‘Mummy blogs are almost over’: Mamamia scraps network approach and launches Instagram-style app and consultancy business
Mamamia is set to scrap its Women’s Network model and unify all of its brands with its main site acting as an aggregator, as founder Mia Freedman proclaims “mummy blogs are almost over”.
The shift comes as the publishing company looks to launch an ‘Instagram-style’ app with user generated video, open its own consultancy business and grow its podcast network.
Freedman, content director of MWN, told the audience at the network’s upfront event women are “moving away from niche sites”, with the company looking to unify its Mamamia Women’s Network on one site.
“This is really important and a big shift. We know she’s busy, she doesn’t have time to visit lots of different homepages or blogs or even necessarily one every day,” Freedman said.
“She doesn’t want to be pigeonholed as a mum or as anything else. We’ve really seen the twilight year of mummy blogs, mummy blogs are almost over. In fact, personal blogs in general have collapsed in engagement this year.”
Freedman: ‘mummy blogs are almost over’
In light of this shift away from niche audiences, head of editorial strategy Kate Spies revealed all content produced by MWN would be collected and housed on the Mamamia website.
“In 2016 all the content MWN produces will be collected and housed in one place before it is pushed out far and wide across multiple channels and platforms and that one place is Mamamia,” Spies said.
“Mamamia has always been our hero brand. Reshaping our websites as a single brand, a one stop shop for women, will see content produced by The Glow, Debrief Daily and The Motherish all feeding seamlessly into the mothership Mamamia.
“In practical terms, this means more brilliant content for Mamamia’s audience and more talented storytellers to craft it for them each and every day.”
Speaking to Mumbrella after the event, managing director Kylie Rogers said the change would not see the closure of the other MWN brands.
“The content will be all on the Mamamia website. They absolutely still remain and they exist within Mamamia,” she said.
“The Mamamia brand has a true affinity with our audience and we thought it would be a great idea to have an aggregator and have Mamamia as the lead and have all the other brands sitting in that.
“They are after a one stop shop or a destination where they can get all of their content.
“It goes back to how and why Mia launched her own personal blog because she felt women weren’t one dimensional. That they were interested in various topics from politics to pelvic floor and they don’t want to go to various sites to get different topics, they want to go to one.”
Rogers said advertisers can still segment to each of the separate brand audiences.
“They will be able to buy space within Mamamia that is dedicated to a Glow audience or a Debrief audience or a Motherish audience,” she said.
The shift to housing everything under one brand, including video content and podcasts, comes as Mamamia invests into video content and its podcast network.
MWN is launching the MM Video App which allows its contributors and audience to create their own video and audio content that is shared across the app and website.
“We will be launching an MM app which allows our influencers and our audience to be part of the video conversation with Mamamia. We have this brilliant technology that allows our influencers and audience to create video, to edit it within the app and send it direct to the app and our site. Our editor-in-chief is selecting what she likes and putting it on the site,” Rogers explained.
“It will look and feel similar to an Instagram. Our audience is very quickly moving to the video medium and they want to tell their own stories and be part of the MM community.”
Rogers said any audience created videos that get run on the site will be credited, but they will be unpaid.
“Citizen journalism is another term you can use where we allow our audience to be part of that conversation and they will always be credited for that content,” she said.
“This isn’t about getting free content to put on the site, it’s about allowing them to create a conversation and be part of it with our MM influencers. It’s user-generated content.”
MWN is still finalising the commercial model for the app.
“We won’t be launching this for a couple more months yet,” Rogers said.
Podcasting will also be a substantial push with Mamamia looking to quadruple its 1m downloads to 4m next year as it grows the network to 16 shows.
“It was last year when we realised there’s a gap – women want great audio content. We felt there was a need here in the Australian market and we’re going to fill it. We have reached 1m downloads at ease and it’s a really exciting opportunity,” Rogers said.
MWN also announced the launch of its own “bespoke women’s consultancy business” Broad Media.
Danika Johnston, MWN’s national sales manager, told the upfront audience: “Broad Media will be a unique communications consultancy working with clients and marketers to effectively connect brands with female customers.
“Broad Media will be a media agnostic consultancy with an impressive resume of staff including strategists, mobile specialists, video and content specialists, researchers, an events team and a creative unit.”
MWN will announce the key partners for Broad Media in the “coming weeks”.
The publishing company announced its US site, which will be named Flo and Frank and led by Sarah Bryden-Brown, will have no traditional display ads, a model pioneered by Buzzfeed.
“It’s a nod to the future of digital advertising,” Rogers said. “Display will always play a role but certainly the advertising industry is moving to be very content led. So you will have pre-roll and you will have trans-media story telling which will be editorial and brand funded.”
