Women, including mothers, have been among the most active demographic groups on social media for some time, and marketers quickly recognized this. But many mothers feel stressed about their presence in the very places marketers are trying to reach them.
eMarketer estimates that nearly 30 million women in the US will children under 18 in the home use social networks at least monthly this year. That amounts to 85.0% of the mothers who use the internet at all, as well as one in five adult social network users.
Nearly a third of US mother internet users surveyed in June by BabyCenter reported worrying about having a positive image on social media at least occasionally. BabyCenter polled a subset of mother social network users according to eMarketer’s definition—only those with kids ages 8 and under.
The younger the mother surveyed, the more likely she was to stress about her social media image. While two-thirds of mothers ages 40 and older felt empowered to share items about their life, positive or otherwise, 49% of those ages 18 to 24 thought they could only share positive items about their lives.
Parenting decisions can be a particular source of stress. Earlier research has found that mothers can be very leery about being judged on their parenting on social media. Mothers are also more likely than other demographics to say they need a break from the internet.
With marketers targeting mothers on social media in droves, they have the opportunity to offer mothers something helpful—whether that’s utilitarian or just something to help them smile—rather than stressing them more with pictures of perfect parents and fairytale lives.