Thursday, February 26, 2009

HerFabLife: Fab Finds for Events, Bars, Clothes, and More

HerFabLife is a community that focuses on sharing "fab finds" in areas such as fashion and beauty, restaurants and bars, events, stores, and living (spas, fitness, etc.). There is even a "For Him" section where women can post items they've bought for the men in their life.

The minimalist look of the site makes it interesting and easy to navigate. Within the site, users can look for interesting features on fashion, styles, reviews on restaurants and nightlife, and events to attend in town. Women can also provide comments, vote on items you like or dislike and bookmark items too. HerFabLife encourages writers from all walks of life to submit content that relates to the lifestyles of a young urban women. Select writers are even paid for contributing content.

Friday, February 20, 2009

CityMommy Connects Urban Moms, Locally

CityMommy is a social network for moms based on location. It connects urban mothers in Los Angeles, Portland, North New Jersey, San Francisco, San Diego, Miami, Central Coast California, North Alabama, Jacksonville, Northeast PA, Chicago, Atlanta, NY, Boston, Long Island, Southern NH, South Florida, Wichita, Houston, Salt Lake City, San Antonio, and, most recently, Palm Springs.

City Mommy offers moms the opportunity to interact with forums and groups, and provides them with photo and video sharing capabilities, like other mom-focused social networks. What makes CityMommy unique is the location-based offerings it provides. Each user that signs up selects their region, and after registration, is redirected to that region's microsite. The microsites have sections for events and offer discounts to local stores in a "Shopping" section. Most impressive, though, is the thorough directory that covers everything from preschools and pediatricians to midwives and local parks.
CityMommy will expand to additional cities throughout 2009. If you're interested in starting a CityMommy site in your city, contact Dayna at dayna@citymommy.com

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Social Shopping Site Polyvore Turns Two

Polyvore, the social shopping site where users mix and match items to create collages (dubbed "sets"), celebrated its second birthday last week. Polyvore certainly has a lot to celebrate. In the past year, the site grew from about 500,000 unique visitors per month to 2.5 million unique visitors per month, an increase of 400%. They also crossed the 100 million monthly page views mark a few weeks ago, making them one of the largest user-generated fashion sites on the Web.

Polyvore's success lies in its simple drag and drop tool that encourages users to put together looks, not just endorse individual items. The community is encouraged to use their creativity to create aesthetically pleasing arrangements of items. And the quality of clothing on Polyvore is significantly higher than most other social shopping sites. Popular products include Marc Jacobs' dresses and Chanel handbags. One Polyvore user claims it is "like crack for fashionistas…In addition to the shopping euphoria of it all, Polyvore also fuses fashion with social media. Once you create your favorite look, you can publish your fashion matches by color or brand for others in the network to see. It’s very addicting creating fashion masterpieces and shopping all in one spot.”

Polyvore is part game, part art, and all fashion. With its unique offering in a crowded space, it's no wonder Polyvore is a popular destination for fashionistas. Happy Birthday Polyvore- wishing you many happy returns.

Sunday, February 15, 2009

Mashable: Attract and Engage Social Media Moms

I recently wrote a guest post for Mashable, "How To: Attract and Engage Social Media Moms. Check it out here.

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Digital Mom Report: Must Read for Marketers

Cafe Mom and Razorfish recently released a Digital Mom report offering extensive data and advice about moms' usage of emerging technologies and social networks.

Some interesting findings:

"More digital moms today interact with social networks (65%) and SMS (56%) than with news sites (51%), and just as many can be found gaming online or via a gaming console (52%). These findings demonstrate just how mainstream these new channels have become."

"Digital moms of children 12 and older, versus moms with children under 12, are more likely to watch online video (40% vs. 34%), game (57% vs. 51%), read online consumer reviews (38% vs. 30%), and watch or listen to podcasts (13% vs. 9%); while moms of children younger than 12 are more likely to use social networks (67% vs. 62%)."

"Moms may be moms, but they are also women with interests beyond parenting. When asked to select the top items researched or purchased online in the last three months, most digital moms selected Fashion/Clothing (40%). This was followed by Food/Cooking (31%), Baby/Parenting (26%), Banking (22%), Electronics/Computers (21%), Travel (21%) and Medication/Medical Condition (20%). However, women with children under the age of 5 were significantly more likely to select Baby/Parenting (46%)."

"Online communication channels like search (50%), websites (50%), referrals from friends/family (31%) and other social influence channels are more widely used and trusted for learning/researching than any other sources. Magazines are also highly influential (29%) in this phase of purchasing, although other traditional channels like TV (26%), newspapers (22%) and radio (18%) are not as widely cited as having influence."

"Moms reported spending 18.5 hours per week online, including an average of 8.1 hours on the social networking site CafeMom. Moms are clearly deriving value from the social networking experience. Four out of five moms surveyed by CafeMom said social networks have had a positive impact on their lives. Some of the most valuable benefits cited include staying in touch with people they know, connecting with others like themselves that they do not yet know, expressing themselves, having fun, as well as getting information and advice on a wide range of topics from parenting concerns to purchasing decisions."

Monday, February 2, 2009

Senior Women Help Narrow UK Online Gender Gap

Although a projected 18.6 million women online in 2008, according to eMarketer, 19.5 million males were online, resulting in a 51.1 % male bias in the Internet population. Fortunately, that bias is expected to decrease to 50.5% by 2013. The narrowing gap is attributed mainly to the anticipated increase in Internet usage by women 55 and older.