Rogers said MWN isn’t in the position to roll out a similar strategy locally.
“The onset of ad-blocking, everyone’s looking at whether there’s room for the standard display ad. Luckily we’re a business built on native content, so we’re not staring down the barrel of losing $50m in display inventory,” she said.
The US site Flo and Frank will launch in February.
The upfront presentation also saw MWN reaffirm its position on click bait, distancing themselves from their past click bait style, saying it was dead.
“Clickbait is very suggestive. One person’s click bait is another person’s authentic headline. We have absolutely moved forward with a clear policy that we reflect the genuine content of the article whether that’s on the site or on social,” Rogers said.
Miranda Ward
Miranda Ward worked for Mumbrella from 2013 to 2017, eventually becoming deputy editor. Miranda joined Mumbrella in September 2013 from Sky News.
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Mummy “bogs” in the intro is accurate.
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I suspect this move has less to do with women suddenly changing the way they consume media online and more to do with the realization that in digital, you cannot meaningfully monetise without real reach and scale, and niche sites are by definition, small. Rolling them together will give them a better chance to deliver the sort of volume that registers with marketers/agencies . Will there also be any rationalization of staff??
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Exciting times ahead for Mamamia – congratulations on what looks like a brilliant strategy for next year.
I would be very keen to know where the assertion that: “We’ve really seen the twilight year of mummy blogs, mummy blogs are almost over. In fact, personal blogs in general have collapsed in engagement this year.”
Mamamia team would you share the source of that data please?
We’ve seen the opposite in our business (The Remarkables Group) – total combined audience is up 37% on November 2014. Specifically on the personal/”mummy blog” demo that Mia has mentioned, we’ve seen anything from 20% to 271% growth year-on-year for bloggers within the parenting vertical.
On a side note, I’m surprised that the Mamamia team are using the term “mummy blog” – it’s a very out-dated term and one that bloggers themselves abhor.
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Kinda saw that coming a mile away. Who thought it would be a good idea to have a half dozen websites to do the job that can be done by one. Not exactly groundbreaking stuff Mia.
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It behoves the giant juggernauts to say that “personal blogging” is down so that more bloggers will give their content for just credit to these big for-profit websites. I think there is a place for the big sites, but not at the demise of the smaller heartfelt ones. If my personal blog’s state are to be believed, people sem to want that connection and real life narrative. I’d argue that personal and parenting blogs are not doing, but diversifying with apps like Steller, Instagram and others.
It doesn’t have to be one or the other and I am not interested in a mummy-blog war. They may be similar in audience and subject matter, but they aren’t in competition.
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Terrible auto correct on my phone. Sorry for the errors in my comment. I don’t see a way to go back and edit them.
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Interesting article. I can’t speak for ‘mummy blogs’ but from what I can see niche blogs are not dead – far from it.
There are always challenges but to declare anything dead always makes me suspicious.
Perhaps it might be better to say ‘our approach didn’t work… we’re changing direction’ but maybe that isn’t as good PR?
That’d be my guess anyway.
From what I could see of what they were doing (and I’m not an avid reader so I wouldn’t really know) they didn’t get a lot of traction with their network approach so it probably makes a lot of sense to consolidate back on the one site.
But that doesn’t mean having a nichey site is a bad idea or that the approach is dead – it just didn’t work for them.
The other thought on this that I’ve put out there for Aussie bloggers who have seen this and are wondering if they should give up is that Mia is attempting to do something on a very different scale to most bloggers.
What she might consider success is different to what an individual blogger might need to achieve to be successful as a solo-entrepreneur.
While there are challenges for blogs of all sizes you need to hit some pretty significant milestones to be able to drive a team the size of what Mia has developed and if it’s not hitting those marks it makes sense to change direction.
I can think of quite a few smaller Aussie bloggers in similar niches who are doing quite nicely though.
I wouldn’t be letting those kind of grand sweeping statements put me off if I was blogging in those niches.
Lastly – podcasting, it’s definitely a growing space right now in Australia and I think it’s a smart move to diversify into it. Having said that there is a definite ceiling there too with only so many days to listen to content!
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Nuffnang is seeing a rise year on year in the number of bloggers joining our community. New bloggers come on board each month so it’s definitely not in decline.
While there is a growth in social media influencers (those influencers without blogs), blogging remains a main-stay in Australia and we can’t see it declining anytime soon.
With the rise of social media and video, bloggers have new exciting channels to explore, new audiences to reach and new ways to further amplify their content. It’s an exciting time and brands understand now better than ever the power and influence of bloggers for their campaigns.
