon adwords than a place “mums” post 12 times a day. That they do elsewhere.
What would be an interesting study is what value the socially networked mothers are delivering to clients and conversely what clients are providing in return.
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A few quick changes of code to change your page structure and layout can increase your traffic pronto with zero change in usage or audience.
And whenever you ask “have you ever…” questions you always get bigger numbers. Why not ask a more meaningful question such as how frequently or how recently they had taken advice or bought something
Until you do … I’m not buying your story or taking your advice.
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What, mothers telling other mothers how difficult being a mother is is on the wane?
Bill Burr might have called it (NSFW): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGJwPtpkeg8
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Just about TR’s first pr mistake. LM just ignore the dodgy research you make it more credible by responding.
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