79% of all U.S. Moms with Kids Under 18 are Active on Social Media

From Social Times:

Moms of the world are uniting. Online. While we’ve all heard about the staggering number of moms who play social games, that was 2009′s mommy stat: now, moms are dispersing to social media in general. A new study released today tells a tale of extremely active moms looking to leverage their social networks for product discovery, purchase and recommendations.

Child’s Play Communications, commissioned by The NPG Group released the “Social Media Moms: How Networking Impacts Purchasing Behaviors” study which asked over 2,000 moms about their social media habits.

The US-based study found that 79% of all moms with children under the age of 18 were active on social media. The study broadly defines active as someone who currently belongs to a social network, or who reads, writes or comments on blogs.

Marketers will want to perk up for these next results: 23% of these social media moms have purchased a children’s product as a result of a review or recommendation they read on social media. And the most active moms are even more influenced by their online social networks, with 43% of those who log on at least once a day report purchasing based on a review they read online.

Of those who report purchasing a children’s product because of something they read on their social networks, 55% said that this recommendation came directly from a personal review blog – not a corporate-sponsored Twitter account or online advertisement on the side of Google search.

And Facebook is, of course, a huge influencer as well. 40% of the moms who report purchasing something because of what they read online said that the recommendation that drove them to make the purchase came from Facebook.

Anita Frazier, Industry Analyst for The NPD Group, sees opportunity in the “mom market” online:

“Social media has become an enormous influence on purchasing, and savvy marketers have certainly begun to embrace this vehicle when messaging to moms. But many marketers have yet to fully realize the potential of social media and the power of peer group recommendations, which means more opportunities are on the horizon.”

If these numbers track to the general population of moms online, we’re looking at a huge market with plenty of untapped potential. There are mom-only networks oriented towards connecting moms with reviews for the products they’re most interested in out there, but there are plenty of opportunities for marketers to reach out to this web-savvy, highly-active community.