However rapid growth in a market still in its infancy, calls for a higher degree of accountability.
Nuffnang Australia was the first to market with a blogger network and now has 8600 bloggers and continues to grow. This proves the power of influence at mass scale across multiple websites. It’s important to make sure however, that brands ask the right questions when it comes to influencer campaigns and be sure to request proof from influencers and agencies alike, for real and honest numbers and engagement figures.
Best wishes to Mamamia on this diversification strategy it’s great to see new approaches in the digital space.
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interesting move as the MWN was clearly a way of trying to distance Mia from the site (and rid themselves of the mothery overtone in the title) as it was too dependent on Mia’s brand for them to get the exit they’re after (given they’d want a clean exit/sale). Now they’re reversing course and focusing on the Mamamia brand again.
Interesting business and well received in market. They could probably do without their ‘x is dead’ or ‘x is over’ backhanders, they don’t really need to do it.
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I have found engagement on my blog has decreased, but engagement elsewhere (especially in niche Facebook groups) has significantly increased. There are always things to write about, and I believe readers will always enjoy and return to well written content. The blogging community is large and supportive – this year’s Problogger conference demonstrated that – seeing over 500 bloggers come together to learn and socialise.
This year I haven’t been as active on my blog as in previous years, but work (paid and voluntary) stemming off from my blog has been the biggest it’s ever been. I credit that to creating a niche for myself, years of honing the craft of writing on my blog, engaging with blog readers and building a positive reputation. I think editors and brands like to see those strengths being built by bloggers, and opportunities definitely open up because of blogging.
It’s a huge call to say personal blogging is dead. I think it’s complemented across other platforms, not just in one place online as blogging used to be. There are many Australian bloggers who show incredible engagement on their social media pages, in addition to producing strong, enjoyable blog content. And the beauty of being a blogger is the ability to reinvent.
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All this really means is that their own niche website strategy hasn’t worked. Where is the credible data that personal blogs are dead?
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Such a great comment, Darren! x
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I used to write about my kids when they were little on a personal blog just for fun, not money. But then I went back to work and couldn’t keep up the pace. Blogging is a very time consuming hobby.
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I reckon the above could be translated as:
“All our new sites and diversifying and changing tack every 6 months is just not working. Not sure there’s any money left in this game, if indeed there ever was. Perhaps we should have sold 5 years ago.”
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‘Brilliant content?’ Still waiting for that Mamamia. Perhaps the constant vacillating between celebrity ‘fluff’ stories and outrage pieces has people looking elsewhere. Maybe all these changes will put enough cash in the coffers to pay those interns!
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It seems a bit crass to sell out other women, given how much content Mia has sourced for a pittance off so-called mummy bloggers.
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Personal blogging will never be dead. I write less often on my site but I have more reach and readers than ever before. The level of engagement and comments on blogs has decreased while readership has actually increased. Most people go online to consume social media, not create it.
The word “mummyblogger” is used by “the media” as a derogatory term, however it is actually derived from the old Latin word, “motherf*ckerblogger.” Writing online gives a lot of women voices and power they would never ordinarily have. Public discourse about families, feminism, motherhood .. addiction, cancer, infidelity, suicide, rape, domestic violence – just a few topics that people who apparently “mummyblog” write about. A lot of online writers make money *because* of their websites, not necessarily *on* them. Radio gigs, book deals, public speaking, freelancing, etc.
The Internet was more fun and friendly before everybody discovered it but we’re all here now and last time I checked there’s room for everyone. For a monopolised, monetised, click-baiting online juggernaut to declare that writing on ones own website to be finished is just a bold statement/PR ploy to manufacture publicity and/or outrage. Does not the title of “Mama Mia” conjure up the impression of a mummy blog? It has the word “Mama” in it. This reminds me of how Melissa George publicly disses and refuses to acknowledge her Home and Away acting work, but then there’s Kylie Minogue embracing her humble Neighbours beginnings, without which she wouldn’t have the success she’s had in her career.
There are actually some people who still write on their websites to connect with people, to feel a part of something, to be heard. The ancient art of storytelling will never be lost. Not everybody blogs for money or fame or success.
I’d re-brand if I was Mia Freedman too. Because something has definitely jumped the shark here and it ain’t “mummybloggers.”
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There are some big statements in this article. But got to agree with the general consensus from the comments.
This feels to me much more a business pivoting rather than a response to a broad macro market direction. The key difference is the driver of the change. This is an inside-out decision rather than outside-in, otherwise how could you explain they are now an agency (?!) + publisher.
A follow up opinion/article with opposite views ( @darren , @Felicity and @Lorraine ) would be respectful and interesting.
