Moms. They use social media now. They know how to tweet, they post videos on YouTube, and they invade your Facebook wall with reckless abandon.
But moms also serve a purpose for social media marketers, and it's important to understand how the demographic reacts to certain advertising techniques.
A recent study from Mom365 and the Direct Marketing Association addressed this topic, touching on eMarketer's finding that an estimated 23 million American moms with children under 18 actively use Mark Zuckerberg's famed social network.
The Mom365/DMA study found that 72 percent of moms "like" a Facebook brand, and 71 percent believe that performing this action results in more and better offers from that company.
From a profit standpoint, businesses should take note that 61 percent of the moms in the study had household incomes of more than $50,000, so there is revenue to be made. But it's important to note that they value brand loyalty quite highly - 83 percent to be exact - and they expect to be rewarded for their actions.
Here's some more mom-based social media statistics - 40 percent make purchases based off of recommendations from friends. They also "really like" offers tailored to familial demographics, such as Pampers' latest targeted marketing effort called Gift to Grow. Moms also want instant gratification, as 59 percent stated that ability to buy immediately is important.
However, once you've gotten in Mom's good graces, you can lose her just as quickly by performing these Cardinal Sins - sending duplicate offers, contacting her too frequently, offering an overabundance of information - such as too many status updates, making it hard for her to scroll to her friends' posts - or emailing her information she finds irrelevant.
"Don't post unless you have something genuine to offer," one mom was recorded by the company as saying.
Looking back at the eMarketer study, it's estimated an additional 3 million moms use other social networking sites in addition to Facebook, such as Twitter, YouTube or LinkedIn. In all, just under 80 percent of mothers with kids at home use social networks at least once per month, a larger proportion than the approximately 63 percent of overall internet users.
Yet the news source warns that this high penetration rate makes for slower growth, and it's predicted that by 2013, the overall number of mom Facebook users will actually be lower than it is today.