Community platform BlogFrog is relaunching today as a network of mom blogs — reported by the company to be the largest in the United States, connecting over 50,000 mom bloggers with over 5.5 million women online.
The company also announced a Series A round of funding and a refreshed website designed to help bloggers create communities that engage their readers to increase loyalty and revenue.
Started as a blogging community geared toward all bloggers but, striking a chord with women, BlogFrog chose to focus totally moms and women online.
BlogFrog serves mom bloggers by letting them add a community to their blog or website, enabling readers to participate in discussions. BlogFrog hosts and connects thousands of these communities on growing topics such as parenting, relationships, military wives, cancers survivors, eco-living, infertility, frugality and others.
The new website will offer several enhancements, such as the ability for bloggers to embed communities right in their blogs (not redirect to a BlogFrog page). Bloggers will also be greeted with revenue opportunities to connect with brands:
- Advertising Media — banner advertisements across the top women blogs.
- Sponsored Conversations — interactive discussions to drive brand awareness. Debuting today, this feature allow brands to dispatch a question or discussion to multiple communities and aggregate those answers on a branded hub page that can be used to create conversational ads.
- Brand Communities — custom-built branded communities led by the most influential women and mom bloggers on the Internet.
“While offering the creative platform for women to chronicle motherhood, blogs lack the capability to be networked and social,” said Rustin Banks, CEO of BlogFrog who founded the platform in 2009. “This is where BlogFrog jumps in. BlogFrog gives bloggers a way to bring their readers together in a community that is centered around and integrated into their blog. It’s the glue that connects women online with topics they are passionate about.”
The platform supports both blogger and brand-centric communities. Blogging communities are organic and are influenced by readers and fans. While branded communities have similar aesthetics to blogger communities, they are sponsored by brand advertisers and are led by paid, influential mom bloggers who drive conversations.
BlogFrog cites research that shows that, despite their purchasing power, women still feel deeply misunderstood by brands and advertisers. BlogFrog’s vision, the company states, is to create a mutually beneficial ecosystem where brands and bloggers both benefit from lasting, loyal, trusted communities. The platform has attracted brand names such as International Delight, Hallmark and LivingSocial.
“Our social features really resonate with mom bloggers because we are inherently community and service oriented. Women and moms tend to be more social online than men and tend to form stronger digital relationships,” said Holly Hamann, VP of Marketing and Co-Founder of BlogFrog. “Our mission is to enable all women online to discover, join or create communities that help make those digital relationships meaningful.”
No comments:
Post a Comment