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I’ll say on the outset: I’m not a Mamamia reader. However, I can respect trying new things and adjusting content delivery to suit readership. It’s what ‘ mummy bloggers’ and ‘personal bloggers’ do too. In terms of Mia’s generalised statement that “mummy blogs are almost over”, this is not well supported in this article outside the Mamamia experience. I would be interested to read a more balanced article about this topic with feedback from both bloggers in the parenting niche and industry experts like Nuffnang.
From personal experience of running a parenting blog, growth continues steadily. Engagement is high: I have noticed my readers have shifted from commenting on the blog, and prefer to use Facebook as a platform to engage with the community surrounding the blog. I believe in the importance of meeting readers where they are at, because it’s about community and conversation. And that is the heart of blogs: they are about connection, not content intake. It’s the difference. Connection is well and truly alive. Blogs are alive and well. May they continue to inject a unique and valuable voice into the media space.
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Lucia – it’s sitting with Mumbrella right now. 😉
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@loraraine (Lucio) Looking forward to read the response 🙂
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Look, it’s fine that Mia’s attempt at empire building didn’t work out – they seem like a company that take risks and innovate and that’s a good thing. But it’s important to fail fast and own your mistakes. Looking at the numbers, Debrief Daily never really took off, despite the months of pre-hype. Looking at the shoddy content on there it’s not hard to see why it was a miss with the target audience (e.g “Now you can take a selfie while you have an orgasm.”
It’s also not necessary to throw other players in the industry under the bus when changing your own company direction.
It’s clear from what people have said here along with my own experience in the industry that brands are desperate to work with influencers and bloggers, and are having success with that strategy.
Good luck Mia and co, perhaps you can learn some humility before your next big announcement.
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Debrief Daily, which I follow on Facebook, has almost no social interaction at all. When I started following Mamamia (again, I unfollowed due to the amount of posts per day, which was overwhelming and mostly irrelevant to me), I quickly saw that they were already just posting the same stories on both platforms. After about a week, I unfollowed Mamamia again – clickbait headlines, unsubstantial articles and the comments a mess. I used to read her blog when it was just her blog, and I liked it, but now it’s too much like a womens glossy.
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I totally agree, the social media influencers are gaining more and more power, much the same as the social media networks are eating away at the google domination. More and more people are leveraging their social platforms to search and stay updated. We should all be paying attention to this shift and applying the necassary strategies in our own business to accomodate the shift.
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I’m the creator of a niche style blog – and I find that year on year it’s growing, not shrinking. So maybe it has to do with Mamamia content not being valuable to the audience, rather than a decline in blogs being an important information source for their readers.
I would say that Mamamia is less of a blog and more of a magazine that provides lots of shallow content – it’s the new version of Woman’s Day, rather than being a true blog.
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Hi Everyone,
Great to see so much passionate debate. Not so great to see my words twisted by some and taken out of context by others. My comments were a handful of sentences in an hour-long newfront presentation by MWN and referred specifically to the phenomenon, so big in the mid-aughts, of parenting bloggers (I said ‘mummy bloggers’ in colloquial reference to the way they’re most commonly known) and personal bloggers, in terms of their URL models.
Some of them, like the most famous and successful of all parenting bloggers, Heather Armstrong from Dooce, have quit this year for all the reasons I sited including a changing media landscape, blogger burnout (if you don’t know what this is then you’ve never been a blogger) and her children’s desire for privacy as they leave their baby and toddler years.
Advertisers are indeed interested in influencers and that has become a new word for bloggers in some cases. But advertisers are also demanding scale, something that independent bloggers struggle with when they are writing exclusively about their own lives and children and do not have mass reach.
Your number of Facebook followers is just one part of an increasingly broad and nuanced puzzle of reach and engagement.
It’s also true that many industries have sprung up around bloggers – consulting to them and selling their services and audiences to advertisers. That’s great. And it’s unsurprising that these people in particular have come out roaring at any suggestion the landscape is changing around parenting blogs and personal blogs. I would too if I were them. There is still money to be made around blogging, particularly for those around them.
But it’s undeniable that in a digital world where social platforms have never been more crucial, the days of attracting huge audiences to blog homepages where individuals write about the minutiae of their lives…..well, that game has changed.
I don’t say this to belittle those types of blogs or bloggers or to in any way discount the value of those blogs to their authors and niche audiences. It’s simply a huge amount of work for the individuals and it’s extremely challenging to make a living out of it.
Many have said Heather Armstrong’s evolution from personal blogger to whatever she chooses to do next is significant and symbolic of the wider parenting blog community. Time will tell.
