New research from Verto Analytics, conducted last autumn but only released last week, aims to shed more light on the digital and online preferences of new mothers.
According to the research, which Verto says was undertaken with a panel of 4,500 people:
• New mums have higher device ownership across every digital device compared to the general population. They have an especially high rate of smartphone ownership (96%) compared to just 71% of the total population.
• They also index particularly high on home entertainment devices such as video game consoles, smart TVs, and streaming media players.
New mums spend more time online
• They spend over 112 hours per month online via PC (20% more than the average adult) as their online time tends to be dominated by web rather than app usage
• They spend 76 hours per month online via mobile device (10% more than the average adult)
New mums wake up and get online early: they start using mobile apps at 5am, and activity peaks between 1pm-6pm. Website activity on PCs peaks in the late evening, at around 8pm – after the babies have been put to bed.
New mums prefer social platforms with privacy controls
Messaging apps like Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp have higher-than-average reach among new mothers compared to the general population, as do Google+ and Pinterest, while major social media properties such as Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter index lower.
The inference is that new mums like platforms that allow one to control access/viewership to content or share content with a smaller subgroup (such as family members or friends). Consequently, the more public forums, such as Twitter, hold less appeal.
Search, shopping, and social media take up more of their online time
The following website and app categories account for a greater share of the amount of time that new mothers spend online:
• Search and Reference (eg. Wikipedia, Google)
• Shopping (eg. Amazon, eBay, and Boots)
• Social and communications (eg. Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest)
“New mums are generally much more internet savvy and internet dependent than the average adult,” says Connie Hwong, Verto Analytics’ content marketing director. “Digital technology plays an ever-increasing role in how they organise and support their daily life after a new arrival to the family. Consequently, there’s a huge opportunity for marketers if they can tap into the rhythms of how new mums go online via different devices during the course of the day to make their lives easier. Marketers also need to be smarter in the platforms they target, such as Pinterest being a much more efficient way to reach new mums than the likes of Twitter.”