We work with bloggers / influencers daily at Mamamia, some on staff, others as contributors. That’s only going to increase in 2016.
I hope that clarifies my comments a bit further. I have the utmost respect for bloggers and the utmost gratitude for the many personal blogs like Dooce that first inspired me to launch Mamamia back in 2007 as……a blog! Creating content online is an industry I’m super proud to be part of.
M x
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I’d be interested to know whether their new Video Platform of “user generated content” will allow YouTubers to submit shows or will they exclude them, so profits and/or views don’t go elsewhere.
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I think Darren has summed up the situation pretty accurately – well run niche sites are still achieving great engagement, so not right to say they are dead, buried and cremated. And announcing this is in or out in terms of your own business experience is both a rash generalisation as well as a tad arrogant?
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So many great comments. Blogging dead? NEVER!!!!
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Well I’d love to be a so-called “mummy blogger”.
Frankly, as a hard working single mother with a career, I’m jealous of them. Always have been.
They get to write stuff, chat to other mum, spend time on social media, get the occasional product freebies, do lunch, maybe even make a tiny bit of pocket money – while their husband presumably pays the mortgage and brings home the bacon.
Yet they can still hold their heads high and have a ready answer when someone asks them “what do you do?”
I can only wish… With no other financial support, if I did that my child and I would be out on the streets.
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As an attendee of Problogger this year, and having met Caz and Craig from Y Travel blog and many other wonderful niche bloggers, I can’t disagree with Mia anymore, blogging is certainly not dead.
Bloggers are diversifying, OK comments/engagement directly on blogs may have declined, but many bloggers (including myself) are seeing increased engagement on social platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Instragram.
Bloggers are certainly not afraid to try new mediums, and stop them if they’re not working – but we certainly wouldn’t blame our readers for it!
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Did any of you read heather armstrong’s last post on her Dooce site announcing she was closing it? She was the original and best mummy blogger and at one point she was making well into 6 figures. It was a really insightful explanation into why those kinds of blogs just can’t compete in the era where Facebook and native rules. Advertisers want scale.
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Heather here from Inspiring Mums® 😀
As a regular attendee to Bloggers VIP & Brand events and receiving amazing new brand partnership interest recently, I think the interest as increased. So I couldn’t have disagreed with Mia more on the article in question.
You know at first I got so annoyed at what Mia was reported saying and I really thought “I hope you are prepared for the aftermath of this Mia”. I was surprised and pleased to see her here today to clarify, stand tall and back herself and ensure the original message came through to those of us that felt the way I did. I hope her comment here helped some not feel so offended.
What I will say is that we “mummy bloggers” make up a large part of what CREATES those trends with our ideas, innovations and communications. We create content, we encourage dialogue with consumers in a very authentic way. Most people don’t know that is the large part of what I do and to me, that’s the success of it, it’s seamless communication and PR going out to on social media and blogs that help to influence people’s decisions to buy, discuss and engage… naturally. Brands know they can’t achieve this on their own because it’s more direct with their marketing and people tend to switch off. We make it part of our lifestyle we are naturally doing, people aren’t initially thinking, oh this is advertising and that’s why it works.
The social evidence in my research is that we are evolving with technology and want faster, quicker, better, easier systems to use, it seems that’s where Mamamia has the finger on the pulse in that sense because they have seen a downturn I’m sure.
I believe we have diversified our blogging and communication experiences, I don’t just blog to make money, that’s a bonus, I do it because I love it, I help people and I love people. If the engagement reduces, changes or shifts I will see it and I would do what Mia is doing and put a strategy in place to ensure I evolve with the trends and times.
I love what I do and many of us do it for that very reason. For me, it is a creative release with great benefits 🙂
It’s definitely not dead, it’s alive and kicking and I am SOOOOO excited about the future after a great call with a brand today, so I know it’s not dead.
Enjoy the ride everyone!
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I don’t read blogs so I don’t know about that. What I do know is that in the last 12 months Mamamia has got very old and stale. Copied and rehashed material and very limited engagement. The network sites such as Debrief Daily were more of the same. Mia seems more concerned about numbers of hits than providing quality and for this reason I don’t visit any of her sites any longer.
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Mamamia and brilliant content in the same sentence? Please.
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mummy bloggers are over? thank god.
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lol – you lot killed mummy blogs.
once they were genuine people having a rant, some other people found that interesting. then they became just more marketing crap, the reader’s lost faith and here we are.
it’s a pattern repeated ad nauseum in the digital era.
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Sounds like a number of media outlets dodged a bullet by NOT buying Mamamia when it was being flogged around the town.
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